Published in Agron J 99:1169-1174 (2007)
DOI: 10.2134/agronj2006.0318
© 2007 American Society of Agronomy
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What Does Undergraduate Enrollment in Soil and Crop Sciences Mean for the Future of Agronomy?
Neil Hansen*,
Sarah Ward,
Raj Khosla,
Jack Fenwick and
Bill Moore
Dep. Soil and Crop Sciences, Colorado State Univ., Fort Collins, CO 80523
* Corresponding author (neil.hansen{at}colostate.edu)
Received for publication November 11, 2006.
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ABSTRACT
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Soil and crop science programs at land-grant colleges have historically relied on appropriated funding from state and federal sources and tuition to support the tripartite mission of research, extension, and teaching. However, due to declining funding from state and federal sources, tuition and fees are becoming increasingly important sources. As tuition revenue becomes more important, student enrollment becomes a greater concern. Undergraduate enrollment in soil and crop sciences across the USA has been in decline for the last two decades. We collected current enrollment statistics by submajor areas of focus at all 50 of the 1862 land-grant universities. We also evaluated organizational structure, college and department names, and undergraduate tuition and fees. Enrollment in all soil and crop science related majors averaged 90 students per university, with the majority of students (36%) in landscape, horticulture, and turfgrass programs. A projected total of fewer than 350 students per year from all 50 of the institutions surveyed will graduate from programs with a traditional agronomy focus that integrates multiple aspects of crop production and management. Declining enrollment in soil and crop science programs has been accompanied by significant changes in the structure and identity of the academic units that house them. Despite declining enrollment, there is still strong demand for teaching the substance of soil and crop sciences at U.S. land-grant institutions, and employment prospects for agricultural graduates are good. The current socioeconomic environment necessitates adaptation of soil and crop science programs, including formation of new and innovative areas of study, expanded participation by the soil and crop sciences in interdisciplinary programs, and the possibility of regional cooperation and specialization among academic institutions. New entrants coming into the field of professional agronomy as researchers, professors, advisors, and consultants will increasingly be the products of interdisciplinary college programs where they are mixed with nonagricultural students and have taken classes from nonagricultural faculty.
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INTRODUCTION
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A STEADY DECLINE IN UNDERGRADUATE ENROLLMENT in soil and crop science programs during the past twenty years has been widely reported and discussed (e.g., McKenna and Brann, 1992; Taylor, 1990). This trend is accelerating: a survey of 54 public universities by McCallister et al. (2005) reports that recipients of B.S. degrees in agronomy or crop science fell from 764 in 1984–1985 (0.45% of the national total of bachelor degrees awarded) to 523 in 2002–2003 (0.26% of national total), constituting what these authors describe as a "crisis for the agronomy major nationally." Various reasons for this have been suggested, including increasing urbanization with a diminishing proportion of the U.S. population working in agriculture (McKenna and Brann, 1992; Dalmasso, 1990) and a poor image of agriculture as a college major and agricultural sciences as a career choice (Handelsman, 1992). At the same time, public institutions of higher education face fiscal challenges throughout the USA with flat or declining levels of support from state and federal sources. Many institutions have responded by increasing tuition to stabilize budgets: on average, tuition and fees at U.S. public 4-yr colleges increased by 10.5% for the 2004–2005 academic year (CollegeBoard, 2004). During the last decade, tuition and fees have increased 51% for U.S. public 4-yr colleges. As tuition revenue becomes an increasingly important proportion of institutional funding, internal resources—including faculty positions—are more likely to flow to programs attracting large numbers of tuition-paying students than to those with fewer students. This represents a significant shift in philosophy for many academic units at land-grant colleges that have historically relied on appropriated funding from state and federal sources and tuition to support the tripartite mission of research, extension, and teaching. In light of the declining enrollment trends for soil and crop science programs, these circumstances combine to create a critical time for our profession.
A faculty working group was formed in 2004 at Colorado State University to examine our own programs in soil and crop science and to develop future recommendations. As part of this process, we surveyed academic structure and enrollment in undergraduate soil and crop science and related programs at our peer 1862 land-grant institutions in all 50 states. Two key points rapidly emerged from our investigation. First, declining undergraduate enrollment in soil and crop science majors is causing concern throughout the entire land-grant system. Second, at many land-grant institutions this decline is driving changes in program identity and structure that will have significant impacts on agronomy as a profession in the U.S. In this paper, we present the results of our survey and discuss their implications.
