The mission and vision of the university
As is common for many university websites, the website of Central State University (CSU) contains both a Mission and a Vision Statement. The Vision of CSU is to produce graduates who will make an impact on the global society (Our Vision, Our Mission, n.d.). CSU deems it important to maintain excellence in teaching and embrace diversity. Concerning the mission, CSU prepares students with diverse backgrounds who are ready to lead, research, and serve (Our Vision, Our Mission, n.d.). The foundations for this process are the liberal arts and a nurturing environment.
For Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University (FAMU), the mission is the advancement of knowledge and citizens’ empowerment. To his end, FAMU provides a student-centered environment to prepare students for service to society. It further declares a commitment to improve the lives of constituents and address global problems through international partnerships. The target audience of the University’s historical mission to educate is African-American. The essential values of FAMU are scholarship, excellence, openness, diversity, courage, and others.
FAMU’s vision is to be a premier doctoral research university that produces internationally competitive graduates. To achieve this purpose, FAMU aims to prepare them for the prospective competition in the global economy. FAMU assumes that modern students wish to become innovators and change the world and its social issues. The principles listed in the Vision statement are similar to the mission’s values and are as follows: “quality, integrity, transparency, accountability, core values, and outstanding customer service” (About FAMU, n.d., para. 9). Thus, FAMU’s vision is dedicated to preparing its students for change and competition.
While the two Universities generally follow the same mission, which is to produce diverse alumni ready to serve society, there are a few notable differences. First, FAMU lists its essential values and principles, with these listings being excessive but informative. Second, FAMU states the means of which its students will be trained to help global society, which is through competitiveness, innovativeness, and participation in international projects. Thus, FAMU’s Statements give a better understanding of its mission and vision. However, they are largely the same in CSU’s case, just less detailed.
Agricultural academic programs
Both Universities offer several Agricultural academic programs, each of which includes several specialties. CSU’s standard Bachelor’s degree in Agriculture offers the specializations of Agricultural Education, Sustainable Agriculture, and an Ohio Agriscience Teaching License (Agricultural Education – Central State University, n.d.). The Sustainable Agriculture course is the only such course in Ohio. CSU pays special attention to training teachers who will develop their students in agricultural professions. These teachers will work with both adults and teenagers, with the latter cooperation serving to expand high school Agriscience programs. This program includes courses in Extension Agent and 4-H Agent, both of which guarantee a degree of Bachelor of Science in Agricultural Education and a minor degree in Sustainable Agriculture (Agricultural Education – Central State University, n.d.). Thus, the students of CSU have a wide selection of teacher specialties.
Other than a teacher’s career, CSU offers a different approach to Agriscience with its Business Administration and Agribusiness Concentration programs. They serve to prepare the students to the business aspect of Agriculture, teaching management, marketing, and production in corresponding organizations. The purpose of a graduate of management of marketing programs is to work in the financial sector of such organizations. As for production specialists, they enroll in the Manufacturing Engineering Bachelor of Science degree program. There, they learn engineering challenges in manufacturing agricultural products, process assembly, and systems design.
Other approaches among CSU’s courses include the preservation of habitats, water management, diversification of vegetables and fruits, nutrition, and creating sustainable farms. The program for water management is located at the CSU International Center for Water Resources Management and deals not only with water but with air, waste, and energy as well. The students are tasked with participating in developing conservation engineering. The sustainable farms that the University develops meet the requirements of improving quality of life and profitability. Farmers who participate in the program receive stipends, with African Americans, military veterans, and disadvantaged youth having an advantage.
Like CSU, FAMU offers a major in agribusiness and food science in its College of Agriculture and Food Sciences. The agribusiness degree teaches the students the principles of economics such as accounting, finance, and management in agriculture, widely employing computer technology to do so. Other degrees in Agricultural Sciences are flexible, with those receiving majors in animal science, biological engineering, entomology, veterinary or food science, being trained in all of these areas. Only courses in biological engineering and veterinary technology are optional. This versatility allows the graduates to function in many professions of the agricultural industry. Like in CSU, FAMU students are trained in food chemistry, nutrition, and product development. The difference seems to be in FAMU pays more attention to veterinary and entomology, while for CSU, its sustainable farms are more important. While the latter is an important and promising project, veterinary is a basic branch of medicine that bears significant importance to the agricultural sector. It, therefore, seems unusual that it is absent from CSU’s list of studies in this area.
