Buckeye Summit

As you may have heard, Ohio State will be convening the Buckeye Summit on April 14 as a venue to engage alumni, community partners, faculty, staff and students in a conversation on Food Security. As President Drake said about the Buckeye Summit in his State of the University Address, “Our goal is to engage hundreds of alumni, volunteers, expert faculty, business and community leaders, along with students, staff and friends in a day-long interactive program to examine best practices and strategies for addressing hunger and deploying Buckeye Nation to be part of the solution.” Casey Hoy, Director of the Discovery Themes’ Initiative for Food and AgriCultural Transformation (InFACT), and Chris Delisio, CFAES Development Office and Ryan Schmiesing, Sr. Administrative Officer for the college have been intimately involved in many facets of the planning for the inaugural summit; planning for the event is being led by Advancement and particularly the Alumni Association, as alumni are the key participants.

Several hundred participants, representing the Buckeye Nation as a whole, are expected to be involved in the daylong event.  While there is not enough room for all who are interested to attend, the conversation and taking action does not end on April 14th. Plans are being developed to provide tools, resources, research, and engagement opportunities through university web portals. It is also anticipated that there will be a number of events and activities scheduled, around Ohio and across the country that engage Buckeye Nation, including our faculty, staff and students in service activities.

It is important that we recognize that helping individuals and communities achieve food security will not happen as a result of a single event, activity or research project. Collectively, we need to be in this together and I hope you will join together in your community, however you see appropriate in the coming months, to contribute your talents to solving this critically important issue. If you would be able to involve individuals and communities in a particular OSU project, we’d encourage you to submit a proposal for a poster, which may be printed for the Summit if selected, or be displayed online to engage Buckeyes in the followup. You can submit a proposal for a poster using the short form at http://go.osu.edu/buckeyesummitposter.

Those interested in volunteering to serve as a facilitator of a table of 8-12 people at the Summit on April 14th should connect with Kim Gray (gray.722@osu.edu), although please keep in mind that opportunities to serve in this capacity are limited.

We look forward to sharing the outcomes of the inaugural Buckeye Summit, to continuing to engage you in this important conversation, and to sharing opportunities for engagement of Buckeyes everywhere with our work in CFAES.

 

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