SportsTurf provides current, practical and technical content on issues relevant to sports turf managers, including facilities managers. Most readers are athletic field managers from the professional level through parks and recreation, universities.
Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/101565
Facility&Operations Report: status of small school turfgrass education programs E ASKED SOME EDUCA��� TORS at three community colleges and one 4-year institution about the status of their turfgrass programs. The questions were: ��� 1. What is the trend in your turf program enrollment numbers���up, down or steady? ��� 2. What are some of the reasons your students give for wanting to study turf management? ��� 3. Have you made recently, or are you anticipating making in the near future, any changes to your program? If so, what and why? ��� 4. What is your opinion on how turf management will be taught 10 years in the future? W CHAD FOLLIS, Mineral Area College Park Hills, MO Follis is a horticulture instructor, greenhouse supervisor and baseball field manager. 1. Overall enrollment in horticulture is up. Those students wanting turf specific is steady this year. 2. Many of the anticipated answers are love of sports, love of outdoors, working with hands and equipment. In our rural area of southeast Missouri, turf management is still growing and new so there is some aspect of novelty also in the mix. 3. We have increased our end of program testing to assure employers and 4-year colleges our students are meeting necessary competencies. We also put in a NTEP-style variety trial over the past 2 school years. We now have 50 bermudagrasses, 13 zoysia and 36 SportsTurf | January 2013 eight buffalo, two St. Augustine, and two paspalum. We also installed 100+ cool-season grasses. All the basics, KYB, PRG, TTF, FF, Bent and a few outside the norm like faults alkali, poa triv, poa supina, micro clover. The students got behind this project. It allowed us to teach establishment of the various grasses and gave the students some hands on experience using equipment such as vertislicers, aerators, etc. Thanks to all the folks that helped us with samples of live warm seasons and seed, too many to mention in this space. We are also trying to work out articulation with a couple 4-year institutions to smooth the transition process. 4. More and more online distance delivery of education. Students don���t want to come to campus or at least want to limit the amount of trips per week. We have to determine how to deliver a hands-on outside careers driven education via a computer screen. How do we engage students fully, not just pass along PowerPoint slides? I also see STMA becoming more involved in how and what we teach in the classroom much in the model of the GCSAA. I think this will allow for increased matching competencies across the industry, which strengthens the knowledge base and gives employers the assurance they are getting individuals that can make a difference in their facilities immediately. TROY MCQUILLEN, Kirkwood Community College Cedar Rapids, IA McQuillen is a turf instructor. 1. Numbers are remaining steady, but something that is changing is the number of students that are expressing interest in sports turf management. Currently I have 55 students in the program and I could say that 70% express interested in golf course maintenance and the other 30% are pursuing a sports turf career. This percentage is up from past years. I attribute this to increased sports turf opportunities in our area, having student participate in the STMA Conference, and shifting more curriculum and course competencies toward the sports turf experience. 2. Usually I ask the same question when a potential student enters my office for the first time. I would say the most common response is that the student likes the ���hands on��� portion of the career and the applied education. Students also comment on wanting to work outside, having a passion for the sport, or in some cases have worked a summer job involving a sports turf experience. They come to Kirkwood wanting more knowledge. 3. Every year the Kirkwood sports turf program hosts area sports turf managers for a 1-day advisory committee meeting. These members provide both curriculum and lab experience suggestions to our program so that the education and staying competitive with the industry. Besides the Athletic Field Maintenance class, students in our programs also take Irrigation Installation and Design, Intro to Turfgrass, Horticulture Math, Advanced Turfgrass, and Plant Material Maintenance among other classes that make up the 68-credit curriculum. Recently we have made changes to our internship where students are now required to complete an internship packet, followed by a presentation that identifies internship competencies they need to complete while on the internship, and then share that information with the incoming freshmen. We are also adding more transfer level coursework for those students that have an interest in pursuing 2 more years after www.sportsturfonline.com