For over 30 years, ISU's College of Design campus in Rome has hosted a wide range of academic programs for Cyclones. Since 2008, for ISU's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS), the Rome campus has been a home base for the Dean's Global Agriculture and Food Leadership program, where students explore complex issues connected with global food security and put what they've learned to work on real-world projects with professionals at the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). In this program, students collaborate with global experts on food systems, sustainability and rural development, gain international leadership experience and cross-cultural skills.
In spring and summer of 2026, students in the Dean's Rome program worked with FAO's Animal Production and Health Division to develop policy briefs in alignment with the International Year of Pastoralists and Rangelands and International Year of Woman Farmers. The policy briefs highlighted the challenges facing pastoralists in Mongolia, Tunisia and Uganda and their delicate rangeland ecosystems. The policy briefs highlighted the role of pastoralists in rangeland conservation and the preservation of biodiversity in fragile and changing ecosystems. The team also explored how gender varies across contexts and within pastoral systems.
Students on the Dean's Rome program took their new knowledge about pastoralists and rangelands one step further. An innovation of the program in 2026 was the partnership between students in CALS and the College of Design. Students from the two programs met in Rome to collaborate on project, with CALS students briefing design students on biodiversity and gender in pastoral contexts. From there, design students immersed themselves in the lives and livelihoods of pastoralists and the FAO before designing a themed exhibit as part of their Bridging Disciplines: Innovating Exhibition Design for Global Food and Agriculture Awareness summer course.
These kinds of cross-college collaborations are what students at ISU can expect, and with strong programs like the College of Agriculture and Life Science Deans summer program and the College of Design's excellent Rome Campus, innovation and collaboration are in high supply.
