May 2012 Graduation Ceremony
Image Credit: Edwin Remsberg
Here’s a novel idea: Graduate from college and find a job. Although lately, with an economy working to get back on its feet, that seems easier said than done.
A Rutgers University study released this past summer reported that looking at all college graduates since 2006, only 51 percent now have a full-time job — and that doesn’t factor whether it’s a graduate’s dream job, or one that was taken just to have employment.
The Institute of Applied Agriculture (IAA), a 60-credit academic certificate program in the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources at the University of Maryland at College Park, has been standing that dismal statistic on its head.
“Ninety-two percent of our students have jobs when they graduate,” said Glori Hyman, IAA’s director since 2011, after serving four years as acting director. She came to IAA in 1990.
The 92 percent employment rate for IAA graduates “has been that high” for the last 18 years, “even in this economy,” she said, recalling how a graduate last December had the enviable task of trying to make up his mind after receiving six job offers.
“Part of it is that they’re well trained and they’re really good workers,” Hyman said.
Adam Newhart, who graduated from the Institute in 2002 and works as a project manager in charge of the urban forest and other landscaping for the city of Gaithersburg, believes the secret to IAA’s success is that, “They teach you what you need to know and get you out the door.”
Course work is condensed into two years and includes an eight week internship, fulfilling the mission when IAA was started in 1965 of having a post-secondary, technical program that was more career-oriented and less time consuming than a bachelor’s degree program.
“We provide a program designed for career-oriented study — for those wanting to go into ag-related enterprises. We ignite careers, only we say ag-nite,” Hyman said with a chuckle.
IAA helps settle the quandary, for example, of students wondering: should I major in business or agricultural science? The Institute does both, whether you’re in golf course management, crop production or sustainable agriculture.
“We’re seeing a big movement in sustainable agriculture as a niche, where people are using smaller pieces of property that Maryland, being a smaller state, is suited for,” Hyman said. “Some operations have five to ten acres and are specializing in herbs and cut flowers. The buy local movement has also helped.”
From plants to personnel
The course listings run the gamut of turf grass management, crop production, irrigation and drainage, alternative agricultural enterprises, soil and fertilization, writing, math and business law.
“They are taught how to manage plants, manage personnel and manage business,” said Ken Ingram, who began teaching at the Institute after 30 years in turf, grounds and golf course management. Ingram is like many of his students, the ones he calls “career changers.”
“Tobacco farmers are doing other things,” he said and the same is true of people “who may have worked 20 years at a profession and are just dying to work with their hands outside.”
Students have run the age range of 17 to 72.
Ingram recalled a student who spent years at a computer compiling data and when she retired seized on her hobby as a backyard gardener, becoming a student and now working her next career at the campus arboretum.
Deborah Dramby is another example. A graduate this past spring in sustainable agricultural business management, she already had degrees in English and journalism and had worked for a newspaper and other publications.
“Media is really different these days,” she said, deciding to instead take a whole other career path. Food and farming are the next big thing and “I wanted to be a part of it.”
Dramby had considered going back to school for a master’s, “but I didn’t see one that would have this much doing.” IAA “got right to the point of what I was looking for … we had farm tours and they brought in farmers to speak to the class …it got me started and connected me to a budding life in farming beyond my wildest dreams.”
The woman who didn’t grow up with a farm background is working at Williford, a two-and-a-half-acre vegetable farm in Virginia that is part of a housing development, similar to how homes are grouped around a golf course.
“Even when it’s hard work you know you’re doing good for your body and for other peoples bodies,” Dramby said.
For Newhart, the landscaping graduate, that was a career he wanted “ever since I was little.” Prior to studying at IAA, he completed a two-year landscaping class at Frederick County’s career and technology school.
During his stint at Maryland, Newhart said he was impressed by the courses being “geared specifically to the technical aspects as well as how to run a business. You didn’t need to take Art 499 just to meet a requirement. Everything you took there was “applied” to what is needed on the job.
‘Like Family’
The experience was also valued in that “fellow students and faculty were like family. It was like living in a small town where everybody knew everybody else. There were no lecture halls with hundreds of people.” Newhart said faculty was available to answer questions from class, as well as give career advice and tips on job contacts.
With current enrollment at 54 students, Hyman also touts the advantage of working with a small group.
“Another one of our strengths is that students get all the resources of a world class university and at the same time receive individual attention from the five faculty members devoted to the IAA,” she said.
Newhart took a direction opposite of the one Dramby followed, earning a bachelor’s degree in management after finishing at IAA by transferring to University of Maryland University College.
Hyman said that for students wishing to continue their education, IAA provides a gateway into degree programs. Many of the Institute courses are transferrable into AGNR majors and into a Management Studies major at UMUC.
In addition to the Institute’s five faculty members, there are also three who teach oral communication. The university has made oral communication a general education requirement and students outside of the Institute can take this IAA class.
“The university really liked the class” IAA was offering, Hyman said. “It was not just lectures,” instead students practice impromptu speaking, role-playing and the like.
This is not the only example of the program being a shining light to the university.
IAA was a leader in internships, Ingram said, and now most programs at Maryland require them. “It’s just amazing where our students end up — the Smithsonian, art museums, public gardens, Congressional Country Club … Internships can be life changing. I came to Washington on an internship 30 years ago and never left.”
Additionally, “we see a lot of entrepreneurship with our students. It was happening in IAA even before the rest of the university initiated it,” Ingram said.
Some of that entrepreneurship, Hyman said, includes students raising goats to produce cheese, raising free-range chickens and growing mushrooms. “We’re not trying to pigeon-hole students, rather we try and show them what’s out there. But you know, they’re probably going to come up with things we’ve never even thought of.”
Another bragging right is that IAA started the first-in-the-nation student chapter of the Professional Grounds Management Society (PGMS) that promotes networking and exchange of ideas in the industry. Newhart, who was involved in the student chapter, is currently serving as president of the D.C. branch.
The PGMS student chapter participates in service projects, which included moving plants from the grounds of the old president’s house when it was being demolished and transplanting them to another part of campus.
Beyond the building
The Institute is keen on going outside the classroom walls, scheduling field trips, as well as bringing outside speakers. “We have close ties in the industry,” Hyman said, and often guest lecturers are alumni. “Whatever is new and happening out there we try and bring into the classroom.”
The biggest initiative to reaching out is the eight week internship requirement, an experience that often leads to job offers as well as personal validation for students that they are pursuing the right career.
Brian Grace, one of the course superintendents at Woodmont Country Club in Rockville, said they have three to four interns a year at the 36-hole course that covers close to 500 acres, which is a lot of turf.
“With the golf course industry, so much of it is on the-job training,” Grace said, but “we can see” how much the students already know when they get there. “Overall it’s been very good, a great success.”
In addition to Maryland interns, grace said Woodmont also welcomes turf interns from around the country as well as hospitality interns from Europe. In addition to the work experience, being able to interact with those from different backgrounds is also a good lesson.
Hyman said it’s not unusual for an internship to turn into a permanent job, a move that adds to the amazing 92 percent employment rate enjoyed by the Institute.
Article Published: Momentum Magazine
Pages:2-6
Date of Publication: January 2013
