Iowa State University Alumni Association| online edition | fall 2006

FALL 2006
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Good Chemistry

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Special Olympics USA National Games

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The reigning queen of concrete

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Major wager

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AROUND CAMPUS

Aggressive expansion plan approved for athletics facilities
Hey, banner banner
Mural makers
See more in the C6
Ask the expert: How to carve the perfect jack-o-lantern
Coming soon: New student dining options
Bio-this Bio-that
How do they come up with this stuff?
Farm Report

Aggressive expansion plan approved for athletics facilities (Return to top)
It’s time for Cyclone fans to step up.

That’s the rallying cry from ISU Athletics Director Jamie Pollard following approval from the Board of Regents, State of Iowa, June 21 to move forward with an aggressive, comprehensive athletics facilities master plan.

Pollard shared a four-phased vision with the Regents, which includes extensive renovations for Hilton Coliseum and Jack Trice Stadium, along with proposals for a new Student Recreation Center and the concept of a Gateway Athletics Complex.

Pollard started his presentation by noting that 52 years ago, James H. Hilton dreamed of an Iowa State Center that would revolutionize the campus. Skeptics called Hilton “unrealistic” and “just plain crazy.” But Hilton persisted and his dream was realized.
That same persistence and forward thinking, Pollard said, is “what inspires us to believe we can elevate Iowa State University’s athletics facilities to a level fitting one of the nation’s truly outstanding education centers.”

The multi-faceted master plan includes a major remodeling of Hilton Coliseum (basketball and volleyball practice facility, office complex, and a Hall of Fame / gathering venue for fans on game day), significant upgrades at Jack Trice Stadium (“bowled in” south end zone, additional suites, club seats, restrooms, concessions, and classic perimeter fencing), Student Recreation Center (aquatics center and gymnastics practice facility), and the concept of a Gateway Athletics Complex (located east of Jack Trice, which would house tennis, outdoor track, softball, and possibly baseball).

The Regents supported the facility plan, which now allows the project to move into the fundraising phase.
“For this [fundraising] to happen, it is going to come 100 percent from our fan base,” Pollard said. “If we truly want to do this, this is the time to step up. It is going to come from fundraising. It is going to come from the sale of suites and club seats. It is going to come from re-pricing of seat contributions for where people sit at Hilton and Jack Trice Stadium. It will require looking at ticket prices as well.”

Pollard was hired as athletics director in fall 2005, replacing Bruce Van De Velde. His vision for improving Iowa State’s athletics facilities was immediate.
“I knew during the recruitment and interview process that the facilities were an issue of major concern for Iowa State University’s future,” he said.

Pollard recognizes that raising the funds isn’t going to be an easy task.

“It’s going to be a challenge. If it were easy, someone would have already done it. [But this is] something we have to do. Plain and simple, we have to do it.”

Details on the plan are available at www.cyclones.com

Hey, banner, banner (Return to top)
New banners have been hung on the ISU campus to honor the past eight recipients of the Distinguished Achievement Award, the highest honor
given to ISU alumni by the university through the ISU Alumni Association. Banners have been installed behind Beardshear Hall in honor of educator Lauro Cavazos ’54; Mexican governmental leader Luis Ernesto Derbez Bautista ’80; nutrition researcher Deborah Diersen-Schade ’78, ’81, ’84; higher education administrator James Oblinger ’70, ’72; animal scientist Lloyd Lee Anderson ’57, ’61; engineer and philanthropist Stanley Howe ’46; education leader Michael Nettles ’77, ’78, ’80; and chemist Bruce Roth ’81. These alumni received the Distinguished Achievement Award in 2005 or 2006. To read more about their accomplishments, go to www.iastate.edu/~president/DAC/06/.

Mural makers (Return to top)
A new book has been written for the Brunnier Art Museum’s major fall 2006 exhibition. When Tillage Begins, Other Arts Follow: Grant Wood and Christian Petersen Murals traces the conception and development of Iowa State’s earliest and major mural cycles by these two prominent Iowa artists.

“The book explores and documents the little-known art history of Iowa State that spawned an artistic campus renaissance in the 1930s and developed into the contemporary Art on Campus Collection, now the nation’s largest campus public art collection,” said Lynette Pohlman, director of University Museums.
When Tillage Begins features 16 color photographs of the murals and 200 black and white photographs of the murals being created, many of which have never been seen by the public. The book is available through the Brunnier Art Museum. Call 515-294-3342 for more information.

See more in the C6 (Return to top)
The nation’s first six-sided virtual reality room is getting a $4 million facelift that will vault it to the head of the innovation pack once again. C6, ISU’s virtual reality room, is upgrading its equipment to shine at a resolution of 100 million pixels, making it twice
as high in resolution as any virtual reality room in the world and 16 times greater in resolution than the current C6.

Ask the expert: How to carve the perfect jack-o-lantern (Return to top)

Food carvings are a specialty of ISU Dining, and it’s not unusual to see an “ISU” cheese block or edible swans on the salad bar. Especially in the fall, buffet tables are adorned with carved pumpkins, often
filled with fresh flowers or glowing candles.

How difficult is it to carve such intricate designs? Our expert is Joe Franzen, assistant catering manager for ISU Dining and the university’s top food carver.

