Challenges for Agricultural and Applied Economics Programs: Market Niches and Critical Success Factors Robert P. King Department of Applied Economics University of Minnesota National Association of Agricultural Economics Administrators Washington

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Challenges for Agricultural and Applied Economics
ProgramsMarket Niches and Critical Success
FactorsRobert P. KingDepartment of Applied
EconomicsUniversity of MinnesotaNational
Association of AgriculturalEconomics
AdministratorsWashington DCSeptember 9, 2011
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Introduction

• Declining public sector support for higher
  education
• Declining public sector investments in
  agricultural and social science research
• Sense that the ag brand may be too narrow for
  our faculty and students
• Dramatic turnover of faculty and agency staff due
  to retirements

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Introduction

• Strategic challenges and opportunities go far
  beyond departmental names.
• Discussion will center on three basic activity
  areas
• undergraduate teaching
• research and graduate programs
• outreach
• Well also talk about opportunities for
  regional/national collaboration.

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Undergraduate Teaching

• Key Challenges
• Increasing enrollment
• more offerings
• larger sections
• serving majors vs. service courses
• Staffing courses
• retirements of key people
• economics training vs. business training

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Undergraduate Teaching

• Environmental Factors
• Capped enrollment vs. growing enrollment
• Strengths and strategies of competing programs
• Economics Department
• Business School
• Strengths and strategies of home college
• Degree to which home university has an
  agricultural orientation

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Undergraduate Teaching

• Strategies - Enrollment
• Grow the major
• Grow a minor
• service to students in home college
• service to students across the university here
  name matters
• Partner with Economics or Business
• Partner with emerging interdisciplinary programs

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Undergraduate Teaching

• Strategies - Staffing
• Increase teaching loads
• Adjunct faculty
• departments own retirees
• local Ph.D. economists
• Graduate students
• teaching assistants
• instructors
• Much will depend on university budget model and
  competitive environment.

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Research and Graduate Programs

• Key Challenges
• Declining (or already non-existent) support funds
• Declining pools of competitive grant funds
• Increased emphasis on funding for
  interdisciplinary, cross-institutional projects
• Rising cost of graduate student support as
  tuition increases

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Research and Graduate Programs

• Environmental Factors
• Structure and strength of state support for
  agricultural research
• National/international reputation of home
  university
• Distribution of economists across other units in
  home university
• Collegiate home of Economics Department

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Research and Graduate Programs

• Strategies - Research
• Partnerships
• Intra-collegiate multidisciplinary partnerships
• Intra-university multidisciplinary partnerships
• Multi-university partnerships of agricultural and
  applied economics faculty
• Incentives
• Centers
• Nine month appointments
• Allocation of ICR funds to faculty who generate
  them

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Research and Graduate Programs

• Strategies Graduate Programs
• Agricultural Economics
• Joint with Economics Department
• Expand to include other applied economists
  outside of Economics Department
• Grow M.S. program
• agribusiness focus
• economic analyst focus

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Outreach

• Key Challenges
• Shrinking traditional clientele
• Competition from other educational service
  providers
• Rapidly declining resources
• Attracting talent
• Promotion and tenure

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Outreach

• Environmental Factors
• Current and projected organization of field staff
  their links with department
• Size of state diversity of state economy
• Integration of teaching, research, and outreach
  in home college
• Flexibility in appointment splits

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Outreach

• Strategies
• Exploit complementarities between extension
  teaching and undergraduate programs
• Foster strong research/extension teams within
  faculty
• Win-win for promotion and tenure
• More competitive for integrated research and
  extension competitive grants

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Outreach

• Strategies
• Outreach/Research Centers
• Purdue Center for Food and Agricultural Business
• Michigan State Center for Economic Analysis
• Florida Agricultural market Research Center
• Texas AM Agribusiness, Food Consumer Economics
  Research Center
• Can these be organized regionally?

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Regional/National Collaboration

• Regional or national collaboration may become the
  new normal. Here are just a few possibilities
• Regional or national groups of economists to take
  the lead on major NIFA proposals
• Regional or national graduate courses on
  specialized topics distance delivery or summer
  short courses
• Regional extension programs

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Breakout Discussions

• Group by region.
• Share ideas and strategies that have worked in
  each activity area.
• Explore opportunities for regional or national
  collaboration.
• Report back up to four actionable ideas.