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MATERIALS AND METHODS
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Between December 2004 and January 2005 we surveyed undergraduate programs in soil and crop science areas at 1862 land-grant institutions in 50 states. We collected information from each university's official web site regarding (i) where undergraduate programs in soil and crop sciences reside within the organizational structure of the institutions; (ii) the names of colleges and departments; (iii) the undergraduate majors offered at each; (iv) submajor areas of emphasis; and (v) resident and nonresident tuition and student fees. To facilitate comparison across institutions, tuition and fees rates were normalized for one semester with a 15-credit-hour course load.
Enrollment data by undergraduate major and submajor units (concentration, focus area, etc.) for the 2004 fall semester were obtained by contacting one or more representatives from each of the 50 institutions. The initial request for enrollment data was made by email to heads of departments or college deans, requesting "enrollment numbers for each of the undergraduate majors in your college that relate to soil and/or crop sciences, including plant breeding and genetics." Response rate to this initial email request was 40%. After several weeks, a second email request was sent to those who had not responded, raising the cumulative response rate to 84%. If no response was received on the second email request, phone communication was used to obtain the enrollment information. Final response rate was 100%. We cross referenced reported enrollment data with the results of the internet research to assure that major and submajor categories corresponded. Where necessary, additional personal communication by email and telephone clarified discrepancies and assured that submajor categorization of enrollment data was accurate.
We examined institutional enrollment data in majors and submajor categories rather than national graduation rates because, while graduation numbers reveal critical trends, they overlook important details that illuminate the issue of declining enrollment. For example, at some institutions agronomy graduates represent students in production agricultural areas only, while at other institutions a degree in agronomy may include students whose area of emphasis was turfgrass management, landscape, or horticulture. Descriptive statistics were generated for organizational structure and names of colleges, departments, and undergraduate majors. On the basis of our perception that the various names used by land-grant institutions for undergraduate majors were more diverse than the academic programs they represented, we evaluated enrollment data by grouping majors and submajor units into the following categories: agronomy, horticulture/landscape/turfgrass, environmental sciences, agribusiness, and plant biology. The agronomy category consisted of programs with a crop production emphasis, including such areas as agroecology and applied plant sciences. Soil science programs were included within agronomy or environmental science programs based on curriculum content (see Table 3). The plant biology category included biotechnology and molecular biology programs that were housed within an agricultural sciences unit. For schools where a single undergraduate major encompassed students from more than one of these categories, we used survey information and additional personal communication to subdivide the numbers into appropriate categories.
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Table 3. Names of undergraduate majors (n = 116) found in academic departments that house soil and crop science undergraduate programs at 1862 Land Grant institutions and their frequency of occurrence, average enrollment, and range in enrollment for fall semester, 2004.
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RESULTS
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Within the 1862 land-grant universities surveyed, undergraduate programs in soil and crop sciences are housed almost exclusively in agricultural colleges. However, agricultural colleges vary widely in name (Table 1), organization, and composition. Of the 50 colleges surveyed, only 26% were specifically named College of Agriculture (or a close derivative). The majority of college names reflect an academic focus combining agricultural sciences with other disciplines. For example, 26% of college names reflect a combined emphasis on agriculture and natural resources, 26% of names combine agriculture and life sciences, and 10% combine agriculture and environment. In most cases, these compound names reflect a merging of two or more separate colleges, a trend that appears to be accelerating. As a recent example, the University of Minnesota recently implemented an integration of the College of Natural Resources, the College of Agricultural, Food and Environmental Sciences, and the Department of Food Science and Nutrition to form the College of Food, Agricultural, and Natural Resource Sciences. Some less common college names used in combination with agriculture were forestry, human resources, home economics, consumer sciences, and biotechnology.
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Table 1. Names of colleges that house soil and crop science undergraduate majors at 1862 Land Grant institutions (n = 49) and their frequency of occurrence.
