In the late 1980s, Charles Snyder was the agriscience teacher at Quincy High, located in a small burb of less than 2,000 people in Branch County. He didn’t win the World Ag Award, but he was an important person to Deb Schmucker and others who sought his guidance.

“The experience he provided in ag ed was my inspiration to tackle an ag education degree,” Schmucker says. “And he got me to the right people on the MSU campus.”

GREEN THUMB: Bearin Greenhill prunes tomatoes at Springport High’s hoophouse.

In 1994, Schmucker, who comes from a small family farm, graduated from Michigan State University with a degree in ag education and ag communications. In 1999, she got her master’s at MSU and then worked as a regional representative for Michigan Farm Bureau. She is now director of MFB’s Center for Education and Leadership Development.

Schmucker’s not alone at MFB; many of its employees have agriscience or ag communication degrees. “I loved agriculture, teaching kids and telling others about it. I found that in FFA, which made me want to pursue a career in ag,” she says.

Sparking career interest
That early high school exposure to the many facets of agriculture is often what drives students to MSU’s College of Agriculture and Natural Resources (CANR). It’s key to drawing young people into the industry, says Burt Henry, who was influenced by his college ag professor, Harry Gardner. “He was the only reason I became an ag ed teacher,” says Henry, who retired three years ago after 27 years at Alma High.

While the support and participation at the high school level is strong, the pursuit of an ag education degree from MSU has dwindled, and only one graduate will receive the degree in 2017.

This has drawn the attention of ag educators and school administrators as they seek ag teachers to replace retiring teachers and fill spots in new programs. It has also concerned agribusiness.

“If we start losing these ag programs because of the lack of teachers, we lose the best connection we have to getting young people in the industry,” says Dave Krueger, who spent 17 years at MSU before starting work at Baker College of Owosso in 2011 to design curriculums, including one that offers an associate degree of applied science in ag technology.

“Jim Byrum, president of the Michigan Agri-Business Association, has said in the next three to five years, 50% of midlevel ag employees will be retiring,” Krueger notes. “We’re not getting enough young people engaged in the ag industry.”

Kelly Millenbah, associate dean for academic and student affairs in CANR, says getting students engaged in food and ag studies is a national challenge. “Last year an AgCareers.com report said there were twice as many jobs in those areas than people to fill. That’s true for not just agriculture education, but all food and agriculture-related majors in our college.”

Part of the problem, she says, is students and the public think agriculture means hard, dirty work. “We recognize the importance of agriculture education programs and want to ensure that we are offering the best education possible to our students as they teach the next generation of agriculture and natural resources students at the high school level.”

Henry, former president of the Michigan Association of Agri-science Educators, offers one reason for the shortage of ag ed teachers: “It’s not an easy job.”

There are high expectations of talent and time, he says, as ag science teachers are asked to handle an array of topics from greenhouse and livestock to soils and aquaculture. “It’s way beyond the classroom. And it’s not just September to June and done.”

“You are an ambassador, a recruiter, adviser, volunteer coordinator, administrator, counselor, mentor, and when you throw in standardized testing, it’s more than an average teacher,” says John Schut, a 19-year ag educator who has spent the last 12 years helping build Caledonia High’s ag education program.

When he started in 2004, 100 students were enrolled. Since then, the two-teacher program, which also includes Stacy Bender, has more than 300 students.

Schut says strong community support and more than 400 alumni members have catapulted the program forward and will help it continue. But for new, smaller programs in communities less vested, the lack of competition among ag teachers means the weaker programs may perish as teachers fill other vacancies.

Even if students have that passion for agriculture and kids, just getting into MSU, with its stringent GPA and ACT requirements, is a problem for some students. Last year, MSU had 35,303 students apply for admission, with a few more than 7,900 enrolling. The average GPA was above 3.6, with an ACT score of 25.

If facing financial and academic struggles, some students start in community colleges and then transfer. MSU works with community colleges in the state to ensure students’ courses will transfer into a four-year program.

Also, unlike other universities that offer teaching degrees in 3.5 years with 12 weeks of student teaching, MSU’s College of Education requires a full year of unpaid student teaching.

Henry says he understands the need to fully prepare students as ag educators, but contends the extra time and cost is a detriment to the program, luring potential ag teachers into higher-paying industry positions or prompting students to get their education out of state. “It’s short-circuiting the path. It used to be you could count on 90% to 100% of state FFA officers going to MSU. Today, it’s all over the place.”

Schut’s daughter, Alex, is an example. She took ag education classes during middle school and high school. Yet, she is the first former state FFA president (2014-15) in more than 15 years to not attend MSU.

Improvements happening
MSU has made strides, says Randy Showerman, director of the Institute of Agricultural Tech-nology, who was until recently, also the state superintendent for Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources Education at MSU.

