Yes, I am still in the Wisconsin Rural Leadership Program. I've fallen terribly far behind in getting these updates out, so hopefully over the next couple of days I'll get you all caught up to where we're at. For anyone that hasn't heard, Kathleen and I bought a house in Menomonie. We finished moving in (but are far from unpacked!) on Labor Day weekend. Our new address is at the end of this email. Our phone numbers are unchanged.

I've created a web site to archive all issues of this journal. You can find the entire series, along with photographs (and probably some documents before we're done) at http://www.dennisdeery.com/wrlp.

You're receiving this email because I've taken the liberty of signing you up for this journal. You can expect to receive emails about every other month, following each of our 11 seminars over two years. If you wish to stop receiving these emails, please hit Reply, type remove and send the message - you will be automatically removed from the list. If you choose to keep receiving the email, and would like more detail on any topics covered, please don't hesitate to drop me an email. I look forward to any feedback you might care to offer!

Dennis Deery
dennis@irose.com
 

Our seminar began Tuesday evening with a discussion of historical sociological impacts of technology, led by a professor from the Department of Rural Sociology at UW-Madison. Part of Professor Buttel's talk covered the founding of the land-grant universities, extension services and their roles in carrying new technologies to rural areas.

This discussion continued in two sessions Wednesday morning, when we learned more about the technologies developed by the land-grant universities, UW-Madison in particular. A number of pretty amazing discoveries have been made at the UW, including several vitamins; methods for fortifying foods with Vitamin D; Coumadin, the most-widely prescribed blood-thinner for treating heart-attack victims; and of course Dr. James Thomson's development of embryonic stem cell research (more on that in a bit).

Next up was a discussion of intellectual property issues. Carlos de la Huerga, founder of Telaric Alliance, framed his presentation using Gutenberg's invention of the printing press and the changes it brought to society. We learned that Gutenberg, like many inventors, didn't really profit from his invention of the press or his production of bibles. Mr. de la Huerga talked about using legal methods to protect inventions and assure control of them as they are released to the public.

Dr. Norman Fost joined us for an incredibly interesting discussion about the ethical issues surrounding stem cell research. Dr. Fost is a professor of pediatrics at the UW Medical School, and also directs the Program in Medical Ethics. As chair of the university's Human Subjects Committee, Dr. Fost presided over that committee's deliberations on the ethical and scientific implications of Dr. James Thomson's stem cell research activities. I'm sure you've all heard at least some discussion in the news about stem cell research. Dr. Fost gave what I think was the best breakdown of ethical aspects to an issue that I've ever heard. He walked us through the process that the committee used to explore the research. While this is an incredibly emotionally-charged topic, Dr. Fost discussed it calmly and thoroughly. While I've always been a supporter of stem cell research, I could honestly say that there were a number of things I hadn't thought through completely. After Dr. Fost's presentation, I felt like my thinking had crystallized, and I felt more confident that I understood the ethical basis behind my viewpoint. As you probably know, the Human Subjects Committee granted approval to Dr. Thomson's research after something like 18 months of discussion. The wider benefit of this talk was learning more about the in-depth examination of such ideas, which gave me more comfort that the scientists involved consider more than just the scientific aspects of their research. In fact, Dr. Fost told us that Dr. Thomson had been doing his own evaluation of the ethical issues of stem cell research for over a year before coming to the committee for an evaluation.

Our afternoon began with a tour of the Biotron facility on the UW campus. The Biotron is a large building full of rooms used for environmental research. Researchers can control the environment of these rooms, varying such parameters as temperature, humidity, light, wind, air pressure and sound. As an example, we saw a room full of blocks of different types of cement. Using this research room, the cement manufacturer was able to run the cement blocks through a number of cycles of freezing and thawing to determine how they would hold up under that stress. Another room was full of venetian blinds, undergoing testing for their behavior in windy conditions. There are also a number of greenhouses with the same types of environmental controls for testing plant behaviors, fertilizers and diseases. As you might guess, a building like this is fairly expensive to run - our tour guide informed us that they have a 6-figure annual electric bill. Mostly used by university researchers, private companies can rent space when it's available.

We finished our afternoon with a presentation from Richard Grobschmidt, an Assistant State Superintendent for the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction. Mr. Grobschmidt discussed the leadership implications of technology changes across Wisconsin, specifically talking to us about his role implementing technology to support schools around the state. While there are a number of limitations on technology access in rural Wisconsin, we are fortunate that many of our schools have access to distance-education services, and all of us have access to BadgerLink, an impressive online database of magazines and newspapers.

