Members of the SAES faculty and staff whose summer professional obligations or family vacation schedule kept them from attending the SAES’s back-to-school meeting on Aug. 13 can catch up on highlights from the 2006-07 academic year and goals for the academic year ahead online.  The video that premiered at the SAES academic year kickoff — featuring the SAES interim dean, Dr. Donald McDowell and the SAES administrative team  — is still available for viewing on the SAES Web page.

Cooperative Extension's Southern Region Program Leadership Network will be meeting in Greensboro Aug. 25 -28. In conjunction with the conference, members of The Cooperative Extension Program faculty and the Ag. Communications and Technology staff will be involved with focus groups and strategy sessions, and away from their offices.

The Southern Region Program Leadership Network was established by the Association of Southern Region Extension Directors (primarily Southeastern 1862 land grants) and the Association of Extension Administrators (1890 land grants) to strengthen multi-state and issue-oriented Extension programs and activities. The effort brings representatives from land grants together on committees to address: agriculture and natural resources; community development; family and consumer sciences; 4-H youth development; communications; information technology; middle management; and program and staff development.

More than 1,500 agricultural Extension agents, from 46 states, came to Greensboro for the National Association of County Agricultural Agents’ (NACAA) annual conference in mid-July, and 66 of them went home with distinguished service awards. One of only five distinguished service award winners from North Carolina was Nelson Brownlee, who has been a member of The Cooperative Extension Program at A&T’s field faculty for 14 years. Brownlee serves as an area farm management agent in Bladen and Robeson counties.

Brownlee was cited for his sensitivity to issues facing small-scale farmers, his commitment to teamwork, and his use of advisory committees and environmental scans to guide and evaluate his programming efforts.

The NACAA selects recipients for distinguished service awards through a peer review process that has focused the recognitions on only the top 2 percent of the organization’s membership.

The Carolina Peacemaker sent a reporter to Small Farms Field Day at the University Farm on Aug. 7, and he came away from the program with some interesting facts and figures on the growing economic incentives for producing as well as using biodiesel on small farms in North Carolina, compliments of Dr. Jimo Ibrahim of The Cooperative Extension Program at A&T and Dr. Ghasem Shahbazi of the Agricultural Research Program. The Peacemaker reporter zoned in on Ibrahim’s estimate that small biodiesel units such as the one at the University Farm (small but still capable of producing as much as 40 gallons of fuel a day recycling cooking oil from restaurant fryers) cost about $2,000. The Peacemaker quotes Shahbazi as saying, “The advantage with biodiesel production is that there is no refinery. People can produce their need and demand in their area using local resources.”

The Center for Environmental Farming Systems (CEFS) is bringing Judy Wicks to Raleigh for a lecture on Tuesday, Sept. 16.  Wicks will be discussing "Local Living Economies: Green, Fair & Fun" at the N. C. Museum of Natural History; her talk will begin at 7 p.m.

With appearances on CNN, ABCs Nightline and dozens of other television and radio programs, Wicks has become a national spokesperson for the socially responsible business (SRB) movement, which has a philosophic foundation for business ventures that includes community-building and environmental protection. Wicks’ White Dog Cafe in Philadelphia operates with a commitment to local agriculture as one of the tenets for environmental protection and social responsibility.

Although the Wicks lecture is open to the public without charge, seating is very limited, so those interested in attending should contact the CEFS as soon as possible.

The American Dairy Science Association and the American Society of Animal Science joint annual meeting in Indianapolis drew more than 3,000 scientists and researchers specializing in nutrition, genetics and other animal sciences to Indianapolis in mid-July. Research work by SAES food and animal scientists was presented at six poster sessions:
• “Nystatin, pathogen-associated molecular patterns and bovine
neutrophil activation” — with a project team that included Dr. Millie Worku
• “Phenotypic correlations between the ratio of body measurements and economic traits in Korean native beef cattle” — with a project team that included Dr. Sang Oh
• “W85 Evaluation of the effect of bovine colostrum on gene expression in E. coli. — with a project team that included Drs. Worku and Oh
• “Evaluation of buffering capacity of amino acid and milk protein ingredients in acidic conditions” — with a project team that included Drs. Salam Ibrahim, C. W. Seo and Defreng “Tammy” Song
• “Addition of rice extract improves the quality characteristics and consumer acceptability of banana flavored yogurt”  — with a project team that included Drs. Ibrahim, Song and Seo
• “Using lactic acid bacteria to detect chemical substances in milk” — with a project team that included Dr. Salam Ibrahim

The American Society of Animal Science is a professional organization for animal scientists working in research, Extension and teaching. The American Dairy Science Association is similarly organized as a professional organization for researchers and educators involved with product development, processing and economics in the dairy industry.

The North Carolina Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation was established by N. C. A&T and seven other institutions in the UNC system to increase the number of minority students pursuing advanced degrees in scientific and technical fields. NC LSAMP has an annual Alliance Day for research presentations by both graduate and undergraduate students. The deadline for students to submit abstracts for oral and poster presentations of 300 words is Sept. 2. Alliance Day itself will be Friday, Sept. 26 at the Greensboro Coliseum’s Special Events Center.

Until Oct. 1, the Tobacco Communities Reinvestment Project will be accepting grant applications from individual producers, community groups and farm support organizations in Alexander, Beaufort, Burke, Caldwell, Caswell, Craven, Cumberland, Davidson, Forsyth, Greene, Guilford, Harnett, Iredell, Johnston, Jones, Lenoir, McDowell, Nash, Person, Pitt, Randolph, Wayne, Wilkes, and Wilson counties. Grants of up to $10,000 to individuals and $20,000 to groups and organizations will be awarded for proposals with potential to fill the farm-income void resulting from lost tobacco revenue in the 24-county region. Projects involving products, services and on-farm resources are eligible, along with new crops and innovative farm-based enterprises. To qualify, producers must be full- or part-time farmers who were depending on tobacco crops for a significant amount of their farm income coming at the time of the Master Settlement Agreement (crop years 1997 and 1998). Community groups must include farmers from the target counties and have farmers active in group leadership.

