What’s up?” asked Randy as he walked from the Agriculture Hall lecture room with Emily. Josh had said his goodbyes and was on his way back to Willow River.
“Dr. Evans called while you were in class,” she said. She was still out of breath, obviously having run from Randy’s third-floor office, where her desk was just outside his office door.
“What?” asked Randy. Emily, who had bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Ohio State University, had begun working with Randy at the beginning of the fall semester. Randy had been impressed with her academic record—more than one reference described her as brilliant. Dr. Evans had assigned Emily to Randy when she first arrived. “You’ve got some common interests,” he had said.
They did have common interests. At Ohio State, Emily studied integrated farming systems, an area of inquiry she wished to continue at Wisconsin. When Randy reviewed her application to the department, he noted that she was the same age as he was, thirty-two. He was a little concerned about that; he expected to work with graduate students some years younger. But the two of them had gotten along very well. Randy had taken a little ribbing from some of his friends because not only was Emily brilliant, she was also beautiful. Randy, always the scholar, had scarcely taken time to look at any woman. For the past five years, his graduate studies and research had consumed nearly all his time. And now, as a new assistant professor, Randy knew that he had to work exceedingly hard if he was to earn tenure and a permanent teaching/research slot in his department.
“So, what’s up?” he asked again.
“Our research proposal to National Affiliated Hog Producers has been approved. Can you believe it? We’re getting the money,” she gushed.
“Thanks to your hard work,” Randy said, smiling broadly.
“They were your ideas, Dr. Oakfield. Ideas that for sure caught their attention.”
The two climbed the stairs to Randy’s office. Randy slid into the chair behind his desk, and Emily sat across from him. They both knew that lots of work lay ahead, for putting together a research project was no small task. They also knew that both of them would benefit greatly from the project—he on his way to gaining tenure, she getting research data for her dissertation.
Dr. Evans poked his head in. “Congratulations, Randy. I got the news this morning that your proposal was approved. Let me know how I can help further.”
“Thanks, we appreciate your support. Looks like we’ve got our work cut out for us,” Randy said. He looked at Emily when he said it.
Randy was a little skittish about National Affiliated Hog Producers as a funding source for the project; its members consisted of the major hog producers in the United States, including Nathan West Industries. But Evans as well as the staff at National Affiliated Hog Producers had assured him there would be no conflict of interest. “You have complete freedom to develop the project as you see fit—following the plan you submitted to us, of course,” the NAHP research project coordinator said.
When Randy had mentioned the potential conflict of interest of the pork industry financing a research project about attitudes toward big pork producers, the department chair scoffed. “It’s dang hard to find financing these days. The federal government is cutting back on research. The state hasn’t got any money. I suppose we could have submitted the proposal to one of the big environmental groups, but they are so biased against big agriculture that you’d have a tough time running the project without them interfering.”
Randy agreed Evans was probably right. He wanted to say that maybe the big producers might be a bit biased in what they wanted to see as research results as well, but he decided not to bring up the topic. He didn’t want to do anything to prevent the research money from coming in—he needed the funding. In addition to this research project, he was also developing a new theoretical model for explaining the economics of integrated agricultural systems. Data from the new research project could feed into his new model.
That afternoon Randy and Emily worked on finalizing the survey instrument they planned to use. They’d earlier constructed the questionnaire form and had field tested it with a small group of land owners to detect any problems with the wording. They had been sitting on the project for several weeks as they awaited a decision on funding.
The project amounted to drawing a random sample of property owners in Iowa communities with large, confined hog operations. They wanted to assess people’s attitudes toward these operations—whether they liked having large hog operations in their neighborhoods or not, what benefits they saw, and what negative features they were aware of. Now, since Randy knew about NWI’s plans for the Tamarack River Valley, they would sample residents in Ames County, with a subsample from people living in the Tamarack River Valley. Questions would relate to what residents thought about the company locating in the valley.
Randy glanced up at the clock. “It’s past five,” he said. “You have time tomorrow to finish this up—another couple hours should do it.”
“Sure,” Emily said. “I’ve got time tomorrow. I have another idea. Come over to my apartment tonight for supper. We need to celebrate a little. It isn’t every day that money for a major project comes through. I’ll ask some others to come as well. We’ll have a little celebration.”
“Nah, I’d better not. You go ahead, though. Sounds like a good idea.”
“But you’ve got to be there; you’re the project leader.”
“I’ve got hours of journal reading to catch up on.”
“Dr. Oakfield, you need a night away from the books,” Emily said firmly. But she was smiling.
“Thanks anyway. You go ahead and celebrate. I’ve got work to do.”
Randy felt good. It isn’t every day that an assistant professor landed a major research grant. He could already imagine several journal articles where he would discuss his new theoretical model for understanding the economics of integrated agricultural systems. He thought about the words “associate professor” behind his name, which would tell everyone that he had indeed earned tenure at the prestigious University of Wisconsin–Madison. He also was pleased that he had such an able assistant working with him. Emily was a joy to work with, and she was smart and filled with good ideas.
Randy, as was his custom, was at his desk in Agriculture Hall by 7:30 the following morning. He was ready to wrap up the final work on the research questionnaire. Emily breezed into the office shortly after eight. She greeted the office administrator and receptionist and walked to her desk. On the way, she poked her head through Randy’s open office door. “Good morning, Dr. Oakfield,” she said. She was her bubbly self—one of her strong features was a pleasant personality. She got along with everyone in the department, which was certainly a plus, for graduate students, whether it was always true or not, saw themselves on the bottom of the academic pecking order. Since she and her major professor had just won a big research grant, she knew she would have to be even more pleasant. Several of her fellow graduate students had little or no funding for their research projects and certainly had a right to envy her good fortune. She now had a half-time salaried appointment to do research, the same research that she could use for her dissertation.
“When do you want to work on the questionnaire?” she asked. She was obviously all business this morning, with no thoughts of partying and celebration.
“Give me five minutes to catch up on my e-mail,” Randy said as he typed on the keyboard in front of his computer screen. The two of them worked most of the morning, fine-tuning the questionnaire that they would send to a random sample of landowners in an Iowa county with several large hog operations and to a sample of land owners in Ames County.
Their research strategy was to send the questionnaires through the mail and then follow up with phone calls to those who did not respond in ten days.
“We should get at least a 75 percent response,” said Emily.
“That seems pretty high to me,” Randy said. “If we get something over 50 percent, I’ll be happy.”
“We’ll do better than that, a lot better than that,” Emily said.