Five candidates vying for the College of Agriculture dean position will begin a formal interviewing process this week.

Open forums will begin Monday afternoon at 3:30 p.m. in the Alliant Energy-Lee Liu Auditorium in Howe Hall and continue for two weeks.

The first candidate to speak will be Donald Beermann, head of the animal science department at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Beermann has been a professor and head of the Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources at the university since 1999. Before then, he spent 21 years as a teacher and researcher at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y.

Beermann received his bachelor’s degree in animal science from Iowa State in 1971 and went on to get his master’s in meat and animal science from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He also has a Ph.D. from Wisconsin in muscle biology and human physiology.

The other candidates are Phyllis Johnson, Beltsville, Md. area director for the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service; Richard McConnell, senior adviser to DuPont and former president of Pioneer Hi-Bred; C. Channa Reddy, director of the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences and head of the veterinary and biomedical sciences departments at Penn State; and Iowa State’s current interim dean Wendy Wintersteen.

Candidates will also participate in diversity forums during the next two weeks, beginning again with Beerman at 11 a.m. Tuesday in the Gold Room of the Memorial Union.

The dean position was vacated by Catherine Woteki, who was dean for three and a half years. Woteki left the position in July to be the global director of scientific affairs for Mars Inc. in McLean, Va.

– Compiled from ISU News Service