ACAS Board Certification Update

Patrick French, PhD, PAS, Dipl. ACAS, ACAS President

I genuinely thank members of the American College of Animal Sciences (ACAS), the board certification arm of ARPAS for electing me as president and look forward to serving the organization in the coming year. I thank Randy Walker for his service as ACAS president for the past year, Ken Cummings for his service as ARPAS executive vice president, and Cornicha Henderson of FASS for her assistance with the ACAS administrative duties.

The new year is upon us, and the groundhog says spring should be arriving any day now. As signs of spring begin to appear, such as new leaves on the trees, greener grass, all of the planting activity, and, of course, the opening day of baseball, we are reminded that spring is a time of renewal. This also applies to ACAS as we renew our efforts to remind ARPAS members who are not yet board certified of all the benefit and value of achieving the highest level of certification available in ARPAS.

The ARPAS Foundation’s assets now exceed $200,000. The ARPAS Foundation was established to recognize and fund worthy educational efforts of ARPAS and its members, or to promote the activities of ARPAS. Each year we receive multiple requests for educational funding projects, such as support for symposiums and speakers. This year the foundation will be supporting the dissemination of the information that will be presented at this year’s educational symposium “Sustainable Dairy Production” at the ADAS annual meeting by helping with the publication of the written articles in our journal.

Even after editing for more than a decade, it was still exciting to complete another volume of The Professional Animal Scientist (PAS). The 33rd volume of 781 pages contained nine review articles, 55 research articles, six technical notes, and 15 case studies. Though not as dominant as the previous year, topics about beef cattle and meats comprised more than one-half of the articles. Dairy was followed by swine, equine, and caprine topics. There were also some articles about feedstuffs, bedding, and water.

The review articles are a major contribution to PAS. Two of the reviews were from the ARPAS 2015 Symposium: “Nutritional and management considerations for beef cattle experiencing stress-induced inflammation” and “The ruminal microbes, microbial products, and systemic inflammation.” Three review papers had been presented at the Southern Section of the American Society of Animal Science about management strategies for intensive, sustainable cow-calf production systems in the Southeastern United States: “Matching forage systems with cow size and environment for sustainable cow-calf production in the southern region of the United States,” “Bermudagrass pastures overseeded with cool-season annual grasses and legumes,” and “Issues affecting research and extension programs on cow-calf and stocker cattle production in the Southeast region of the United States.” Individual reviews were titled “Transportation of commercial finished cattle and animal welfare considerations,” “Subjective pork quality evaluation may not be indicative of instrumental pork quality measurements on a study-to-study basis,” “The link between feeding dairy cows and Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese production area,” and “Advantages and limitations of dairy efficiency measures and the effects of nutrition and feeding management interventions.”

The South Central Chapter offered its third annual graduate student competition in conjunction with the Four States Cattle Conference. Unfortunately, the conference date conflicted with finals and we were unable to attract participants. During the Four States Cattle Conference, Buck Pendergraft, chapter secretary, distributed ARPAS brochures and discussed membership benefits among trade show participants. A business meeting location is being secured for February 5 in conjunction with the Southern Section meeting of the American Society of Animal Science. Once details are finalized, an email will be distributed to paid chapter members. Several items of discussion for the business meeting will include a report from the chapter objectives committee, membership and membership drive, officer elections, and future direction for the graduate student competition. The chapter is currently seeking officers for president elect and director positions for Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana.