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Speech
Sam Smith, current chairman of the Board of Directors of NASULCG, spoke at Iowa State recently. NASULGC, the National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges, is an organization focused on change in higher education. Iowa State is home to the FSPE 2020 initiative.
Changes and Trends in Colleges of Agriculture
July 11, 2000Thank you for inviting me to joining you today, I will use my allocated time to discuss three major changes or trends relative to Colleges of Agriculture, the Kellogg Foundation Initiative within NASULGC, and then be pleased to respond to your questions or comments.
Having just completed 15 years as the President of Washington State University, a Land Grant Institution, and currently the chairman of the Board of Directors of NASULCG: I have become increasingly aware of three serious changes or trends occurring relative to Colleges of Agriculture, within the Land Grant University System.
Let me say, that for the sake of brevity, I will use the generic term "College of Agriculture." I am very much aware of the issues of inclusion. I am very much aware of the wide range of academic areas included in these colleges and often reflected in their names. My use of this term is intended to be widely inclusive but expedient.
As I said, I have been a University President for 15 years, chaired national organizations of University Presidents and Chancellors including the Presidents Commission of the NCAA.
The First Trend - The first area I want to comment upon is the lack of agricultural background and training in today's Presidents or Chancellors. There are somewhere between 3,200 and 3,600 Presidents or Chancellors. Of these, you can count easily upon one hand those with an agricultural background and I believe there are none that I know of that have been a Dean of Agriculture, at a Land Grant University.
While our institutions have been growing, increasing in size, opening new campuses, and initiating "on-line" or "virtual universities," the numbers of Presidents and Chancellors with agricultural training or education have largely disappeared.
I am aware that there are several Vice-Presidents, Vice Chancellors or Vice Provosts of Agriculture at the university level and I am hopeful that some of these may migrate into Presidencies or Chancellorships.
The bottom line is that today's University Presidents or Chancellors want to help Colleges of Agriculture but are not from any of the academic or administrative areas of agriculture such as Deans or Directors. They do not, as a group, have a history in the "culture" of colleges of agriculture. The "culture" of Colleges of Agriculture is quite distinctive and sometimes confusing to outsiders.
The Second Trend - Speaking now as a former University President, there is an increasing isolation of Colleges of Agriculture from the array of issues that today's universities along with their presidents and chancellors see as priorities. This is not a deliberate attempt to isolate but a gradual evolution in separate directions. Further isolation is occurring. As I travel around the country, increasingly I find that some of our heartiest, most traditional supporters are feeling that they are not being listened to or supported. It varies from state to state as to whether the blame is placed on the College of Agriculture or the Central Administration of the university.
Even further isolation is occurring within the Colleges of Agriculture and NASULGC. At a time when Colleges of Agriculture are most in need of friends to help increase federal funding, they are not communicating within the very organization that is trying to help them. Let me provide two examples: First, as the Chairman of the Board of Directors, and having been on the board for several years, I can tell you we have never seen your College of Agriculture budget request that you have before the Federal Congress. Our member institutions have over 100, full time professional lobbyists that could help but you have not even communicated well with them.
The second example, while we are speaking today, the Science Coalition, composed of many major universities some of which are members of NASULGC, are in Washington D.C. asking for increased federal funds for research. The federal requests from our Colleges of Agriculture is not on their agenda. Except in rare instances those individuals that are lobbying for increased support could be helping our Colleges of Agriculture. I communicated with members of the Science Coalition last night and they have simply never been asked by our Colleges of Agriculture, through NASULGC to help.
The bottom line is that Colleges of Agriculture are becoming too isolated and they are hurting themselves by this isolation.
The Third Trend - While federal dollars in support of science have been dramatically increasing at double digit rates, Colleges of Agriculture have at best been staying even with previous years or decreasing. Colleges of Agriculture and their approaches to the federal congress must change or see decreasing budgets.
While we are here today, I remind you that a few hundred individuals are in Washington D.C. seeking increased federal finding and Colleges of Agriculture are largely not included or are ignored because of lack of communication.
While, NSF and NIH are "staffing up" to be able to handle the increased levels of funding, Colleges of Agriculture, like the group here today are doing what sounds very much like "whining." Whining will get us no where.
Today, a few states, such as Illinois, Iowa and Washington are enjoying success with their State Legislatures in increasing funding for their Colleges of Agriculture. A number of other states are attempting to organize and develop coalitions.
