Abstract:
Enrollment declines in colleges of agriculture and particularly in agronomy majors threaten the viability of these programs. One consequence is a reduction in the availability of educated professionals for the agricultural industry. This paper surveys the numbers of students receiving Bachelor's degrees in agronomy and crop science nationally and at selected universities since 1984, and makes recommendations to reverse the decline. Total number of degree recipients and their percent of total college graduates has decreased from 764 in 1984-85 (0.45% of total Bachelor's degree graduates) to 523 in 2002-03(0.26% of total). National trends do not reflect wide variances among individual universities with a few institutions maintaining or increasing numbers of degree recipients. An open-ended survey of a group of universities verifies these quantitative trends and emphasizes that local conditions such as state demographics or the existence of distinctive majors affects enrollment. The Department of Agronomy and Horticulture at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln proposes several measures to enhance its enrollments: (1) strengthen contacts with community college instructors; (2) develop Advanced Placement (AP) courses directed at upper level secondary students; and (3) add a staff member who will specialize in youth activities, including recruiting and development of outreach educational materials.
Keywords:
student numbers, agronomy, crop science, United States, history
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