New name, same college.
Agriculture and Bioresources is the new title for the 100-year-old agriculture department of the University of Saskatchewan.
After a year of debate, discussion and dissention, the change of name from College of Agriculture to College of Agriculture and Bioresources is complete.
With an official announcement in late September, the college will join a long list of academic institutions that have amended the names of their agriculture departments to something they feel more fully describes the discipline.
Ernie Barber is the dean of Agriculture and Bioresources at the Saskatoon college.
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“We are addressing internal issues about how funding and organization within the university are handled and externally we are hoping to send a message to prospective students, governments and industry about what it is this old agricultural college is actually doing,” he said.
The college encompasses a broader scope of practice. Genetics alone has expanded dramatically from plant and animal breeding. Engineering reaches into all facets of agriculture and food production is not necessarily the focus of agriculture as forestry and industrial products research and development grow.
“The environment is now a part of our college. It isn’t agriculture in the traditional sense of the word,” Barber said.
Public perception of what agriculture is hasn’t kept up with the realities of the industry, said Red Williams, a professor emeritus of the college who has been associated with it for 60 years.
“The college has changed along with agriculture, but the public’s idea of what an agriculture college is didn’t. We need to communicate that better,” Williams said.
Barber said it has taken time to convince faculty and alumni that the change is needed.
“The toughest to convince are our current students. They enrolled and did so comfortable with the name of the college as it was, and we’re changing it mid-stream on them and they have been a harder sell,” he said.
Enrolment in the undergraduate programs has been dropping and it is hoped the new name will attract students.