Extension programs: agriculture, family and consumer science, 4-H Youth Development and community development/vitality
Both CSU and FAMU have their own extension programs for the benefit of the community. CSU has Extension Family and Consumer Science programs, which are created to address the needs of all stakeholders, be they participants or partnering organizations. These programs mostly deal with health problems or harmful habits. For example, the Diabetes Empowerment Education Program discusses topics such as the risk factors and the complications of diabetes while analyzing healthy eating and stress management techniques to help deal with the condition. Another program, Freedom from Smoking, helps the attendees to create and execute a plan of quitting the habit. With the Freedom from Smoking being targeted at adult audiences, a different program exists for teenagers, the Not on Tobacco. Unlike the Freedom from Smoking, it helps to prevent the smoking habit rather than quit it. Other extension programs deal with drug safety and suicidal behaviors.
CSU pays special attention to healthy eating, with childhood obesity and food safety, including preservation, being the most important areas of interest. To this end, it has programs such as ‘Let’s Get Turned Up and Turn it Around’, which deals with childhood obesity via cooking and dancing. There is nutrition education for adults as well, with a four-session program informing them about physical activity to improve eating habits, which is realized through goal setting. Programs dealing with food preservation discuss correct storage of food, including freezing and canning, as well as help deal with food dehydrating. These programs, with Food Safety and Sanitation being one of them, train people to design food for public consumption as well.
Finally, some programs help to deal with relationship issues within families. Chicago Parent program helps the parents of young children to deal with the needs of a diverse group their child might find themselves in. Strengthening Families program helps parents avoid substance abuse and improve communication with their children. Mastering ‘Adulting’ After Moving Out teaches children to be independent in their future lives, find an apartment, manage finances, and behave correctly during stressful situations.
The FAMU’s extension and outreach program provides assistance to growers by means of both scientific information and training. Its subdivision, called Center for Viticulture and Small Fruit Research, conducts special visits, teaching workshop and management practices. These practices serve to create well-informed and empowered citizens, which will allow for profit and an improvement of social well-being. The technological innovations that the University provides to farmers include hydroponic production, greenhouses, and cheap high tunnels. The management practices that the Universities bring to the agricultural community are nutrition, forage systems, and profit.
FAMU’s family and community extension programs are generally similar to CSU’s. They include a 4-H Youth Development program, which helps prepare youth for adulthood. The program helps young people to elevate their way of thinking to a higher level, developing them as leaders and entrepreneurs with educational skills. The other programs of FAMU are the 4-H Vision, 4-H Pledge, and Emergency Preparedness & Safety. All of these aim to change communities and families for the better, making students better individuals who will serve the community and the world.
Thus, CSU’s extension programs are dedicated to helping the community, and the University has no significant programs dedicated to agricultural science. Instead, its community support programs are more varied and dedicated to important problems such as substance abuse. For CSU, its previously discussed sustainable farms may be considered an extension program; however, they are still distinctly separate from its other extension programs. Meanwhile, FAMU does not describe its community helping programs in such detail as CSU does, but it does have agricultural extension programs.
Research program: agriculture, community development and vitality, and nutrition
For its research programs, CSU has the Office of Sponsored Programs and Research, the goal of which is to ensure the University’s success in winning grants, prizes, of sponsorship which are vital for CSU. The Office is responsible for the grants’ successful execution as well. The University’s Department of Agricultural Sciences has a role in research, keeping a program of undergraduate research, improving the students’ skills at generating knowledge. In some cases, this undergraduate research is paid for, proving that it is not merely an exercise. Finally, both the University and the Department state their dedication to research in all of sciences discussed previously in the present paper (Sustainable Agriculture, n.d.). The employees of the University such as Dr. Phipps study nutrition, food transformation, and interventions for chronic diseases, but these studies are not necessarily tied to the University’s projects (Brandy E. Phipps, Ph.D., n.d.). Therefore, the University relies on the Office of Sponsored Programs and Research and its most talented students to do its research activities.
