Your feedback is needed for the current draft of the SIPS strategic plan! Of particular interest are your ideas about concepts, facilities, future courses, and future hires that fit within the Grand Challenges. Ways to provide feedback:
- Comment box at the bottom of this page. Please specify in your comment if it refers to Values, Welcoming & Inclusive Community, or one of the Grand Challenges.
- Comments can be emailed to ML16@cornell.edu (potentially easier if you have a lot)
- Faculty will be contacted by your Section Chair with a document for editing, but you are welcome to comment here as well
Below are our current mission and vision statements:
- Vision: Discovery that connects: From fundamental insights to better plants, sustainably grown, serving the world. Building on the strong foundation of our component disciplines to generate new knowledge and address local and global challenges.
- Tag line: Science-based discovery for a changing world.
- Mission: address global challenges of food security, environmental conservation, biodiversity, and human health & well-being.
Values
SIPS values: Submit ideas in the comments section below
Background
- Source: The community goals and challenges are derived from the school-wide strategic planning survey (fall 2020). Challenges are interconnected
- This is a draft, and needs to be modified, edited, and improved.
- Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) within the School are the foundation of our ability to effectively address global challenges. We highlight its significance by listing it specifically along with associated objectives.
- Several overarching goals, integral to our effectiveness, were identified during the fall 2020 SIPS-wide strategic planning survey.
- Academic excellence and quality educational experience for our students
- Interconnectedness of our research, teaching, and extension/outreach
- Infrastructure and expertise for data acquisition, management, analysis and dissemination
- Effective communication of our science and activities to diverse stakeholders
- Use of all approaches to foster creativity and collaboration
SIPS Strategic Plan Draft – April 15, 2021
Plants, the soils in which they grow, and their associated microbes, are foundational to human health and the health of our planet. In the coming decade, our global community will be increasingly challenged by changing climate and pressures on our food and agricultural systems. SIPS students, staff and faculty have identified community goals and grand challenges with accompanying objectives aimed at local and global needs. Many of the activities of SIPS are by design, multi-disciplinary and include other life science disciplines, as well as those from social science, physical science, computer science, engineering, and the humanities. Current connections will be strengthened, and new bridges built through this strategic plan.
Embodying a welcoming and inclusive community
Trust and appreciation of diverse experience and perspectives are foundational to effectively addressing and communication solutions to global challenges
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Increase diversity, equity and inclusion in our undergraduate and graduate student bodies, staff and faculty
- SIPS Diversity and Inclusion committee is engaged
- Work with CALS Associate Dean for Diversity to identify cluster hires, and opportunities to advance diversity
- Diversity education including opportunities for the SIPS community to participate in DEI workshops
- Inclusive curricula and classrooms
- Actively work to enhance diversity in faculty, staff, and student bodies
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Foster interaction and cooperation among our units and among our member groups
- Enhance communication among sections and among faculty, staff, and students
- Networking opportunities
Grand Challenges
1. Plants and environmental health
- Climate-agriculture interface
- Soil health and carbon sequestration
- Carbon/nutrient cycling
- Circular economy
- Geospatial applications
- Plant resilience
- Climate impacts on plant and microbe biodiversity
Facilities
- CNAL – soil biogeochemistry and nutrient analysis lab
- Pyrolysis
- New lab wings on the first (soil microbiome dynamics) and third (climate-ag nexus) floors of the newly renovated Plant Science building
- Biodiversity corridor on the 4th floor of the renovated Plant Science building; Hortorium and CUP herbarium
Courses
- Look to the future and what courses might enhance what we have. Think about courses that include aspects of diversity, past land dispossession, gender equity, and courses that bridge disciplines
Future hires
- Future hires that we need to ensure success of this grand challenge
2. Sustainable crop production and food security
- Enhanced crop yield and nutrition
- Breeding crops for
- Enhanced resilience to drought and flood
- Increased nutritional content
- Disease and pest resistance
- Reducing crop losses
- Enhancing soil health
- Understanding pathogen biology and mitigating disease
- Microbiome management for plant health
- Providing tools for growers
- NY to international
- All growing systems (organic, conventional, perennial, annual)
- Remote sensing and other digital technologies
- Breeding crops for
Facilities
- LIHREC, HVRL and CLEREL are positioned in critical locations to aid in extension activities with growers and the two-way communication between SIPS and our stakeholders
- New lab wings on the ground (plant diagnostic and sustainable crop production) and second (food security) floors of the newly renovated Plant Science building.
