Ag Enrollment Continues Upward Trend

www.agrinews-pubs.com
Tom Doran
2010-01-21

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. — Amidst the budget crunch hitting Illinois universities, there is plenty of good news for agriculture education.

The Illinois agricultural legislative roundtable attendees heard a report of the four university ag programs during the recent event hosted by the Illinois Farm Bureau.

Robert Hauser, University of Illinois interim dean of the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences, speaking on behalf of the state schools, described their “brags” and “worries.”

Beginning with Illinois State University, Hauser said the institution has two undergraduate majors associated with agriculture education, one in agriculture and another in renewable energy, and also a masters program.

“I think that the way they responded to the increased demand in that area is simply amazing,” Hauser said of ISU’s renewable energy studies. “It’s something that we were not nimble enough to do at U of I. They saw and demand in renewable energy, and acted on it.”

Another “brag” for ISU is its enrollment increases in agriculture.

“They’re going up very quickly,” Hauser said. “Enrollment increased from 255 last year to 295 this year. The enrollment for the ISU masters program also increased.”

ISU recently completed a $1 million renovation, which allowed for moving the teaching and research lab from the Turner to the Ropp building.

“On the worrisome side, while enrollment is increasing, resources are decreasing, and that causes some tightness,” Hauser said. “There was the zeroing out of the Illinois Council on Food and Agricultural Research funding, and a decrease in other funding in general.”

Southern Illinois University’s agriculture program has seen a 7 percent increase in enrollment each of the last three years.

“That’s during a time period when enrollment in general on that campus has been dropping,” the educator said. “That’s great news for both Illinois State and Southern. It does reflect an increase in demand for agricultural programs at the college level. There have been some studies showing that’s been happening nationwide.”

SIU also has been successful in receiving research grants, and has about $9 million in new agriculture research programs. The Carbondale-based university’s ag staff has also been recognized for their work.

Kim Harris won the SIU Outstanding Teacher Award, and Gary Minish, who recently retired as dean, received the Association for Public and Land Grant University Outstanding Leader Award.

On the negative side at Southern, the state budget concerns are impacting academic and research programs.

The ag department at SIU continues to recover from the severe storm damage to its farms on May 8, and restoration is ongoing. There also is a desperate need for a new agriculture building, according to university representatives.

As is the case with SIU and ISU, Western Illinois University agriculture program’s is growing, with the enrollment now at a 40-year high.

“Student employment opportunities are better than ever,” Hauser said. “The program at WIU changed its name from the Agriculture Department to the School of Agriculture. In our arena, it has a very good implication of what they are rather than just a department.

“The problem is one of the key features of their program is to make it more of an applied program, and that ability is going down and down as our funding situation changes.”

Hauser concluded his report with an update of the Colleges of ACES at U of I.

“At the University of Illinois, we’re proud of the fact that we’re usually ranked in the top five of the ag colleges nationally, and four of our departments are consistently ranked in the top three in the nation,” he said. “We’re very proud of the quality of undergraduates that we’re bringing in as freshmen and as transfer.

“The research activity is going very, very well as measured in terms of external dollars. I don’t know how to feel about C-FAR. The reason is, obviously we don’t like the fact that C-Far has been zeroed out.

“But I also think there is a great opportunity right now to rethink ag research, use that opportunity, and to get it going in directions it should be going. That, in my mind, is somewhat of an urgent problem, but a problem maybe we can take advantage of.”

While SIU, ISU and WIU have enjoyed enrollment increases in their ag programs, “we’re not able to readily take advantage of that increased demand for ag programs at least in terms of accepting more incoming freshmen,” Hauser said.

“We’re not increasing in numbers. We’re increasing in quality. It’s become harder and harder to get in. But we are able to increase the number of transfers – the number of students coming in after year one or year two – whether they’re coming in from across campus or coming in from a community college.

“We’ve been working very diligently with community colleges statewide to take advantage that opportunity, and transfer numbers are way up.”


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