University of Minnesota. College of Agriculture

Agricultural education was provided for in the organization of the University by the Minnesota territorial legislature in 1851. When the first state legislature convened in 1858, one of the items approved during the inaugural session was an unfunded proposal to establish an “Agricultural Experiment Farm and Agricultural College” at Glencoe. After a decade of inaction at the Glencoe site, the proposed college became part of the overall plan for the University of Minnesota, which commenced enrolling students in 1867. In 1868, in conformity with the National Land Grant Act, the legislature officially transferred rights to the agricultural college to the University. The College of Agriculture and Mechanical Arts was established in 1869: in 1871, the agricultural component was reorganized as an independent administrative unit and renamed the Department of Agriculture. The selection of the name was a conscious attempt to align the mission, work, and stature of the college with the United States Department of Agriculture.

From 1869 to 1881, the Department was largely underfunded and undersubscribed. With the arrival of Edward Porter as Professor of Theory and Practice of Agriculture in 1881, the agriculture program found its first effective director. Porter taught classes, oversaw the establishment of the first out-state agricultural experiment station, and negotiated the purchase of land for the St. Paul Experiment Station (also referred to as University Farm.) Experiment stations were the Department of Agriculture’s research laboratories, where the problems of farming practice could be studied and innovations tested. In addition to collegiate-level offerings, “short courses” for practicing farmers were established to implement research findings and recruit potential students. The foundation for home economics study was laid though short course instruction aimed at farm and non-farm women.

Porter was also responsible for the founding of the School of Agriculture at University Farm, developed to educate high school students in crop improvement, animal husbandry and horticulture and arts and sciences. The school opened in 1888, and became coeducational in 1897. Schools of agriculture opened at several of the out-state experiment stations, including the Northwest School in Crookston in 1906, the West Central School in Morris in 1910, the North Central School in Grand Rapids in 1926, and the Southern School in Waseca (chartered in 1919 and opened in 1953.)

Land acquisition during the 1880s resulted in an increasingly robust agriculture campus in St. Paul. The first dean of the Department, William Liggett, was appointed in 1895. During the 1890s, programs in horticulture, agronomy and soils sciences, animal and dairy husbandry were established. In 1900, Home Economics courses were added to the college’s curriculum. Enrollment increased sufficiently so that in 1914 the home economics faculty separated into its own administrative unit. Although a college of forestry had been proposed for the campus as early as 1881, it was not until 1902 that forestry courses were added at the college level. In 1906, the forestry curriculum separated out from Agriculture to become the department of Forestry. The creation of an agricultural college offering course work leading to a degree was formalized in 1917 with the creation of the College of Agriculture, Forestry and Home Economics under the Department of Agriculture.

During the first decade of the new century, new collegiate departments proliferated. Plant Pathology was organized in 1907, along with Agricultural Engineering; the department of Agricultural Economics was formed in 1912. The Agricultural Extension Division was created by an act of the state legislature in 1909, the purpose of which was to extend University research to farms and rural communities using extension agents as teachers and consultants. Agricultural Extension was also responsible for instituting 4-H clubs across the state beginning in 1914 with the passage of the Smith-Lever Cooperative Extension Act in Congress.

The College also collaborated extensively with the federal government in the area of pure and applied research and education. A.F. Woods became chief of the Department of Agriculture in 1910, arriving from the U.S. Bureau of Plant Industry. The Cereal Rust Laboratory, established in 1915, was the result of collaborations between the Plant Pathology Department and the Bureau of Plant Industry to study and eradicate wheat rust.

By the beginning of the 1920s, the Department of Agriculture was responsible for administering three separate but intertwined components: the College of Agriculture, Forestry and Home Economics, which consisted at the time of 14 agriculture-related departments, and the departments of Forestry and Home Economics (also often referred to as divisions); research and secondary education at experiment stations with schools in St. Paul, Waseca, Morris, Crookston and Grand Rapids and research stations in Duluth, Excelsior, Lake Itasca and Cloquet; and the continuing education function of Agricultural Extension.

In 1947, the division of Veterinary Medicine joined the college briefly, and the college name changed to reflect its inclusion to the College of Agriculture, Forestry, Home Economics and Veterinary Medicine. In 1952, Veterinary Medicine was designated a school separate from the college, and the Department of Agriculture was renamed the Institute of Agriculture, bringing its title into conformity with a similar University unit, the Institute of Technology. The Institute of Agriculture’s administrative group consisted of a dean and four principle assistants: a director of experiment stations; director of extension services; an assistant to the dean, and a director of resident education for the college. This administrative model would remain in place for almost 20 years, until 1970, when Forestry and Home Economics became independent schools, with school deans reporting directly to the Institute dean. The College of Agriculture took on new programs with a food and nutrition emphasis, including food production and processing and agricultural marketing and distribution.

Education and training for international students became an increasingly important part of the Institute in the post-war period. The Office of International Agricultural Programs was established in 1964 within the Institute to coordinate campus programs already in place for international students and promote learning and research exchanges abroad. The Institute flourished, the leading edge of the University’s efforts to internationalize the campus and promote agricultural improvement worldwide.

While the college embraced international programs, the college’s relation to state education was shifting to reflect improved rural transportation and school systems and a decreasing rural population. The School of Agriculture affiliated with the St. Paul Experiment Station closed in 1960: the Morris and Crookston schools became a four-year college and technical school, respectively. The Waseca campus converted to a technical program in 1971 and closed in 1992.

The late 1980s and 1990s were a time of change and realignment in the Institute. The use of long- range planning to guide growth, specialization in disciplines and attendant shifts in departmental enrollment in resulted in the following changes: in 1988, the College of Forestry underwent a name change, becoming the College of Natural Resources, reflecting a broadened emphasis in managing resources beyond forests and wood products; the College of Home Economics became the College of Human Ecology in 1990, reflecting a shift from the study of domestic arts to human interaction and environments. In 1995, the Institute of Agriculture, Forestry and Home Economics was renamed the College of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Sciences. In 2006 the College took its current name, the College of Food, Agriculture and Natural Resource Sciences. The name change reflected the consolidation of college units from six to three through departmental realignments and the merger of multiple colleges and departments, including the College of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Sciences, the College of Natural Resources, and the department of Food Science and Nutrition which had previously been overseen by the College of Human Ecology. The College of Education and Human Development took in the school of Social Work and the Family Social Science department, and the newly created College of Design became home to Landscape Architecture.

Leadership positions on the St. Paul Campus:

From the guide to the College of Agriculture records, 1837-1997, (bulk 1940-1979), (University of Minnesota Libraries. University of Minnesota Archives [uarc])