MSU has created an alternative to the normal five-year program, where students who complete the requirements for the AFNR education major, the requirements for teacher certification, and a minimum of 4,000 hours of recent and relevant work experience are recommended for a career and technical teaching endorsement in ag education (see story at right).

In addition, MSU awards more than $21,000 annually in scholarships from FFA Foundation endowments to students entering or enrolled in the AFNR education program, says Showerman.

To attract more students to ag education, MSU began a recruitment program called Challenge 24 Teacher Academy and Scholar-ship Program in 2015. Sponsored by the FFA Foundation, it is open to FFA members who pursue ag education at MSU.

Each year 10 students are selected to participate in a two-day workshop at MSU that provides information related to being a teacher of AFNR education.

Also, students who enroll in MSU’s ag ed program receive a $2,400 scholarship.

Outside credit
MSU is also the only university offering six credits to students who complete a state-approved AFNR Education program and have received the Michigan FFA degree. Those credits are good toward any bachelor’s degree or certificate program at MSU.

Even with those incentives, Schut says major damage has been done to ag ed at MSU, which will be difficult to reverse.

“Every Spartan bleeds green and white, but that pride and enthusiasm diminishes when outcomes of the department are not as stellar as they use to be,” says Schut, an MSU graduate and former state FFA president. “Ag education no longer seems to be a priority. Since ag education was stripped of its department and lumped into the department with environmental studies — Department of Community Sustainability — the land-grant mission has been diminished.”

With state and federal funding tightening, MSU reorganized the Department of Agriculture, Natural Resources, Education and Communication into the Department of Community, Agri-culture, Recreation and Resource Studies in 2002, under then-dean Jeff Armstrong. In 2013, it was renamed the Department of Community Sustainability.

Henry says the move marginalized ag education and moved it away from ag and into a department it doesn’t belong in. “It really needs to be pulled out of that department. It made sense to have it with communications, but there’s no longer a degree in ag communications. Maybe it should be grouped with Ag Tech.”

Millenbah says the college has extensively reviewed curriculum across all majors. “Because of this process and other factors, we added faculty members to the Department of Community Sustainability for agriculture education,” she says.

There had been a vacancy in ag ed with the retirement of professor Eddie Moore. Millenbah says 2.5 new positions were recently created and filled with an annual investment of between $210,000 and $220,000 to support the AFNR program.

Two positions are for tenure-track faculty. One will focus on formal school-based ag education and the other on nonformal ag education, such as activities tied to Extension, like the Children and Youth Institute, which would not require teacher certification.

Another new position is that of academic specialist, created in part from Showerman’s former role as the state ag supervisor and an additional half position added by CANR to make the post full time near July 1. Showerman will now focus fully on the Institute of Agricultural Technology program.

The tenured positions were filled and announced May 13. Aaron McKim will begin as a tenure-track assistant professor in August after completing his doctoral degree in science education from Oregon State University. His minors are agricultural education and interdisciplinary research methodology.

Jenny Hodbod, who received her doctorate in environmental social science from the University of East Anglia’s Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research in England, fills the other position in August.

Questions arise over hires
That announcement received a mixed reaction from Pete Barnum, who graduated with an ag ed degree from MSU in 1997 and is the Mason High agriscience teacher.

“It has been very difficult to watch the deterioration of what was once a very strong and valuable department from then to now,” he says. “Although I'm very excited about MSU's commitment to hire additional ag ed faculty, it is very difficult to understand MSU's thought process around those ag ed positions.

“On one hand, they hire someone that fits the mold of what we need in terms of a traditional agriscience-education career path. But, on the other hand, they hire someone with no ag ed background, no ag industry experience, and no familiarity or working history with the FFA to fill the second position.

“So while they are spending ag ed money to fund the second position, it is really hard to understand how a social scientist and climate change researcher are going to help produce qualified ag teachers in the state of Michigan,” Barnum says. “This seems like a natural consequence from being in a department without a focus on ag ed. To flourish, ag ed needs to be in a new department with leadership that believes in and values ag education.”

In the meantime, Baker College, Jackson College and others are looking to provide more offerings to students interested in agricultural careers.

University implements ‘emergency’ certification
To help address the deficit of ag educators in Michigan, MSU has implemented “emergency” certification, which provides a couple of different avenues for getting teachers into the classrooms.

The first choice is with a person who holds a secondary teaching certification with endorsements in AFNR education and science in addition to an occupational certification. This would require a student to complete MSU’s Secondary Teacher Education Program in AFNR education; pass the state required certification test; complete a bachelor’s degree in an area of agriculture or natural resources; and have 4,000 hours of recent (last five years) and relevant (in an area of ag or natural resources) work experience.

Second choice would be a person with an occupational certification. This requires a student to complete a bachelor’s in ag or natural resources; pass the state certification test; and have the 4,000 hours of recent work experience.

Last choice would be when a school has to apply for an annual authorization for a person, which requires 4,000 hours of recent work experience.