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Academic departments housing undergraduate programs in soil and crop sciences are also highly diverse across the 1862 land-grant institutions (Table 2). The most common name for academic departments with undergraduate programs in soil and crop sciences is "Plant Sciences" or some close derivative (n = 10). Departments with names like "Soil and Crop Sciences" (n = 8) or "Plant and Soil Sciences" (n = 5) make up about 20% of departments, while there are only six "Agronomy" departments and three "Soil Science" departments among the 61 departments offering undergraduate programs in soil and crop science areas at the 50 land grant universities surveyed. While we surveyed department names as of December 2004, others have described trends in departmental name changes over time (e.g., Raun et al., 1998). The majority of undergraduate programs in crop and soil sciences are housed in the same academic department, while 13 universities separate the two disciplines into separate departments. A significant number of soil and crop undergraduate programs are in departments that emphasize environment (n = 8), natural resources (n = 6), or related areas such as land, water, or air (n = 7).
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Table 2. Names of academic departments that house soil and crop science undergraduate majors at 1862 Land Grant institutions (n = 61) and their frequency of occurrence.
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In the 501 862 land-grant universities we surveyed, a total of 116 undergraduate majors were offered in areas related to soil and crop sciences (Table 3), with a total enrollment in all majors of 4510. The average number of students enrolled in individual soil and crop science related majors was 38 (range 1–155). Undergraduate enrollment in the combination of all soil and crop science related majors within an institution averaged 90 students (range 0–207). Forty-two percent of the land-grant institutions have <100 students enrolled in the combination of all soil and crop science related majors, while 26% have >150 students.
The majority of the majors have unique names (Table 3), illustrating the wide variety of program emphases and different approaches being used to market these programs. Common majors include agronomy (n = 13), crop science (n = 6), environmental science (n = 5), environmental soil science (n = 6), plant sciences (n = 9), soil science (n = 7), and turfgrass science (n = 5). Although there were only seven "Soil Science" undergraduate majors, there are 36 majors with names that use the word "soil," such as "Crop and Soil Science" or "Environmental Soil Science." Sixteen undergraduate majors use the word "Crop," while 11 programs use the word "Plant." The majority of undergraduate majors that use the word "Plant" combine the study of traditional agronomic crops with horticulture and/or turf. There are 25 majors that use the word "environment" and an additional nine programs that use the words "land," "natural resources," or "water." There is a trend to focus soil science teaching programs toward the environmental sciences and to broaden crop science programs into other areas of plant science.
Using descriptions of major and submajor divisions, we subdivided enrollment statistics into the following subject categories: agronomy; horticulture/landscape/turfgrass; environmental sciences; agribusiness; and plant biology. This revealed that the largest fraction of students (36%) are enrolled in horticulture/landscape/turfgrass programs (Fig. 1). This number only represents students in a soil and crop science major with an emphasis in horticulture/landscape/turfgrass; there are some institutions where horticulture/landscape/turfgrass students are in separate majors not included in our enrollment numbers. Students categorized as agronomy represent 30% of total enrollment in crop and soil sciences related programs, a total of 1300 students enrolled over all 50 land grant universities surveyed. Assuming these students are equally distributed over a 4-yr graduation schedule, this translates into a nation-wide annual total of approximately 340 graduates per year with an agronomy focus. This number is likely to decline further in the future: enrollment at 62% of the 44 universities offering undergraduate programs in the agronomy category was fewer than 30 students (Fig. 2).
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Fig. 1. Categorization of undergraduate students enrolled in majors related to soil and crop sciences for fall semester 2004. Values shown for each category are the average numbers of students at the 50 1862 U.S. Land Grant institutions surveyed out of a total of 90 students.
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Fig. 2. Distribution of student enrollment in agronomy related subjects for fall semester 2004 at 1862 U.S. Land Grant institutions in majors related to soil and crop sciences.
