Recently, student tuition surpassed state of Iowa funding as the primary contributor to the base of resources that keep our campus functioning. A main challenge now is to ensure students continue to receive an outstanding education and a promising future at a competitive price, while maintaining state support as much as we are able. It also means the success in external research funding is even more critical. It's essential to be able to expand the frontiers of science- and, as state resources shrink, to shoulder greater responsibility for the vital education and training of our graduate students and a greater share of the basic infrastructure expenses that run our campus. That is why I feel fortunate and grateful our faculty in agriculture and life sciences are some of the very best at competing for external grants and contracts. They work very hard at it. During a span of six months in 2010, they submitted nearly 160 proposals to federal agencies, which remain a primary source for research funds.