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Food Protection Trends A View from Wisconsin For those of you who do not know my background, I was a high school biology teacher for four years before I became a university researcher. I have to admit that even though I changed careers, there will always be a “teacher” in me. As a research scientist at UW-Madison, I train laboratory workers, supervise independent study under-graduate students, and guest lecture in food safety or HACCP workshops and classes. As a volunteer, I have the opportunity to teach basic food safety principles and handwashing in local elementary and middle school science programs. It gives me great satisfaction to assist in the education of individuals, whether they are children or adults. Given my academic background, it is no wonder that the Outreach and Education theme of the IAFP Strategic Plan is an area to which I feel particularly committed. The Executive Board has agreed to move forward in the area of Outreach and Education on several fronts. As a leader in food safety, IAFP is developing a procedure to host “rapid response” conferences when significant food safety issues arise, such as would have been appropriate when the first BSE cases were detected in North American cattle. In order to be able to react quickly to critical events, the Board will appoint a special committee to be alert to developing food safety concerns. This committee will be charged with identifying and mobilizing a team of researchers, regulators, and concerned industry members to come together to address the problem, discuss the state of the knowledge base, and develop a coordinated, scientific response. The IAFP staff will assist by identifying suitable meeting venues and developing procedures to handle meeting promotion and registration. By developing this rapid response approach for food safety meetings, we will be able to promptly address crucial issues as they arise rather than wait for “hot-topic” symposia at our annual meeting. We also recognize that our future successes depend on well-trained students and young professionals. Therefore, the next two objectives under our Outreach and Education theme revolve around developing our student membership base. As I reported in February, IAFP and the Foundation Fund have initiated a Travel Scholarship Program to support students to attend the IAFP Annual Meeting. Our student members responded enthusiastically to the program announcement, with many worthy applications received by the March 15 deadline. The selection committee will have a difficult choice selecting the two recipients for this year’s award from among all those who demonstrate potential to contribute to the field of food safety. As the Foundation Fund grows, we plan to accordingly increase the number of travel grants to assist more students and young professionals, especially from developing countries where resources are particularly limited. Your financial contributions to this program through the IAFP Foundation Fund will be instrumental in ensuring we are able to provide opportunities for students and young researchers to develop essential professional skills. Another action item is to expand our Executive Board Speaker Program, previously limited to affiliate meetings, to provide a resource to universities. Through this program, faculty will be able to invite Executive Board members to deliver guest lectures to food science or food microbiology classes, seminars, or clubs. The purpose of the expansion to universities is two-fold. First, this program will expose undergraduate and graduate students studying in our field to professionals with experience in the field of food safety. Secondly, it will increase the visibility of IAFP, and the value of membership, among food science faculty and students, and will encourage their participation in our Association. In the initial stages of this program, we will limit requests for speakers to the first 4–6 requests for a calendar year. Ideally, we would like to coordinate board member travel to affiliate meetings with visits to nearby universities. This could be a great opportunity for faculty to become more engaged with their local affiliate and foster a cooperative relationship between the two entities. You can see photos from the first presentation to Texas A&M students on page 241. If your university is interested in the Speaker Program for this fall, contact Lucia McPhedran at the IAFP office for more details. While we might not all be teachers, we are all stakeholders in the education of our students and colleagues. We all can contribute to that education in some way, whether it is in the form of financial support for travel funds or mentoring a student from a local university. I encourage you to volunteer your time and talents to help fulfill our mission. As always, I welcome your comments and questions. Please feel free to email me at kglass@wisc.edu and let me know your view. |