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Iowa State education professor + Iowa artists = unique book

Amazing Iowa Women

An education professor at Iowa State University is partnering with 30 Iowa artists—and Raygun—to create a book that can help students and their parents better appreciate the diversity in Iowa’s history.

And because of new social studies standards from the Iowa Department of Education, it could turn into a resource for Iowa teachers…

If a fundraiser is successful.

“Teachers need to have access to resources that are reflective of a wide range of experiences and people of a lot of different backgrounds,” said Katy Swalwell, Iowa State University education professor. “What we know is that most textbooks are really terrible at that. It’s usually white, Christian, straight wealthy men for the most part. So we’re trying to create resources that expand that picture because that’s clearly not the only history that happened or has influenced our lives today.”

The book is titled, Amazing Iowa Women from A to Z” and focuses on Iowa women of different backgrounds and industries in different time periods. To accompany the text, Iowa-based artists have signed on to create a portrait of each woman in the book.

Swalwell said Raygun will cover the design and publishing costs and she’s fundraising to commission the artists, purchase materials for local area education agencies to use with their teachers and develop a curriculum to pair with the book.

The fundraiser will last until the end of April, with a goal of raising $12,500. As of Wednesday, over $6,000 had been raised for the book.

“In a lot of schools social studies is being pushed to the side or not taught at all because of pressure from the government to increase reading and math scores,” Swalwell explains. “So when I was thinking about ways to get this history in front of kids and teachers, a book where they can work with non-fiction text, in digestible, kid-friendly paragraphs, is one really easy way.”

Some influence from Raygun

As the lead designer, Jen Leatherby laughed when asked if she will be able to work in any of the traditional humor associated with Raygun.

“There might be a little but there’s a lot of Katy’s influence as well,” Leatherby says. “I hope we can fit some snarky bits in there, we will see.”

As an artist herself, Leatherby also contributed a portrait of Leslie Hall, an Ames-based musician.

She first met Swalwell earlier this year when she spoke at the Human and Civil Rights Symposium.

“She was giving a lecture on how we remember history and how that reflects our ideas about race and gender,” Leatherby said. “That’s similar when you try to think of famous people from Iowa or anywhere, often times people think of men. So I think it’s pretty awesome to try to put that information out there that there are awesome women from Iowa.”

Timeline

Assuming the fundraising goal is met, Swalwell says by the start of the 2018-2019 school year she can have a book published, with a curriculum and other resources for teachers.

“We want to build some activities and unit plans so they wouldn’t have to do that work themselves,” Swalwell says. “They can just go online, print them off for free and be high-quality lesson plans to go with the book at different grade levels.

“Ideally that would be great to have all that by the fall, it all depends on the fundraising,”

A link to the fundraiser is here.

 

Iowa State education professor + Iowa artists = unique book | Clay & Milk
A central Iowa ag-tech accelerator has secured more backers and finally has a name. The Greater Des Moines Partnership first announced the accelerator last year, naming four initial investors. On Monday, the Partnership said the program will be called the "Iowa AgriTech Accelerator" and named three new investors. The new investors include Grinnell Mutual, Kent Corp. and Sukup Manufacturing, all Iowa companies. They join investors Deere & Co., Peoples Co., Farmers Mutual Hail Insurance Co. and DuPont Pioneer. Each investor has agreed to put up $100,000 for the first year of the accelerator. Startups entering the program will receive $40,000 in seed funding in exchange for 6 percent equity. Tej Dhawan, an angel investor and local startup mentor, is serving as interim director until the AgriTech Accelerator names a permanent leader. Dhawan held a similar role with the GIA before Brian Hemesath was named as managing director. As interim director, Dhawan said his main job includes hiring the accelerator's executive director, establishing a business structure and initial recruiting for the first cohort. The accelerator will place few filters, such as location and product, on the applicant pool, Dhawan said. "When you’re seeking innovation, innovation can come from every corner of the world so why restrict ourselves," he said. One area the the AgriTech Accelerator won't recruit from is biotech. For its first cohort, the AgriTech Accelerator will work out of the GIA's space in Des Moines' East Village, Dhawan said. A future, permanent home is still to be decided. The accelerator's program will host startups from mid-July through mid-October, ending with an event connected to the annual World Food Prize. The GIA, which the AgriTech Accelerator is based on, also ends with presentations at an industry event. The accelerator has also started lining up a mentor pool. The Iowa Corn Growers Association, Iowa Soybean Association and the Iowa Pork Producers Association have agreed to provide mentors, as has Iowa State University. While the AgriTech Accelerator is loosely based off of the GIA, it will differ in its business structure, Dhawan said. The GIA runs through a for-profit model for both operations and its investment fund. The AgriTech Accelerator will have a nonprofit model for its operations and a for-profit setup for its fund. Dhawan said the nonprofit model is being used so the accelerator can better work with other nonprofit partners, such as trade associations. "These are all organizations that are nonprofits and can be amazing stakeholders without ever having to be investors in the accelerator," he said. "It becomes easier to work with trade associations in their nonprofit role when we are also a nonprofit." When it's up and running, the AgriTech Accelerator would be one of a handful of ag-focused startup development programs in Iowa. Others include the Ag Startup Engine out of Iowa State University and the Rural Ventures Alliance from Iowa MicroLoan. Matthew Patane is the managing editor and co-founder of Clay & Milk. Send him an email at mpatane@clayandmilk.com.
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