Abstract:
The globalization of agriculture and life sciences is having far-reaching impact on all types of public and private institutions serving agriculture, including the colleges and universities of the world. With the increasing emphasis on the global nature of environmental concern, markets, and economy, a global component becomes a necessity in a curriculum. lnternational trade, expanded agribusiness, agricultural development, and the global nature of environmental problems make an internalization of curricula necessary goal for a department. The Department of Crop and Soil Environmental Sciences at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (VPI & SU) began a move toward integrating international issues and perspectives throughout the departmental curriculum as well as developing a international option to prepare students for a global society. This paper introduces a sample international option, one that is currently in place at VPI & SU. The author was the primary architect of this program, but had considerable input from a departmental curriculum committee. The objective of this paper is to present a working model of how one department addressed the issue of globalization in a curriculum. The international option not only addresses food production with appropriate coverage of world production areas, but encourages students to pursue courses in language, economic geography and cultures of disparate regions. This curriclclum attempts to expose a student to professional agricultural subjects from an international perspective.
Keywords:
undergraduate agronomy program, international agriculture, global curriculum
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