College of Agricultural and Life Sciences

Update: Phase I of the project is now complete. The CALS faculty committee, including Jed Colquhoun, Randy Jackson, and Jack Kloppenburg, released a report on the first stage of the revisioning process for the Wisconsin Institute for Sustainable Agriculture on July 30, 2009.

• Read Dean Molly Jahn's cover letter to the report
• Read the full Phase I report
• Provide confidential feedback to the faculty committee here: wisa@cals.wisc.edu

The Dean of The College of Agricultural and Life Sciences (CALS) at UW-Madison has asked three faculty members to advise her on CALS’ approach to supporting food and agricultural sustainability generally, and for a re-visioning of the role and structure of the Wisconsin Institute of Sustainable Agriculture (WISA) in particular.  Although many faculty and units in CALS are working on issues of sustainability, better integration of their activities could produce fresh and important synergies.

CALS administration would like to develop a process whose goal is to produce a framework for enhancing the capacity and effectiveness of WISA.  In particular, comment is solicited on three central questions:

1. Does CALS need to develop a revised approach to food and agricultural sustainability, and what should be the role and structure of WISA in particular?
   
   
2. What processes might be used to develop that approach?
   
   
3. What resources need to be mobilized to develop and support this initiative?

We invite your responses to these questions at the following SurveyMonkey site:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=BZWyVns1n1RcJYMqxW0kpQ_3d_3d 

You may also direct confidential commentary to this committee at wisa@cals.wisc.edu.

Thank you for contributing to this important initiative. 

• Jed Colquhoun
  Associate Professor, Department of Horticulture
  IPM Advisory Group
  Integrated Pest and Crop Management Advisory Group
  
  
• Randy Jackson
  Assistant Professor, Department of Agronomy
  Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center
  Affiliate Faculty, Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies
  Affiliate Faculty, Agroecology Program
  
  
• Jack Kloppenburg
  Professor, Department of Rural Sociology
  Co-Director, Program on Agricultural Technology Studies
  Affiliate Faculty, Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies
  Affiliate Faculty, Agroecology Program
  

March 27, 2009 memo to the Wisconsin Food and Agricultural Community