Compared to CSU, FAMU pays more attention to its research activities. First, it has the Division of Research, which aims to become a nationally respected institution. To this end, it supports relevant research, discoveries, and problem solving. Other units dedicated to research are the Office of Animal Welfare and Research Integrity (OAWRI) and the Brooksville Agricultural and Environmental Research Station (BAERS). The former protects the research community’s safety and ethics, making sure that the University acts in line with the appropriate laws. It assists the campus community, supporting its research in a responsible manner. Laboratory animal care and research on humans are OAWRI’s responsibility as well.
BAERS’s functions are to conduct agricultural and natural resource research, develop farming programs, socio-economic projects, experiential training opportunities, and others. Special assistance goes to Black farmers, which is BAERS’s stated mission. Black farmer community is considered underserved and disadvantaged, and BAERS provides volunteer participants for it in cooperation with the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) (Brooksville Agricultural Environmental Research Station [BAERS], n.d.). These volunteers are often retired experienced persons from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). This assistance aims to improve the productivity of Black farmers. In the future, BAERS plans to implement a system of support for beginning farmers, including women, native Americans, and veterans, improve the economic viability of the nearest areas, and create innovations to help the global food production and stability.
In the present time, BAERS conducts research in several scientific fields, such as the preservation of endangered and/or invasive plant species in Florida, ecotourism research, wetland ecology, and pasture grazing systems. BAERS’s other studies include studying climate change in the context of agroforestry and genetics research. BAERS is currently simultaneously running two special projects as well (BAERS, n.d.). The first of them is the FAMU Livestock and Crop Improvement Program. It aims to improve productivity of disadvantaged farmers through livestock improvement, crop production, and improving forage systems. The other project is the Conservation Collaboration for Selected States Project: Florida, South Georgia, and South Alabama (BAERS, n.d.). It has been created with the help of a USDA grant and deals with improving the productivity of Black and veteran farmers as well. To do so, it provides management to wildlife habitat, wetland restoration, conservation water, and conservation planning.
Finally, there is another subdivision of FAMU that conducts research, which is the Center for Viticulture and Small Fruit Research. Its function is to provide leadership, research, and development for industry growth. Its main achievement is warm climate grape and wine research and experimental programs on student training. The Center has recently released three new grape cultivars, which became possible due to the industry’s close cooperation with its clients.
Considering all the information in this section, FAMU definitely conducts more extensive research. It has more divisions dedicated solely to research and pays closer attention to their activities, sharing information on them more fully. CSU, on the other hand, relies on the Office of Sponsored Programs and Research in this regard, but it does not share detailed information on its activities. Meanwhile, on FAMU’s website there are multiple pages with detailed descriptions of OAWRI, BAERS, and the Viticulture Center up to and including their history.
How can the universities improve their academic, research, and Extension program?
Both Universities demonstrate a lack of community development and vitality research. At the present, these subjects are just addressed in extension programs, with only OAWRI’s activities being relatively close to them in research context. CSU needs to make their studies more public as well; while FAMU proudly displays its subdivisions’ achievements, the activities of the Office of Sponsored Programs and Research remain relatively secret to public visiting CSU’s website. CSU needs to address its apparent lack of agricultural extension program as well, with their sustainable farms possibly filling the necessary criteria. Another one of CSU’s shortcomings is the lack of a veterinary major; as it would produce graduates trained in caring for livestock, it would present significant help to agriculture. FAMU, on the other hand, should shorten its Vision and Mission statements, and discuss their education programs in greater detail. Overall, FAMU makes an impression of a much more scientifically active University. CSU, however, is the one more focused on education, presenting more information on its academic programs and funding its students’ research, and taking more specific measures to help its community.
References
About FAMU. (n.d.). Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University. Web.
Agricultural Education – Central State University. (n.d.). Central State University. Web.
Brandy E. Phipps, Ph.D. (n.d.). Central State University. Web.
Brooksville Agricultural Environmental Research Station (BAERS). (n.d.). Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University. Web.
Our Vision, Our Mission. (n.d.). Central State University. Web.
Sustainable Agriculture. (n.d.). Central State University. Web.