How do you choose a pumpkin?
What I look for, depending on the size of your design, is a nice, round pumpkin with a good, flat surface. If you just want to do a random face, you can pick any size of pumpkin. I like using big pumpkins because I like to do intricate designs. Usually with a flatter surface, you can transfer your design more accurately.

So what about pumpkins with ridges?
Ridges will distort the design. But you can use the ridges with the design, too, if that’s what you want. The sky’s the limit.

What kind of tools do you use?
I like to use a coping saw. That’s a fine-tooth saw with a small, thin blade. It’s easy to maneuver around corners. You can buy it at any hardware store. I also use a paring knife, X-acto knife, a large metal spoon
for scooping, and push pins for transferring the design.

What are the steps you go through?
1. Wash the pumpkin.
2. Secure the pumpkin so it doesn’t roll (use paper towels or a piece of wood).
3. Cut the top open, using a pentagon or hexagon shape so the top stays put, being careful to cut at an angle.
4. With the metal spoon, scrape out the seeds and flesh, leaving about an inch thickness. (Save the seeds for toasting later!)
5. Find the best surface for the design.
6. Draw or copy your design onto a piece of paper, and tape your design securely to the pumpkin. (An alternative method is to draw directly on to the pumpkin with a dry-erase marker.)
7. Transfer your design to the pumpkin by poking a push pin along the lines you wish to cut.
8. Pull off the paper.
9. Connect the dots! Carve your design
with the coping saw, paring knife, and
X-acto knife, depending on the size and shape of each piece.
10. Use a multi-purpose lubricant such as WD-40 to spray the pumpkin to preserve it.

What are some tips you can offer for creative pumpkin designs?
One method I use is to peel the outer skin off the pumpkin in the design areas rather than cutting it out. Since it’s a watery flesh, the candlelight will shine through. I just use a tea light inside the pumpkin. I’ve carved the Cyclone logo, Iowa State initials, ghosts, bats, wolves, and other Halloween themes. I’ve done faces of people. You can do whatever you want – just use your imagination!

Coming soon: New student dining options (Return to top)
Now that ISU Dining has earned the bid to serve as sole operator of campus food operations, it’s ready to move forward with improvements, additions, and renovations that it hopes will have a positive impact on the entire campus. The department has several plans on its list, including the addition of Bookends Café at Parks Library, changes to the Memorial Union Food Court, adding Starbucks coffee and new food items at the Hub Café, additional food options for people who park in the Iowa State Center lots, moving the MU Café, expanding the Design Café, and renovating residence dining centers in the Richardson Court area to be more like the popular market-place in the Union Drive Community Center.

Bio-this, Bio-that (Return to top)
“Biorenewables” have become a hot topic on campus, and it’s hard to open a newspaper in central Iowa without reading something about Iowa State’s involvement in ethanol research or bioeconomy initiatives. Here are some recent examples:

‘Farm Bureau commits $1 million to bioeconomy program’
In June, the Iowa Farm Bureau announced that it would make a $1 million gift to ISU’s College of Agriculture in support of the university-wide Bioeconomy Initiative. The money from the gift will be used to provide support for the Office of Biorenewables Programs, additional faculty and staff salaries, and new collaborations in initiatives to convert crops and plant materials into chemicals, fuels, fibers, and energy.

And then: ‘Cargill commits $600,000 to bioeconomy program’
Cargill’s gift will focus on four student components: Freshman experiences in biorenewables, a common laboratory in biobased technologies, coursework for upper-division and graduate students, and international experiences in biorenewables.

‘Turning corn fiber into ethanol’
ISU researchers have demonstrated a process to convert corn fiber – a byproduct of the wet milling process that produces corn syrup – into fuel-grade ethanol. This could boost ethanol production by about 4 percent, or 160 million gallons a year.

‘CARD initiates Biorenewables Policy Division’
The Center for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD) at Iowa State has launched a new Biorenewables Policy Division. The new research division will focus on policy questions surrounding expansion of biorenewables in the United States and the “shifting playing field” this creates for Midwestern producers.

‘ISU students zip to top 10 finish with
ethanol-powered racer’
Putting ethanol into practice, the 2006 ISU Formula SAE race team, running an ethanol-powered race car, was seventh among 140 competitors at the Society of Automotive Engineers’ annual competition May 20 in Romeo, Mich. With a first-ever top 10 finish under its collective belt, the Iowa State team looks to keep building on its successes, promoting ISU engineering and Iowa ethanol all the way down the road.

How do they come up with this stuff? (Return to top)
Iowa State’s new CyBlue supercomputer, the 99th most powerful computer in the world, can reportedly make as many calculations in a single second as a calculator can perform in 5 million years.

Farm Report (Return to top)
Here, piggy, piggy: The U.S. Pork Center of Excellence, housed at the National Swine Research and Information Center on the ISU campus, has announced its first extension offering, and it’s an easy one to remember. PIG – the Pork Information Gateway – is an information network designed to give pork producers an easy way to get answers to everyday challenges in pork production. (Go to www.usporkcenter.org)

21st century dairy: Ground was broken last spring for Iowa State’s new state-of-the-art dairy farm south of Ames. Main structures will include a 450-cow freestall barn, dairy center, hospital barn, transition barn, maternity barn, calf research barn, and six heifer barns. About 900 cows and calves will be housed in the facility when it opens in 2007.