Two departments working together to form new degree
shape in the coming months.
Leaders from the agricultural systems technology and education (ASTE) department and the department of journalism and communications are waiting on approval from the State Board of Regents for a new agricultural journalism degree.
The new degree, if approved, will be offered to students as soon as fall semester 2006.
“Basically, it’s a merging of a communications and journalism degree with an agriculture degree,” ASTE Associate Professor Rudy Tarpley said. “So students will be able to compete in the journalism market and work in agriculture. It truly is a partnership.”
The new major would require only one new class to be added into the ASTE department – Introduction to Agricultural Communication. Students would take all the same classes required for a journalism and communications degree with the addition of agriculture classes. The degree would require four years to receive a bachelor’s degree. In a nutshell, it’s like having two degrees in one, Tarpley said.
“We believe we are putting agriculturally literate people in society,” he said. “I think it’s absolutely going to explode.”
Currently, there are about a dozen students interested in participating in the agriculture communications program and the two departments expect there will be about 50 students enrolled in this major within five years, Tarpley said.
Journalism Department Head Mike Sweeney hopes that eventually, if enough students become interested in this major, the university will be able to hire a new faculty member in the journalism department. The proposal for the new major has been approved by the administration and the Board of Trustees and is being submitted to the Utah Board of Regents. A final decision will be made this summer during the regents’ regular session.
“We’ve got our fingers crossed for this next fall,” Tarpley said.
Sweeney said this kind of degree makes a USU student much more marketable in journalism and agriculture professions because of the background it provides in agricultural communications.
“I’d say it’s the combination of skills,” he said. “You can’t have one without the other to market yourselves toward these kinds of jobs.”
The two departments don’t anticipate any additional costs due to the new major. Currently, there are only a few colleges and universities throughout the nation that offer this degree, including Oklahoma State University, Texas Tech University and University of Florida, Tarpley said.
“There’s no other ag/journalism program in the Intermountain West,” Sweeney said.
-mmackay@cc.usu.edu