With a new dean and vice president at the helm, the University’s agriculture programs reunited and entered a new era this semester.
The LSU Board of Supervisors consolidated the administrations of the College of Agriculture and the LSU AgCenter on Sept. 6. They had been separate since 1972, when the research and extension missions split from the college’s teaching program to form the AgCenter — an autonomous campus that has a presence in all 64 parishes of Louisiana.
The merge meant a change in job duties for Bill Richardson, the AgCenter’s chancellor since 1997. He remains in charge of the AgCenter in a new vice president for agriculture position. Because of the consolidation, Richardson also returned as dean of the college — the job he held from 1992 to 1997 — when Dean Kenneth Koonce retired on Oct. 7.
Koonce, who first came to the University in 1967 as an experimental statistics professor, was dean for 16 years. Although recent budget issues have made it more difficult to provide students a comprehensive education, Koonce said he made it a priority to increase involvement in clubs, undergraduate research and the Agriculture Residential College.
Richardson is now focusing on integrating research, extension and teaching as seamlessly as possible. The consolidation of the college and AgCenter follows an internal reorganization in the spring at the AgCenter, which put research and extension under a united structure. Richardson said the next step is to incorporate academics and get the entire land grant mission of the University on the same page.
While consolidation did not open access to any new funding, Richardson believes the AgCenter and College of Agriculture can now make better, more coordinated decisions about how to invest in the needs of students and faculty. The “silos” from which each of the three missions used to operate and that sometimes impeded cooperation have been torn down, he said.
This new structure is unique, Richardson said, and universities nationwide are watching to see if it is successful.
One of Richardson’s top priorities is to increase private fundraising so the college can offer more freshmen scholarships and be able to compete with universities such as Texas A&M. Searches are underway for a development officer and an alumni relations coordinator who, along with a dean’s council, will be tasked with raising money and engaging alumni and friends of the college.
Another goal is to increase and enhance recruiting efforts. Richardson said the agriculture job market is doing well, but enrollment in college-level programs has declined.
Richardson said the “plows, sows and cows” stereotype of agriculture is to blame in many cases. Students often are interested when made aware of academic and career opportunities in agriculture, he said, but more students need to be reached with that message. Richardson wants to target 4-H participants — a “built-in audience” of high-quality students, many of whom are minorities, he said — and rural high schools.
“The kids in the rural schools are just as good as the kids in the urban schools — there’s just not as many of them,” Richardson said. “I understand allocation of resources and so forth, but I want the kids at Many High School to know we’re just as interested in them as the ones at [Catholic High School] and [St. Joseph’s Academy] here in town.”
Retention rates also need improvement, Richardson said, so he wants to establish a hands-on, open-door style as dean to let students know he is there to help. While attracting more freshmen is important, Richardson said he recognizes the University’s 1,700-student College of Agriculture will probably never be as big as Texas A&M’s, which has about 7,000 students. It is therefore crucial, he said, to make the college the best it can be for the University and Louisiana.