Fifteen percent of the Institute of Applied Agriculture’s current students come from the eight counties that make up Maryland’s Eastern Shore, which is up from just 4% in 2013.
What attracts them to the IAA? According to second-year student, James Hastings, it’s the small learning community created within the IAA. “Being from the Eastern Shore, most of us are from small towns, so coming here from high school is such a big jump. Coming to the IAA first makes that transition less scary,” explains Hastings, an Agricultural Business Management Major from Hurlock, MD.
The small class sizes and close-knit community housed within the University of Maryland campus is also appealing to students from the more rural areas of Maryland. “It [the IAA] allowed us to get comfortable here and still be part of the larger university,” Hastings adds.
How else? The IAA is a united and connected agricultural community that maintains strong ties with alumni. “I believe that leveraging alumni to actively recruit students from the Eastern Shore allows us to prepare rural communities for the challenges of 21st century agriculture,” says IAA Lecturer and Advisor for Agricultural Business Management, Leadership, and Communication, Larisa Cioaca. Nineteen seventy-nine Golf Course Management IAA alum, Mike Salvio, is now a superintended at Ocean City Golf Club in Berlin, Maryland. He was the main influential factor for first-year student, Tyler Johnson to attend the IAA in the Golf Course Management specialization.
In the past five years, the IAA has been reaching out to prospective students living in Maryland’s eastern shore counties and enlisting its alumni to spread the word through their industries. Johnson said, “It [the IAA] truly is a hidden gem in the state for the agriculture community but had it not been for our alumni, I wouldn’t have known about it.”
As 1997 Golf Course and Ornamental Horticulture alum Mark Beaven put it, “[The IAA] is customized for the rural community but it’s hard to reach.” At the IAA, we are continually making conscious efforts to better serve the agriculture community and are proud of the progress we have made in recent years.
Whether studying Golf Course Management, Ornamental Horticulture, Agricultural Business Management, or any of other five specializations, students flocked to the IAA from the rural community to better themselves for their future endeavors in the state’s #1 industry: agriculture. Ben Beaven, son of Mark Beaven, and a first-year Agricultural Business Management student, has plans to attend flight school to become an agriculture pilot and then apply his IAA education to allow him to run a successful aerial application company.
At the IAA, staff and faculty pride themselves in serving rural communities to preserve the state's agricultural heritage while introducing 21st century thinking and practices. The IAA, with its 90% job placement upon graduation provides the foundation for its students and will continue to help students launch their careers. Do you know someone interested in our program? Send them our way!
