Keep LBCC Hort and Crop Production

Deck: Linn-Benton Community College moves forward to eliminate horticulture and crop production department despite campus and community opposition

At Wednesday's Board of Education meeting, President Hamann was not able to fully answer Chair Jim Merryman's question regarding the relationship between Horticulture and Agriculture at LBCC.  

"I'm not the best person to ask," said Hamann, who made the decision to cut the Horticulture and Crop Production Department, one quarter of Ag Science faculty, and 31 classes in the Ag Science Department.  

The classes that stand to be eliminated are all five Crop and Soil Science classes, seven out of 11 Agriculture classes, two out of four Agriculture Business Management classes and all 17 Horticulture classes.

One of these Horticulture classes is Pesticide Safety.  

Benton County Fairgrounds employee and self-proclaimed "forever student" Harrison Williams said courses at LBCC have helped him at his job, including Horticulture 8.130: "Pesticide Safety" and Agriculture 250: "Irrigation Systems."  

"Pesticide Safety," said Williams, "works really well as preparation for the Oregon Applicator's License."  

"There is immediate added value after a term," said Williams, who took AG 250 Irrigation Systems this term and plans to put his project conclusions in the file at work.

"We needed to use a real site, so I thought... I'll use work!" said Williams, who said he looked at sprinkler prices and coverage in his project.

"It's penny-pinching, but we're a penny-pinching department.  It's our skill set.  It's what we're known for."

Although Williams' official title is a Business Assistant at the Fairgrounds, he said he spends just as much time outdoors as he does at the computer.  

For Williams, classes like "Irrigation" and "Pesticide Safety" give "a baseline of understanding"  of knowledge and vocabulary to translate assessments "so you know what's necessary, what's not."  

If the proposed elimination of two Hort majors and the Crop major goes through, Agriculture Science at LBCC will be left with two Ag Business programs and two Animal Science programs.  The Ag Business majors have only one required hands-on class, Crop and Soil Science 205, and it stands to be cut.  The Animal Science programs have no required soil or crops classes.

LBCC Ag Science, Horticulture Major Kylen McKinney said that he started studying horticulture because, "I like being outside and doing manual labor so I got a job in a nursery and fell in love with the plants." 

Both McKinney and Williams found out about the proposed cuts through word of mouth and spoke at the Board of Education Meeting which was standing room only, with 25 plus Agriculture Science, Horticulture students in attendance as well as community members, LBCC staff, LBCC alum, and fellow concerned students.

The LBCC student-body at large have not been notified of any of the proposed cuts as of this writing, although students who are majoring in Hort and Crop Production were notified of the impending cuts in the Mar. 15 letter from the dean of science, engineering and math, Kristina Holton, copied below.

Good Afternoon,

I am writing to you because you are connected with the LBCC Horticulture program, either as a declared major in the program or you have taken a significant number of credits within the program. You may have already heard that, given the college's current budget situation and the need to make reductions to find cost savings, the college is moving forward with suspending the Horticulture program, which includes the degree paths in both horticulture and crop production. This means that the program will no longer be advertised and will not be accepting new students. 

However, we will continue teaching courses within the Horticulture program, for at least the upcoming academic year (2019-20). It is our sincere hope that we can help current students complete their degrees and educational goals. In order to determine a plan for course offerings, we will need to better understand where you currently stand within the program, what you still have remaining and what your educational goals are. Our plan is to schedule a meeting with you where together we can look at your degree audit and determine what still remains in your degree plan. 

In the meantime, I encourage you to complete any courses you are currently taking, and continue with your plans and courses for spring term as they currently exist. We will reach out to you in the near future to schedule the planning meeting.

Thank you,

Kristina

--

Kristina Holton

Dean of Science, Engineering, and Mathematics

Linn-Benton Community College

Albany, OR 97321

(541) 917-4416