Welcome back to your alma mater! Thanks for keeping in contact with us. Each of you has contributed to the great image our department enjoys both internally and with the outside world. We reap the benefits of having our alums continue their interest in the department and its activities. Your news, updates, and even your questions all lead to improving our overall success. Thanks again.
Department Newsletter, NEWSBITE
Our Food Science and Nutrition Newsletter, NEWSBITE, delights our current and past students and the community at large. We strive to offer interesting glimpses into our department’s many and varied activities with emphasis on our students (past and present), our faculty and staff as well as future directions we plan to pursue. If you do not receive this bi-annual publication, let us know so we can add you to our alumni mailing list.
What You Can Do
As always, Cal Poly can use your help with upgrading and improving our programs and facilities. We have an active advancement program here on campus through the Cal Poly Foundation. We in Food Science and Nutrition have our own needs including the long-awaited build-out of our 24-station wet lab with prep and cell culture rooms. This remodeled facility will allow new research ideas to flourish and will place student instruction at an all-time high level of sophistication. We have planned the use of college-based fees for the primary structure and are counting on the generosity of our supporters for the approximately $100,000 needed to complete the project.
We also have a pilot plant modernization plan in full swing. The food science facility has aged gracefully but now needs a total rehabilitation in order to provide students with top-notch food processing experiences and graduate food product research opportunities, and perhaps to offer the industry a modestly-priced testing lab for product development. To achieve our goals we need high ticket replacement equipment such as a freeze-dryer, retort, labeler, capper, and so much more. Our estimate for complete modernization is approximately $400,000.
New to us this year is our first entering class of interdisciplinary Wine and Viticulture majors. Of the over 100 new Wine and Viticulture students this year, approximately 20-25 will choose Enology (wine-making) as their concentration. Since we have graduated only a few charter students in this major, we are unable to draw upon them for support to complete our proposed enology teaching lab. This fermentation instruction lab will be housed in our existing pilot plant. The lab will provide enology students with all the necessary equipment to make and analyze wine, according to industry standards. We expect to graduate professional winemakers able to work in both small and large wineries on the Central Coast and elsewhere. Support for this effort can come from interested alums like you, and perhaps from wine enthusiasts you may know.
Open House
Never forget your opportunity to see us again. Come to Open House 2008! Keep an eye out for NEWSBITE for all the necessary information to make this your best trip to Cal Poly yet.