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Average enrollment in the environment category made up 19% of the total (17/90) when averaged over all 50 universities. Again, student numbers are generally low, with 38% of the 30 universities with programs in this area reporting fewer than 10 students and 66% fewer than 30 students enrolled (Fig. 3). Only 20% of the environmental programs we surveyed had more than 50 students enrolled. However, we only evaluated environmentally-focused programs within departments also offering soil or crop science programs ("Environmental Soil Science" for example). Environmental science majors at many universities are housed in other units, and in some cases these undergraduate programs are considered interdisciplinary and not associated with a specific academic department. For this reason, our survey does not provide a complete picture of undergraduate enrollment in environmental science programs. Nevertheless, our results suggest that efforts to broaden traditional undergraduate programs in agricultural sciences to include more environmental science has resulted in significant increases in enrollment at only a few institutions. Although we did not specifically include this in our survey, we did observe that several institutions have high enrollment in interdisciplinary environmental science undergraduate programs that include courses in soil and crop sciences. The plant biology category includes programs such as plant breeding, genetics, and plant science programs that are not focused on agronomic production. Nine percent of all students enrolled in soil and crop science related programs were in the plant biology category (8/90). Nineteen universities have specific programs in the plant biology area with an average enrollment of 19 students (range 2–91). As with environmental sciences, many universities offer plant biology majors in different colleges and departments and some schools have interdisciplinary programs in plant molecular biology or biotechnology that are not housed in agriculturally oriented units. Our survey did not consider students enrolled in such programs. Another area where it is difficult to evaluate enrollment numbers is agribusiness. Agribusiness majors are often found in agricultural economics departments but can also be found within crop and soil science oriented departments. Our analysis only takes into consideration those programs that are administered through soil and crop science type departments. Eight universities surveyed offered agribusiness programs within the traditional soil and crop science academic units, with a mean enrollment of 26 (range 2–89). It appears that students coming to land grant universities from farm backgrounds with the intention of returning to production agricultural careers are emphasizing business aspects to a greater degree than production and management.
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Fig. 3. Distribution of student enrollment in environmental science related subjects for fall semester 2004 at 1862 U.S. Land Grant institutions in majors related to soil and crop sciences.
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Resident and nonresident undergraduate tuition rates and fees are shown in Fig. 4. Resident tuition and fees averaged $5500 for one semester with 15 course credit hours (range $2 500–$16 000). Nonresident tuition and fees averaged $14 800 for one semester with 15 course credit hours (range $6 000–$28 500).
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Fig. 4. Distribution of resident and nonresident tuition rates (15-credit hour load) and student fees for fall semester 2004 at 50 1862 U.S. Land Grant institutions.
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DISCUSSION
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Our data reveal clear and sometimes surprising trends that have significant implications for the future of agronomy as a profession in the USA. Most striking was that the majority of students enrolled in soil and crop science undergraduate majors are now in turfgrass, landscape, or horticulture programs, while less than a third of students are in programs with an agricultural production emphasis such as agronomy. This trend was noted as a significant concern by many of our survey respondents whose comments are perhaps as revealing as the data. One survey participant observed "Our undergraduate enrollment is down about a third from 4 yr ago," while another informed us that "We have seven students in Crop Science, but as of December 2004, the Crop Science major was deactivated by our Board of Regents for underenrollment." Another response stated that "...Without the ‘urban’ agriculture fields of horticulture (we have almost no students interested in vegetable and fruit production as opposed to landscape and floral crops) and turfgrass the major would not meet the number of graduates required to sustain a program." Yet another comment was that "....we are struggling to maintain a viable number of students in our production based agronomy curriculum and are unsure of ways to increase those numbers."
Clearly, undergraduate programs in soil and crop science are going through a critical and sometimes painful period of change and adjustment. For much of the 20th century the central discipline in land-grant agricultural colleges was agronomy, broadly defined as the application of soil and plant sciences to food and fiber production. As previously noted by other authors (e.g., National Research Council, 1997; Matthews, 1992) concerns over environmental impacts of U.S. farming practices are leading to increasing emphasis in undergraduate curricula on the interaction of agricultural production systems with natural resources, and the inclusion of areas such as agroecology and resource management, soil conservation, and water quality. Current socioeconomic factors and demographics are also playing a part in shaping new curricula at land-grant institutions nationwide (Grant et al., 2000). Agronomy students from rural farming backgrounds represent a diminishing minority in undergraduate enrollment. Future students in soil and crop sciences will increasingly be recruited from urban and suburban backgrounds, and current enrollment trends already show that such students have more interest in subjects related to landscape, horticulture, and turfgrass than in traditional production agronomy programs. Our survey data suggest that attempts to repackage soil and crop science curricula as environmental science programs have met with limited success. Although we did not survey environmental sciences enrollment outside agricultural colleges, we found anecdotal evidence that programs appealing to student interest in environment management, protection, and restoration are successful when they are more broad and interdisciplinary than if they are heavily focused from an agricultural perspective. This trend needs further study.
