As 2019 comes to a close, we wanted to take a moment to look back on the year captured in images. The efforts of our faculty, students, staff, alumni and friends really do make a difference in keeping the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences at the forefront of the issues facing our rapidly changing world. Please scroll down to enjoy some of the highlights from this past year.

November is one of my favorite months. The softer light of day, colorful displays of fall foliage and the sound of migrating waterfowl overhead always make me pause and reflect on the many reasons to feel grateful.

I am occasionally asked, “Just what is human ecology?” For an answer, I turned to our new Associate Dean for Human and Social Sciences, Patsy Eubanks Owens. She is a landscape architect who joined the UC Davis faculty nearly 30 years ago with her passion for getting communities engaged in the design process. 

Welcome to the start of a new school year. As students and faculty return to campus, we are preparing for a busy year of academics and transition. Fall is a season of change, and one big change we’ll see this year is in how we do business. After many years of planning, preparation and training, we are in the midst of transitioning to UC Path, a system-wide solution to modernize how we deliver payroll, benefits and personnel services.

This weekend, we celebrate 1,673 undergraduate students who will participate in one of two College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences (CA&ES) commencement ceremonies on Sunday, June 16. Commencement marks the next phase of an incredibly bright future for all of our graduates.

Friends and colleagues of Dean Emeritus Charley Hess have been flooded with fond memories since he passed away due to congestive heart failure on April 13. We mourn his loss and celebrate his boundless energy, incredible work ethic and passion for agriculture, innovation and life. 

This winter has been extraordinary. We now have an abundant snowpack in the mountains and our reservoirs are filling to the brim. Our long drought is officially over. That’s great news, but we all know that our weather could swing back toward drier conditions without much warning. That’s one of the reasons the work we do is so important.

2019 is off to a good start and has already provided us with much needed rain and snow in the mountains. I am looking forward to a productive year filled with notable accomplishments for our faculty, staff and students. We are resolute in our commitment to make sure everyone in our college has the tools, resources and facilities to help them succeed. There are many behind-the-scenes activities that keep us moving in the right direction, and I thought it would be good to reflect on these as we begin the year.