I am pleased to send you the third of a series of special reports about the University of North Dakota. This issue provides details about some of the many ways in which our students, faculty and staff are reaching out to directly serve the public. Their accomplishments have recently earned us the honor of being named to the first-ever White House Community Service Honor Roll. UND also is one of only 76 schools nationwide selected by the Carnegie Foundation for inclusion in its new community engagement classification. These honors recognize the University’s long record of providing services to North Dakota communities. This report offers but a small sampling of these efforts.

North Dakota farmers, ranchers and other land managers will soon get space-age data to help them do their work even better, thanks to a UND-designed and built Agricultural Camera, soon to be installed in the International Space Station. The project provided students and faculty in UND’s School of Engineering and Mines and the John D. Odegard School of Aerospace Sciences with extensive experiential learning opportunities in multi-disciplinary team settings. AgCam science investigations and project management are led by the Northern Great Plains Center for People and the Environment, located within the Odegard School of Aerospace Sciences. Digital images from AgCam will also be used directly by a variety of users, including foresters, natural resource managers, K-12 teachers, and tribal government officials.

Right: NASA astronaut and UND graduate Karen Nyberg (slated soon to go into space) examines the AgCam with Warren Wambs-ganss, a graduate student in electrical engineering who designed and built the circuit board to distribute power to the entire system.