While attracting environmentally conscious urban students into traditional soil and crop sciences programs may be an uphill battle, a recent survey conducted by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln showed that "agriculture" in the college name had little influence on high school students choosing a college program (D. Hussman, 2005, personal communication). Results from this survey suggest that student choice of a program is primarily based on personal interest in the program curriculum. We note that despite declining enrollment in soil and crop science majors at U.S. land-grant institutions, there is continued demand for the substance of soil and crop science teaching, even while the type of student exhibiting that interest is changing. For example, many introductory and management related soil science courses at land-grant institutions have large numbers of enrolled students. These courses are an important part of the curriculum for students across a wide range of programs, including horticulture, landscape engineering, and natural resources majors. Similar success has been observed for general plant science courses and applied genetics. These successful courses are evidence that there is strong demand for the substance of soil and crop science teaching while amongst a diversity of student majors. We see this as an indication that the future of undergraduate soil and crop sciences teaching will depend on successful creation of interdisciplinary programs that involve soil and crop sciences as critical teaching and advising components with broader educational programs. Although our survey did not include a comprehensive evaluation of interdisciplinary majors that involve soil and crop sciences, some observations may be of interest. One university included in our survey offers an interdisciplinary Environmental Science major with participation from academic departments including geology, meteorology, ecology, and agronomy, and involving both the College of Agriculture and the College of Liberal Arts. This program has high student enrollment and draws equally among urban, suburban, and rural students. Although these students are not majoring in traditional soil or crop science areas, the soil science courses at this institution have recruited students in the major who otherwise would not have enrolled in them.
A national dialog about the future of undergraduate programs in soil and crop sciences at U.S. land-grant institutions is needed to develop a strategy and approach to address the changing societal needs. The need for such a dialog was brought into focus in 1992 and again in 1997 with the publication of reports from the National Research Council (1997; National Research Council Board on Agriculture, 1992). The enrollment data we report here, however, suggest that progress has been sporadic at best. The need for continued discussion and urgent action was highlighted by the recent formation of a new National Academy of Sciences committee to examine undergraduate education in the agricultural sciences at land-grant institutions across the USA (www.nationalacademies.org/summit, verified 2 May 2007). We suggest that a national dialog should include strategies to develop new, innovative, and increasingly interdisciplinary undergraduate programs. Questions such a dialog could address include: should future undergraduate agricultural education be more closely integrated with business education and/or natural resource management? Do traditional agronomy programs combining multiple aspects of crop production still have a place in undergraduate education? What breadth of skills and knowledge will be needed by students in the general areas of soil and crop sciences? Do current institutional and program structures best serve those needs? Student recruitment will continue to be an issue: traditional approaches such as targeting high school career fairs and contacting high school counselors have had limited success in generating students interested in soil and crop science programs. With limited resources and the decline of student numbers in our programs we must ask whether the way forward is to expand recruiting efforts for existing programs or to restructure our curricula. Modular courses in current key topics, for example, increase elective flexibility and provide a way to expose students in other majors to exciting new applications within our discipline.
We also propose that any national dialog must consider ways to continue to meet the needs of traditional clientele. Although soil and crop science graduates from traditional programs are declining in number, the importance of training students in these areas remains and employment prospects for them in management, research, and education are good. Meeting the needs of these students will likely require regional cooperation and specialization among the U.S. land-grant institutions.
The results of our study have implications for the future of agronomy in the USA. First, the next generation of farmers and ranchers with college degrees is much more likely to have taken professional business courses, if not a whole agribusiness major. Second, new entrants coming into the field of professional agronomy as researchers, professors, advisors, or consultants will increasingly be the products of interdisciplinary college programs where they mixed with nonagricultural students and took classes from nonagricultural faculty. We anticipate there are many ways that future food and fiber production will benefit from a broader outlook. Rather than mourning the demise of traditional agronomy programs we need to adjust to undeniable change and greet the challenge of educating the next generation of agricultural professionals with optimism and a proactive approach.
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ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION
