Michigan State University was a
school built off of agriculture, but are agriculture and horticulture still as
relevant and important to the university today?
Tyler
Gilson, the President TITLES ARE LOWER
CASE UNLESS DIRECTLYIN FRONT OF TITLE HOLDER’S NAME, PER AP STYLE of the
Student Horticulture Association at MSU, said that he believes it is; however,
there have been some changes in agriculture and horticulture since MSU was
founded.
“The
focus is going away from landscaping and it’s now on fruit and vegetable
production and organic production,” Gilson said. “Probably 10 to 15 years ago, landscaping
was huge. So, we are kind of getting a shift in that direction.”
Gilson said that,
in his opinion, it’s important that students know about the role of agriculture
in society, where their food comes from, and the labor that goes into growing
and selling produce.
“To me, there’s
just a general lack of awareness of what horticulture is and what agriculture
is and how it’s, like, necessary to sustain life,” Gilson said. “There’s kind
of a serious disconnect about where people’s food comes from and what actually
happens.”
Gilson
said that part of the Student Horticulture Association’s role is to educate
students on horticulture and to connect them to internships that can guide them
to a job in the industry. The student organization, which meets every
Wednesday, has about 56 members.
“We
try to take our members out to do educational stuff; get them to see the real
world and what it’s going to be like when they graduate,” said Gilson.
Gilson
said that both agriculture and horticulture are still relevant to MSU.
“I
think today it’s even more relevant because there’s so much groundbreaking
stuff that’s happening,” said Gilson. “It was very important in 1855 when MSU
was founded, you know, because that’s kind of the whole reason why we were
founded. That technology was very new and very groundbreaking, and farming was
kind of the way everyone made a living,”
In
addition to these groundbreaking discoveries in the horticulture and
agriculture industry, there are also varying jobs that students in these fields
are qualified for. Susan Gruber, the undergraduate academic advisor for the
Department of Horticulture and an instructor, said that there are many paths
that a horticulture student can take after graduating.
“Horticulture
encompasses all of the intensively cultivated plants; you can think of it as
the expensive plants. So, ornamentals of all kinds, tree shrubs, flowers, cut
flowers, fruits and vegetables, and then emerging crops like hops are often
considered horticultural,” said Gruber. “So, across that spectrum, we have
students who are interested in really diverse careers; everything from
landscape designers to organic farmers, and everything in between.”
Gruber
said that, since the field is so diverse, the Department of Horticulture has
three areas of concentration: the Landscape Design, Construction and Management
concentration, the Horticultural Science concentration, and the Sustainable and
Organic Horticulture concentration. MAJORS
AND CONCENTRATIONS ARE LOWER CASE, PER AP STYLE
“If
I graduate 20 people this spring, there may be two or three who have similar
jobs to each other,” said Gruber. “The diversity ever year is consistent. You
know, my graduating students are in these very different careers, so it’s sort
of a rainbow.”
As
well as the continuing amount of diversity in the chosen fields of horticulture
students at MSU, there is also a consistency in the number of enrolled
students, Gruber said.
“In
the last eight to nine years, our enrollment has been very consistent,” Gruber
said. “Our total number of majors has been pretty steady, but that’s actually a
win for us because nationwide enrollment in plant science programs and in horticulture
programs has been declining. So, a steady state is good.”
Although
the amount of enrolled students in the Department of Horticulture has
practically remained the same within the past few years, Gruber said that the
department is always looking for more students.
“We
have five or six jobs for every student,” said Gruber. “Internships and
permanent placement: 100 percent. So, we could increase our enrollment by 50
percent and still have jobs for everybody, or double our enrollment and still have
jobs, and the industry would be thrilled because they’re dying for qualified
people.”
Even
though there is an abundance of jobs out there for students studying
horticulture, there are still many people who don’t know what it is.
“It’s
amazing to me the amount of people who don’t know where their food comes from,”
said Gruber. “The slow food movement, I think, has been good, but I still don’t
think that people connect that to the word ‘horticulture.’ It’s just not a word
that’s out there enough.”
Many
who have heard the word “horticulture” have some misconceptions and
misunderstandings about what the subject actually is and what it entails,
Gruber said.
“Some
of these horticultural firms are multinational companies, and there’s traveling
and excitement and technology, it’s just that people don’t know that. They
perceive that it’s, you know, a couple of guys with a beat up pick-up truck and
some weed whackers, and that’s not us,” said Gruber.
Gruber said that
it’s rare to get incoming freshman in the Department of Horticulture. Most of
the department’s population consists of students who switched their majors from
another college within MSU or students who transferred from another university.
“MSU
is an amazing place to study plants,” Gruber said. “We have all of this synergy
of plant science departments and students can cross over and take minors in
other plant science programs, and then they go out with this amazing package.”
Just
like in the horticulture industry, the demand for agriculture students is high,
according to Ruthi Bloomfield, the academic advisor for Food Industry
Management in the Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics. WHERE? AT MSU?
“The
demand for our grads is pretty great,” said Bloomfield. “For Food Industry
Management and Agribusiness MAJORS ARE
LOWER CASE, PER AP STYLE students who do internships, engage in their
classes, and do, like, extracurriculars, there are jobs out there. Again,
because people always have to eat. So, there are more jobs than we have grads
for.”
Although
the demand is high for agriculture graduates, the number of students in the
Food Industry Management MAJORS ARE
LOWER CASE, PER AP STYLE has decreased within the last year or so, said
Bloomfield. Still, agriculture is imperative to society.
“People
always have to eat, so agriculture is always going to be something that is
critical to the health of our future and planet,” said Bloomfield.
Agriculture
has been changing with increases in population, advances in technology, and new
discoveries. According to Dale Elshoff, the academic advisor for Agribusiness
Management and Environmental Economics and Management, agriculture at MSU has
expanded and evolved throughout the years.
“We’re
not just working to improve the lives of people in Michigan, but really across
the globe,” said Elshoff. “So, that’s one thing that’s changed a lot.”
Word Count: 1,113
Tyler Gilson:
-President of the MSU Student
Horticulture Association/MSU senior majoring in Horticulture
-Email: gilsont1@msu.edu
-Phone: (517) 920-1025
Susan Gruber:
-Undergraduate Advisor for the
Department of Horticulture/Instructor
-Email: grubers@msu.edu
-Phone: (517) 353-0326
Ruthi Bloomfield:
-Undergraduate Advisor for Food
Industry Management in the Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource
Economics
-Email: bloomf19@msu.edu
-Phone: (517) 432-5298
Dale Elshoff:
-Undergraduate Advisor for
Environmental Economics and Management and Agribusiness in the Department of
Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics
-Email: elshoff@msu.edu
-Phone: (517) 884-8976
ASSIGNMENT GRADE: (redacted)
INSTRUCTOR’S COMMENTS: SOLID SOURCING, GOOD STRUCTURE, NICE WRITING.
THE ONE MISS WAS PROBABLY DATA: HOW MANY MAJORS THIS YEAR, AND HOW MANY
COMPARED TO PREVIOUS YEARS? IS IT TRENDING UP OR DOWN? STILL, NICE WORK!
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