Looking Forward.

By now, most of you know that I was offered and accepted the position of Glenn W. Sample Dean of Agriculture. I am honored and humbled to be your dean and am excited about the opportunity to Look Forward. It is exciting to be at the helm of the College of Agriculture as we begin the celebration of Purdue’s 150th anniversary.  As part of that celebration over the next year, we will be focusing on innovation across the land grant mission. What does this mean? In each of our mission areas, we will be asking ourselves, how can Purdue prepare our students to be the best in the world as we move forward? What innovations will enhance their learning and their opportunities to make a real difference in society?  Purdue Extension will continue to provide science-based information to address issues in both rural and urban communities; how can Extension be innovative in the ways they engage with their audiences? What forms will innovation take in the research that our scientists do to address our world’s pressing problems?

Over the last 150 years, the world has changed greatly. As we embark on the next 150 years, how do we innovate to adjust to the changes that are happening in society? According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average worker currently holds ten different jobs before age forty, and this number is projected to grow in the future. And the jobs of the future will likely be in areas we have not even heard of!  Just think of the recent big changes: Apple released the iPhone in June of 2007 – only 11 years ago. Tools such as Facebook and Twitter are less than 15 years old. Today, we use our mobile devices for everything we do--from booking taxi rides through Uber, to using AirBnB to find a place for vacation, to grocery shopping online from Walmart or Payless, to ordering meals from McDonald’s, Panera and more.  All of these services require the use of data for smart decision-making. There is no doubt that the ability to use, process, and analyze data will be critical for the next generation of students, for productive community engagement, and for advancing research in agriculture and the life sciences. 

Data science is truly the “next big thing” and it will play a prominent role in everything we do in the future. We are moving to revise our undergraduate curriculum to make sure all of our students are data literate. We are using these data and digital tools to work in our local communities in new and novel ways, including enhancement of our online course offerings and program delivery methods. We have developed Internet of Things (IoT) testbeds at our research farms that make it possible for our researchers to put together different types of data, such as images, weather, soil characteristics, and animal behavior to understand animal or cropping systems. Our basic science researchers are capturing data on genomes and marrying that with phenotyping data to make inferences that were never before possible, both in the lab and at the farm. As we move into Purdue's next 150 years, it is not just about meeting the land grant mission; it is about meeting the land grant mission with innovations that enhance our impact--and data science is one of the tools that can help us do that. We will continue to encourage and empower people to think in new, innovative ways—from the undergraduate classroom, to the county Extension office, to the laboratory and the farm. As Associate Dean Marcos Fernandez says, it’s an exciting time to be part of Purdue Agriculture!

All the best,