By Victor Lechtenberg, Dean of Agriculture

Purdue Agriculture has a proud history of teaching young people of Indiana about our food, agriculture, and natural resource systems and a multitude of other topics through our 4-H programs. We are equally proud of our role in educating the next generation of agricultural communicators and high school agricultural science teachers. We are now bringing these three programs together into one department—Youth Development and Agricultural Education.

Bringing these units together strengthens our academic research, our scholarly capacity and our ability to interact with young people across Indiana. Statewide, we expect 4-H to grow stronger and attract a wider array of youth interested in a broad range of career opportunities. We plan to add a new faculty position/academic counselor in agricultural communications. We will maintain our emphasis on hands-on education through internships and student contact with the Agricultural Communication staff. This move also will benefit students who are studying to become agricultural science teachers. They will see higher caliber technical content in their curriculum and, for the first time, the key professors will be in the same school as their students.

This new department is a model for multi-disciplinary research and education that today’s complex issues require. We are excited to be bringing the faculty, staff and students together, and we expect these changes to bring benefits that will reach far beyond the boundaries of campus.

Back to Dean's Message Archive