News Coverage

Alumni Association centennial showcases CALS research and facilities

by Ted Boscia

On April 18, the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Alumni Association celebrated its centennial with more than 150 alumni, parents, and friends at “CALS: Making a World of Difference,” a campus event that featured panel discussions with faculty experts, tours of CALS facilities, and a networking lunch.

“I think it’s extremely important to come back and take part in this type of enriching forum because there’s so much application in our personal and employment lives that helps the Cornell presence become even stronger,” said CALS Alumni Association President Sandra Gardner.

Attendees learned about the evolution of CALS since the association’s founding in 1909 by Liberty Hyde Bailey, the college’s first dean. In a century, the college’s enrollment has grown more than tenfold, and CALS has expanded its founding land grant mission to span the globe.

In the morning, alumni and others heard about groundbreaking research in key areas from a dozen faculty experts.  The first panel, moderated by Senior Associate Dean Barbara Knuth, featured professors Anurag Agrawal and Laura Harrington on climate change, Antonio Bento and Largus Angenent on renewable energy, and Alice Pell and Ronnie Coffman on international agriculture and food, economic, and environmental systems. Senior Associate Dean Jan Nyrop guided a second panel that included professors Harvey Hoch and Carlos Bustamante on cell and structural biology, Antje Baeumner and Olga Padilla-Zakor on science and business, and Carla Gomes and Jeremy Birnholtz on information sciences.

“The importance of the panels isn’t just presenting the research itself, it’s making alumni aware of the extraordinary interdisciplinary aspects of what we do at CALS,” Nyrop said. “It highlights the real strengths of the college’s overlapping priority areas and gets alumni out there to be our best spokespersons and gets them excited about CALS.”

Following a networking lunch and poster session, the participants toured the labs and spaces that house some of CALS’ teaching and research. They rated food arrangements in a simulated consumer behavior study at the Food and Brand Lab, learned how ice cream is made at the Food Science Lab, walked through the lush Cornell Greenhouses, examined the cutting-edge winemaking equipment at the CALS Teaching Winery, and toured Weill Hall, home to innovative life sciences research.

“The whole scope of activities at CALS is just amazing,” said attendee Peter Pamkowski ’74. “The research being done and the challenges being addressed apply not just to our country, but the whole world. This day showed why we are the No. 1 land grant college in the country.”