Wednesday evening was one of the big highlights of the program for me thus far. We had the opportunity to hear a presentation from Dr. James Thomson about his embryonic stem cell research, followed by a reception with Dr. Thomson. As part of the 20th anniversary celebration for WRLP, this presentation was open to WRLP alumni and supporters, so we had a chance to meet many of our predecessors in the program. Dr. Thomson gave an excellent presentation of the technical side of stem cell research, laying it out so clearly that even I could understand most of it. As with most complex issues, we learned that many of the things discussed (or screamed about) in the news are presented incompletely. As a brief example, a big part of the opposition to embryonic stem cell research results from the fact that the embryo must be destroyed to remove the stem cells. What was new to me was the fact that the embryos used are left over from in-vitro fertilization. During in-vitro fertilization, many more embryos are created than are needed, because multiple procedures are often needed to ensure success. Once the couple is pregnant, the remaining embryos are generally destroyed. Embryonic stem cell researchers have made use of these embryos, so no current research creates or destroys any additional embryos. It's unfortunate that this issue has developed into such a nasty ideological debate, obscuring the real issues that should be debated by society.

Thursday morning we began with a presentation from one of our seminar chairs, Bryan Renk, the Director of Patents and Licensing for the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF). WARF is the entity on the UW campus that handles licensing of inventions that result from UW research. Bryan filled us in on WARF's role in protecting university research and generating income that is then returned to the university in the form of donations such as buildings.

We then spoke with Dr. Lynn Allen-Hoffman, a UW Medical School professor and founder of Stratatech. In research at the UW, Dr. Allen-Hoffman discovered a line of skin cells that have been continually reproducing, in effect growing new skin. She then founded Stratatech and licensed the technology from WARF for commercial development. Stratatech is using these skin cells to create skin for use in testing of new products rather than using human subjects. They have also done initial testing using the grown skin for grafts on burn victims, providing hope for quicker, safer healing for such wounds.

The rest of the day was spent doing small-group visits around Madison. We had groups looking at technological innovations in agriculture, health and education. I was assigned to the education group. Our first visit was to Wisconsin Public Television, where we received a demonstration of high-definition television. HDTV is a digital television signal that provides a higher-quality television picture than you currently receive. Every broadcast station in the country is now broadcasting an HDTV signal, as required by federal regulations. Over the next few years, the old-style analog broadcasts will eventually be phased out. The real benefit of HDTV isn't the better TV picture though. By using a digital signal, the TV broadcast can be squeezed into a smaller part of the radio spectrum used. This leaves a big chunk of the spectrum for other uses. Put simply, broadcast stations will have the capability of sending an extra 19 megabits of data over their TV signal. This means that you could receive something similar to an internet connection over your TV antenna, but at a speed roughly 300 times faster than you get over your dial-up modem. This signal is only one-way (meaning you can't send, you can only receive), but I think it will open up a huge burst of innovation similar to the recent internet boom. One example that was demonstrated to us was downloading an online course, complete with video of the instructor, in just a couple of minutes. Watch this one for further developments!

We spent our afternoon touring the Pyle Center, the distance-education center for UW Extension. We got to see many of the capabilities of the Pyle Center, including video-conferencing, teleconferencing and online meetings. Extension provides many of these services at low cost to organizations and communities throughout Wisconsin, helping many areas of our state overcome their remote locale.

Thursday evening we heard a presentation from Dave Giroux, the Director of Public Affairs for UW Extension. Mr. Giroux gave us a boatload of tips on how to hold press conferences and deal with the media. This was in preparation for our seminar assignment - we had to hold a press conference of our very own Friday morning. Each small group had to come up with a news item related to our afternoon visits, then hold a press conference in front of the entire group and a panel of media experts.

Our group invented an alternative rural leadership program, delivered online using the technologies we learned about at WPT and the Pyle Center. We presented it with me playing the role of Public Affairs person for the UW Regents, and the other group members handling questions as regents. As is usually the case with our group presentations, we all got to see a wide variety of presentation styles. Each group received some great feedback from the invited media experts. With the whole group playing the role of reporters at the press conference, everyone took the opportunity to try to pose difficult or impossible questions for the small groups.

Since I'm so far behind on writing these, our next seminar has already occurred. You should receive an update on that trip in the next couple of days. Our next seminar takes place November 11-14 in Janesville and Chicago. We'll be looking at global economics, then finishing on the weekend with an orientation for our international trip.

New address:
Dennis & Kathleen Deery
320 11th St. E
Menomonie, WI 54751

For more information about the Wisconsin Rural Leadership Program, check out their web site at http://www.uwex.edu/ces/wrlp/.