- Cornell Plant Disease Diagnostic Clinic will be housed in the new ground floor wing
- Soil health lab is critical to this grand challenge
Courses
- Students have curricula available in many areas of crop production and food security including soils, plant biology, breeding, plant pathology, plant-microbe biology, sustainable ag, organic production, and international agriculture.
- Look to the future and what courses might enhance what we have. Think about courses that include aspects of diversity, past land dispossession, gender equity, and courses that bridge disciplines
Future hires
- Future hires that we need to ensure success of this grand challenge
3. Ecosystem services and the built environment
- Controlled environment agriculture
- Food production in cities and peri-urban environments
- connections with LIHREC and Cornell Tech
- Urban ecosystem management: soil health, plant health, and water quality
- Circular economy
- Recreational green spaces: lawns, turf, parks, and botanic gardens
Facilities
- New lab wing on the ground floor of the renovated Plant Science building
- Greenhouse renovations to enable cutting-edge facility for CEA research and teaching
- Additional high tunnel research space in Ithaca and Geneva
- Computational lab space
Courses
- Courses in hydroponics, CEA, plant propagation, urban eden, public garden management, Plant Rx currently prepare students for careers following graduation.
- Look to the future and what courses might enhance what we have. Think about courses that include aspects of diversity, past land dispossession, gender equity, and courses that bridge disciplines
Future hires
- Future hires that we need to ensure success of this grand challenge
4. Evolution, biodiversity, and molecular mechanisms
- Plant development and physiology
- Mechanisms of plant-microbial interactions
- Soil properties & impact on plants and microbial communities
- Systematics and biodiversity
- Synthetic biology
Facilities
- Biodiversity corridor on the 4th floor of the renovated Plant Science building
- Hortorium
- CUP herbarium
- Plant development and physiology, and plant-microbe interaction lab wings on the second and third floor in the renovated Plant Science building
- Plant Technology Hub (our newly reimagined facility in the location of the former plant transformation facility)
Courses
- Courses that support our foundational studies are part of our recently re-worked Plant Sciences undergraduate major curriculum, and upper-level courses in all foundational areas provide students with needed skills.
- New courses; synthetic biology
- Look to the future and what courses might enhance what we have. Think about courses that include aspects of diversity, past land dispossession, gender equity, and courses that bridge disciplines
Future hires
- Future hires that we need to ensure success of this grand challenge
Here are a couple of values that I hope will inform how we approach each of the activities in the plan:
Be one of the world’s most esteemed plant science institutions by virtue of comprehensive discovery and societal impact.
Our alumni should be the best-trained, most sought-after professionals in the field.
The second applies to undergrad and grad students as well as postdocs.
It is not clear to me if the topics listed above (items 1-4) are intended to be strategic initiatives or ideas/concepts to inspire and fuel discussion. Regardless, I think a Strategic Plan should be visionary, a bit of a stretch, and take us in some new directions. It should describe and outline our “why,” or what some call our “north star.” Thus, the important topics above are more “what” we do, and not so much “why.” But, perhaps I am getting ahead of the game. One more thing is referring to some issues as “grand challenges.” This is a term that the university has been using for a while. Scaling Mt. Everest is a grand challenge, but what we are facing now are crises and emergencies. I think we need to reframe what we do and “why,” and consider how we can influence the public, policy makers, funders, etc. One key way is do more than cutting edge, life-changing work, and to work closely with the humanities and others who can work with us to “translate” our work into terms and products (print, video, performance, and other) that connect to people on more emotional and personal terms. There was an interesting book that came out a few years ago called, if I recall correctly, “Stop Being Such a Scientist.” We need great science and scientists; however, we ALSO need great story tellers. By the same token, we need metrics that will help us determine how well we are doing in achieving our strategic goals.
A number of survey comments referred to the structure of SIPS itself in terms of a strategic plan. What is written here so far does not seem to address the evolution of SIPS as an entity. Some of the comments seemed to indicate a feeling of balkanization, or at least that walls and boundaries needed to be dissolved. I do not see an expression of this in the outline in its present form.
Don Rakow:
Statements regarding diversity and inclusion seem superficial and under-developed. We need to consider all ways that research developments can positively impact all people.
Goals: Add: Translating research findings to the benefit of all, including those traditionally under-served.