The Tobacco Communities Reinvestment Project also has an on-farm demonstration funding program for farmers under 40, regardless whether or not they are former tobacco farmers. The requirements are that applicants have at least three years of farming experience, and be a resident of one of the following counties: Burke, Caldwell, Caswell, Cumberland, Greene, Jones, Lenoir, McDowell, Wayne or Wilson.

Dr. Guochen Yang of the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Design had some SAES research on exhibit in San Francisco in early August.  Yang has been working with Dr. Paul Read of the Department of Agronomy and Horticulture at the University of Nebraska on a study of plant growth regulators with potential for expediting the propagation of woody ornamentals used in the nursery industry. Findings were presented at the research poster presentations at the annual meeting of the Plant Growth Regulation Society of America’s 35th Annual Meeting (PGRSA), Aug. 3 -7.

The PGRSA has been giving scientists from many areas of specialization a central agency for collecting and disseminating information on plant growth regulators, plant tissue culture and other propagation techniques since the organization was established in 1973. The organization publishes reference books and a quarterly journal of technical articles.

Annual enrollment for the NC FLEX benefit program begins Oct 1, and the cutoff date for changes in optional insurance programs is Nov. 2. Optional coverage includes dental and vision care plans, cancer insurance, life insurance, and a supplemental medical plan that broadens coverage for visits to doctors’ offices and inpatient hospital stays. (Faculty and staff opting for the supplemental medical plan must re-enroll during each annual enrollment period.) If you’re taking advantage of the NC FLEX options, take note that this is the one time of the year to drop or add coverage for a dependent. The NC FLEX Plan has a synopsis of what’s new, and all eligible employees will be receiving a booklet with complete details on NC FLEX options by mail. (NCFlex also has a website outlining benefit options.) On-campus employees who wish to make changes should do so in person at the Benefits Office at 1020 E. Wendover Ave., between 8 a.m. and noon, or 2 to 4 p.m. Members of the Cooperative Extension staff stationed at county Extension centers can make their changes by mailing completed forms to A&T Extension’s benefits coordinator, Chiquita McAllister (Box 21928. Greensboro, 27420-1928).

Shannon Wiley has joined The Cooperative Extension Program as a 4-H Youth Development Agent in Guilford County. Wiley is an SAES alumna, who received a bachelor’s in laboratory animal science in 2005 and a master’s in agricultural education in 2007. Wiley’s background includes two years with 4-H and youth development work with Cooperative Extension, and she is also an alumna of the 4-H program in Caswell County.  Her programming for Guilford County Extension will include introducing 4-H to urban neighborhoods and after-school programs.

• Whenever copyrighted text or a graphic from a website is transferred to another website, a word processing document or any other medium, it’s an infringement of copyright unless you have written permission from the copyright holder to use the text or graphic. How can you know for certain if text or a graphic you want to borrow is copyrighted? You can’t. It may be copyrighted material even if there’s not a symbol or statement to that effect. There’s no federal clearinghouse for copyright information, so there’s only one way to avoid possible infringement when copying material from a website and that’s to request written permission from the individual whose web work you want to borrow. (If someone wrongly states that he or she holds a copyright and grants permission to reproduce material that isn’t theirs to grant, then the infringement issue will be between the grantee and the actual copyright holder, if the copyright holder files an objection.)

• What is called the "fair use" provision in copyright law is a small loophole that allows for quoting passages from another author’s work for reviews, commentaries or other instances where another author’s exact wording is necessary for discourse. There is no exact word or sentence length that determines what is fair use and what isn’t. If you are using another author’s words to illustrate or support a point of contention in your own work, that is probably covered by the fair use provision. If you are using several sentences from another author’s to make a point instead of building a case yourself, then that isn’t fair use, but instead a copyright infringement. Whenever another author’s work is used in accordance with the fair use provision, the work from which wording is borrowed must always be cited.

• While it’s OK to put a link to someone else’s website in your own work, permission is required if you want to use a trademarked logo or icon as a hyperlink instead of just hypertext.

• It’s a violation of University policies as well as copyright law for any University-owned computer to be used to make copies of CDs or DVDs that have software, videos or other copyrighted content. This applies to videos and software purchased legally, when terms of the purchasing agreement were only one licensed copy. (In other words, even when a nice price was paid for a single copy, without a licensing agreement for additional copies, it’s illegal to make a few clones.)

• Before you add a favorite melody to a personal Web page or a PowerPoint presentation — assuming that you're too little a fish to fry and don't have to worry about the organizations that collect royalties coming after you - consider some of the small fish the largest licensing organization, the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) has taken the time to fry:
° If you've ever been in a restaurant where the staff paid recognition to a patron's birthday by singing, but not by singing the most familiar of all birthday songs, "Happy Birthday," that's because the song has been copyrighted since 1934 and ASCAP considers waiters and waitress singing the song a public performance, and wants a royalty payment.
° In the mid-1990s, ASCAP sent word to summer camps that many songs sung around campfires — "This Land Is Your Land,"  "Blowin' in the Wind," and even "God Bless America"- were copyrighted and royalty payments were expected. Although ASCAP eventually dropped the demand because it was generating too much negative publicity, the organization initially asked camps for blanket fees ranging from $257 to $1,500.