Human Resource Management In Colleges Of Agriculture: How’d We Overlook This One?

Training in the management of the human resource in agricultural education has been long overlooked. While people remain one of the most important resources in agricultural production, an informal survey of 1862 Land Grant Universities in the United States found that only one in six Land Grants had a course dedicated to Human Resource Management in Agriculture.

Another thirty-four percent address HRM as a component in another course, but fully half of the 1862 Land Grants do not teach students how to manage people. This paper examines some of the historical underpinnings of this oversight and efforts and methods to address the issue.

Keywords: human resource development, agriculture, undergraduate curricula, personnel management, college of agriculture, 1862 Land Grant University, Kentucky