2. Sustainable crop production and food security: Add: in collaboration with Dyson School, foster new approaches to direct marketing of crops to consumers.
3. Ecosystem services and the built environment; Courses: Add: courses that examine human eco-system services, such as stress relief, physical benefits, and enhanced environmental behavior.
In Grand Challenge 2, nearly every bullet could have appended a phrase like “in light of climate change”.
1. “Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) within the School are the foundation of our ability to effectively address global challenges.” *The* foundation? I would think excellence in our scientific fields is *the* foundation. It may be accurate to say that removing barriers to full participation of scientists of all backgrounds will surely improve the pool of excellent talents. Further, what is “equity” in this context? Does it mean we examine our research priorities in terms of how they affect different segments of society/the world? That’s interesting. Do we agree on how to define “equity” in this sense?
2. “Carbon sequestration” is scarcely possible on the large scale, as ongoing SIPS research shows. It seems unwise to highlight this. Soil health is much broader.
3. “Geospatial applications” is too vague to be a “grand challenge”. What are these, relevant to SIPS mission?
4. “Actively work to enhance diversity in faculty, staff, and student bodies” I hope this means diversity of research skills/schools of thought/traditions, which will enhance lateral thinking and stimulate creative ways to deal with problems. But I fear these are codewords for judging applicants by their identity, not by the “contents of their character”. This is probably a bigger fight than SIPS can undertake, it seems to be University policy to accept the prevailing ideology, as revealed by the recent Faculty Senate plans for faculty “re-education” courses.
Nina Bassuk:
Grand Challenge, “Ecosystem Services and the Built Environment” should make more explicit the issues of the urban public landscape.
1.Urban tree selection, transplanting and resilience, not simply tree health.
2 Urban soil remediation after development, not simply soil health..
Future Hires: Plant ID and use in the landscape. Urban soil remediation.
When I see these “Grand Challenges”, there is one extraordinary challenge that is missing – Cornell’s role in addressing Social In/justice in Agriculture. This is very important considering Cornell’s role in entrenching and benefiting from systems of oppression, as well as having access to resources that can be better appropriated. This as a focus would encourage cross-college collaboration and interdisciplinary studies, as well as actions, which would highly elevate Cornell’s role as a leading University for cutting-edge work. This can help reimagine how Extension operates and how research can be put into practice.
Secondly, I see no specific mention of developing climate smart agriculture, which to me seems like an obvious challenge and goal given the already present reality of climate change. Neighboring states regions are investing in strategies like agroforestry, which are shown to convey multiple benefits for both ecosystem services, agricultural communities, and consumers. Cornell’s interest and commitment to agroforestry has been meek over the decades, which I believe creates a self-fulfilling prophecy of marginalization and failure. Integrating the ongoing work of perennial grains with multifunctional woody agriculture, SIPS could develop an entire Perennial Agriculture Institute and be a regional leader in what is likely to be a major part of agriculture’s future.
I agree with Samantha comments on agroforestry and her comments on perennials.
I would add to “Enhanced resilience to drought and flood” – thermotolerance. We likely need to work at both ends of the temperature spectrum. With hotter summers, earlier planting and frost tolerance might become more important in numerous crops.
“Embodying a welcoming and inclusive community
Trust and appreciation of diverse experience and perspectives are foundational to effectively addressing and communication solutions to global challenges
Increase diversity, equity and inclusion in our undergraduate and graduate student bodies, staff and faculty
SIPS Diversity and Inclusion committee is engaged”
This is a good start but:
1. I suggest that you develop more specific plans to address your commitment to diversity and inclusion.
Ideas:
– Make closed captioning and/or transcription copies available online on every video posted by a professor or staff member..
– Establish an office devoted to diversity and inclusion in the School of Integrative Plant Sciences, to address accommodation needs for the Disabled and others e.g. captioning and wheelchair ramps. The office should hire students and interns to work, to edit captions and transcripts, help implement tools to help our diverse scientists.
– Train faculty and staff members on cultural and diverse issues, and create spaces, to listen to diverse feedback.
– Sensitivity training for faculty and staff to not assume stereotypes, or that anybody such as a Black scholar has a learning disability because they are quiet or ask a lot of questions and/or for resources because a professor is not teaching the course well.
– Provide a funding resource list and offer scholarship/grant application workshops during orientation for new graduate students.