Coalition building, gathering of friends and supporters, proving to be successful in increasing support at the State Level. These coalitions often contain our traditional supporters and a much broader range of new, non-traditional allies.
What is working at the State level can work at the Federal level. With that as context, let's now turn to the Food and Society Initiative of NASULGC in partnership with the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.
There have been numerous discussions over the last several years amongst Presidents and Chancellors about the increasing isolation of Colleges of Agriculture. Many of these discussions have occurred in or around the meetings of the Kellogg Commission on the Future of State and Land Grant Universities. This commission, a partnership between the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and NASULGC, was composed of around 30 Presidents or Chancellors and representatives of a Lay Advisory Group. The members of the commission met, debated, learned, and shared with each other their views of the future. If you haven't read the six major publications, I would suggest you do so.
A few years ago, while the Kellogg Commission was in progress, the NASULGC Board of Directors appointed an "ad-hoc"committee chaired by Larry Vanderhoef, Chancellor of the University of California at Davis, to look at the future of agricultural research and education. The "Vanderhoef" did an excellent job of assessing the current status and urged that a Presidential Committee be appointed to seek additional federal funding.
Please note, that this thrust to increase funding for Colleges of Agriculture is coming from Presidents and Chancellors as they view the future of their institutions.
This Presidential Committee has been appointed and once again NASULGC is partnering with the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.
This Food and Society Committee is chaired by Dr. William (Brit) Kerwan, President of the Ohio State University. There are several other presidents or chancellors on this committee, but as we are here in the North Central Region I feel I should mention two members from this region: Dr. James Stukel, President of the University of Illinois and Dr. Martin Jischke Currently President of Iowa State University and soon to be President of Purdue University.
This Food and Society Committee, a Presidential Committee is looking to the NASULGC Board of Agriculture for guidance: Thomas Fretz (University of Maryland, Rodney Brown (Utah State University), Walter Hill (Tuskegee University). Charles Hess, a long respected member of our College of Agriculture community is also providing valuable input.
Please note that the Presidents and Chancellors are looking to the Board of Agriculture of NASULGC as our primary contact.
I have agreed to be the Executive Director for the Initiative that is developing from the Food and Society Committee.
The committee is organizing this initiative and we are making the rounds of the regional meetings of the Colleges of Agriculture as well as several other gatherings this summer to gain valuable input and attempt to overcome some of the present isolation.
Let me digress here for a moment and offer some advice. As a former President, Agriculture Dean, Director of Extension and Experimentation Director. We in the College of Agriculture community have our own culture which is important to us but frankly not understood by outsiders.
We make major distinctions between those individuals that are responsible for our academic programs, our extension programs and our experiment station Programs. Over the last 10 years, I have had to explain these distinctions to a significant number of Presidents, Chancellors and Central Administrators. These distinctions mean very little to them and the concept of our having COP's has often been met with mild disbelief.
I am aware, and Presidents and Chancellors are becoming aware that some of the COP's are further isolating themselves from NASULGC. The Presidents and Chancellors are looking to the Administrative Heads of the Colleges of Agriculture to get their house in order. The Administrative heads would be wise to do so before these Presidents and Chancellors that are trying to help find it necessary to do the job for them.
As a former President, I remind you the federal and state funds come to the University and not the College of Agriculture. All individuals paid off of the Federal and State Funds that come to the University work for the University.
We need to all be working together. The Food and Society Committee needs to have our Colleges of Agriculture house in order if we are to develop a broad based coalition similar to the Science Coalition which has proven successful.
We envision this initiative to include the Department of Agriculture as well as several other Departments or Agencies: Energy, Defense, Health, State, Education, Environmental Protection, Food and Drug, National Institute of Health, National Science Foundation and others.
The Council of Government Affairs (CGA) along with representatives of the Board of Agriculture are at present, drafting a political "Road Map" and are meeting in Washington D.C. tomorrow.
In September, the membership of the Food and Society committee will be formalized and the potential structure of the initiative will be discussed.
There are also several other groups such as CFAR in Illinois that are in the process of developing a national initiative to increase federal support for Colleges of Agriculture, I spent some time yesterday with representatives of CFAR and assured them we should all communicate and work together, where ever possible, toward common goals.
I will now close my comments and as I stated earlier I would be pleased to respond to questions or comments.
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