Congratulations to the new Alpha Mu (Agricultural Systems Management Honorary Society) initiates Noah Hoek, Cody Bausback, and Aaron Doke who were inducted on Thursday, November 30, 2017.  

Attending the ceremony were (left to right, below: Dr. Roger Tormoehlen, Dr. Robert Stwalley, Katie Carnahan, Bryce Kleiman, Tyler Vigar, Noah Hoek, Will Field, Mitchel Petersen, Cody Bausback, Aaron Doke, Devin Tracy, Jentry Flescher, and Dr. Dennis Buckmaster - not shown, someone had to take the pic).

West Lafayette, Indiana – Professor Emeritus Gary Krutz has released his first children’s book, Dream Happy Be Great. It has a strong interaction component for parents and teachers. “This book is intended to build a better society by providing insight into treating and respecting all persons.” Broken into three parts (younger children, older children, and preteens) the concepts are still simple enough to grasp that there is no reason for waiting to share all of it even with younger children. Simple and straightforward, this book can help you teach your children how to relate to others and provides some practical statements for navigating society.

Most of the advice in the book is common sense. Unfortunately, common sense isn’t as common as it used to be. Encouraging children to be kind and supportive of others is a good place to start a return to a simpler society.

Dr. Gary W. Krutz was a professor in the Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering at Purdue University for 40 years (1976-2016) and enjoys fishing, his grandchildren, and helping others. Justin Walsh, artist, graduated from Purdue Polytechnic. Available in paperback (24 pages, full color $6.50 including shipping – 2-day delivery) as well as a Kindle eBook ($4.50 from Amazon Prime).

The Other Side of the World

Dr. Bernard Engel, Dr. Jane Frankenberger, Dr. Indrajeet Chaubey, Dr. Jon Harbor, Larry Theller, and Jingqui Chen and Shuyuan Wang spent some time in Xining, China. Their visit to QingHi Normal University, a city with a population of about 2 million, was spent learning local soils and agriculture, and working on watershed modeling. Larry Theller gave a series of lectures on GIS and L-THIA modeling. Drs. Engel, Frankenberger, Chaubey, and Harbor gave a series of lectures at two separate symposiums on the campus.  The government is spending billions of dollars on sustainable water infrastructure in order to connect the city residents with the water quality efforts.

Though their trip did not allow much time for sightseeing, they made the most of the two days they did have. They squeezed in a visit to the Tibetan Plateau at high altitude – practicing their yak transportation skills – and a shrine at 11,000 on the edge of the Himalayas.

The team officially opened the joint lab, China-US Joint Laboratory for Natural Resource and Environmental Modeling, at QingHai Normal University. This lab will allow for collaboration between ABE, the provincial Geomatics center, and QingHai Normal University.

The low resolution photos are available as a Zip file. For high resolution images, please contact Larry Theller.

Divya Thiagarajan, a Bilsland Fellow, was named the Best Paper at the ASME/BATH 2017 Symposium on Fluid Power and Motion Control. The conference was held October 16-19 in Sarasota, Florida. Congratulations to Divya and to her mentor, Professor Andrea Vacca!