It has been a week since the announcement of the $80 million anonymous donation to Iowa State’s College of Agriculture.

The question now is how are university officials going to spend it.

David Topel, dean of the College of Agriculture, said the donation, announced last Thursday on central campus, came in the form of an endowment — meaning the money is invested and the agronomy department will receive 5 percent interest, or about $4 million per year.

“With the help of this money, our goal is to become the best agronomy department in the world,” said Tom Loynachan, interim head of the agronomy department.

Although the agronomy department won’t see any of the money until the first week of September 2000, a plan on how to budget the money currently is being devised.

Topel said that at an advisory board meeting held last week, it was suggested that the agronomy department use the next year to put together a long-term plan on how to use the donation.

“We want the plan to come from the faculty, students and staff,” he said.

Topel said the planning group will include other departments in the university, as well as outside sources such as farmers, agricultural chemical groups and scientists from other universities.

“We want everyone to be included in this process, so there are no surprises,” Loynachan said.

After department officials have discussed the plan internally, Topel said, they will bring in experts from other areas within and outside the university. These experts will make up a “visionary group” to make ISU’s agronomy department the best in the world.

“To be the best in the next century, you can’t do everything by yourself,” he said. “You have to reach out and get the best people throughout the world … bring them in and listen to their ideas.”

Professors in the agronomy department already are thinking about uses for the gift.

“One thing we need to work on in the program is including more examples of different agronomic systems to make it beneficial for students from different parts of the country and the world,” said Allen Knapp, associate professor in agronomy. Currently, a master’s program in agronomy is taught on the World Wide Web and is the only Web-based program for agronomy graduate students in the world.

Two other areas the visionary group will concentrate on improving will be extension and research.

“We are looking at taking on high-risk research projects which have a relatively high chance of failures, but if they are successful, they will have a major impact on science,” Loynachan said.

One high-risk research project that Patrick Schnable, professor of plant molecular genetics, would like to take on is heterosis, which is the physical improvement that sometimes occurs in the hybrid produced by mating two genetically different parents.

The budget draft will take about six months to complete. It will then be submitted to the dean of agriculture for approval. If it is approved, it will move to the provost, and ISU President Martin Jischke will finalize the plan before it is implemented.

Although university officials have declined to name the anonymous benefactors, The Des Moines Register identified the donors on Tuesday, Sept. 7 as the late Raymond and Mary Baker of Des Moines.

“It is humbling to think a couple trusted us and Iowa State enough to make this donation to us,” Loynachan said. “We are taking this responsibility very seriously.”