Wendy Wintersteen is two days into her new job: president of Iowa State University. A four-decade ISU employee, Wintersteen had been the dean of agriculture and life sciences. She is the first woman to head the university of nearly 37,000 students in Ames, Iowa.
Wintersteen had been dean of ISU’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences for 12 years, said the Cedar Rapids Gazette. She earned a bachelor’s degree in agriculture at Kansas State University, and her first job after graduation was at ISU, where she went on to earn advanced degrees. “During her time as dean, the college’s enrollment soared 90 percent. Wintersteen helped raise more than $247 million in donor support. Its programs climbed the national rankings. And its graduate placement rate maintained at 97 percent,” said the Gazette.
“Critics criticized Wintersteen’s work with the agriculture industry as perhaps too cozy and blamed her, in part, for the recent loss of state funding for the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, which over three decades sponsored more than 600 grants for research, education, and demonstration,” said the eastern Iowa newspaper. As president, a top issue will be cuts in state funding for ISU.