{"id":31647,"date":"2014-07-09T11:14:47","date_gmt":"2014-07-09T15:14:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/?p=31647"},"modified":"2015-07-16T13:08:46","modified_gmt":"2015-07-16T17:08:46","slug":"farm-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/2014\/07\/09\/farm-system\/","title":{"rendered":"Farm system: Lake Campus agriculture program on the rise"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Greg<\/a>

Greg McGlinch is helping to expand the agriculture program at Wright State\u2019s Lake Campus, which now offers degrees in technical and applied studies with an agriculture concentration.<\/p><\/div>\n

Like the crops he plants on his own farm, Greg McGlinch is helping grow the agriculture program at Wright State University\u2019s Lake Campus<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The farmer, agronomist and educator joined the university in January, when the emerging program had 13 students. The program is expanding, with the numbers expected to increase this fall.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe goal was to continue expanding and building on the program,\u201d said McGlinch. \u201cWestern Ohio is the heart of agriculture in the state. There was a void that needed to be filled.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Lake Campus began offering associate and bachelor\u2019s degrees in technical and applied studies<\/a> with an agriculture concentration last year. Classes include agronomy, animal science, agricultural economics and food science.<\/p>\n

\u201cFarming is very business oriented today,\u201d he said. \u201cYou\u2019ve got to have a very sharp pencil and know what you\u2019re doing to run a business of this nature.\u201d<\/p>\n

Previously, local students interested in pursuing careers in agriculture had to go off to college in Columbus, Wilmington or Wooster or make long commutes there. With a program at Wright State, they could further their education while remaining active on their own farms.<\/p>\n

McGlinch has been heavily promoting the program, speaking at local high schools, networking with his contacts in the agricultural education community, manning a booth at the Ohio Future Farmers of America convention and assisting with the Mercer County Agriculture Day.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a hands-on, in-the-field, learning-the-trade education,\u201d McGlinch said. \u201cA lot of the students are coming off the farm and maybe want to expand and improve production. So you\u2019re going to learn some of the new technology, new practices and expand on old practices.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many of the adjunct professors come straight from the agricultural industry.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t get any more applied than that,\u201d McGlinch said. \u201cThey\u2019ve worked with the farmers. They\u2019re very good in knowing and handling the issues and techniques and practices.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the courses are affordable, convenient (scheduled toward the evening so students can work on their farms during the day) and can be taken in an accelerated pace.<\/p>\n

McGlinch himself teaches Introduction to Agronomy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe nice thing is I still farm. So everything I do, I try to relate back into the classroom,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m not disconnected from the agriculture world.\u201d<\/p>\n

McGlinch grew up on a family farm in nearby Versailles \u2014 450 tillable acres that produces corn, soybeans, cereal rye and wheat. He became interested in teaching agriculture after joining the Future Farmers of America (FFA) as a freshman at Versailles High School.<\/p>\n

He said he was drawn to agriculture as a career because it is so multifaceted.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re a farmer, you\u2019re an engineer, a chemist, an accountant, a veterinarian \u2014 you name it. And I enjoyed all of those,\u201d he said. \u201cI wanted to get out there and help the future students understand what they could get into.\u201d<\/p>\n

After obtaining his bachelor\u2019s degree in agriculture education from The Ohio State University in 2003, he began teaching agriculture education in the Randolph Eastern school system in Union City, Ind.<\/p>\n

\u201cI took an FFA program that was very small and began to grow it and really expand it,\u201d he said. \u201cI have a lot of students who still tell me about their experience and how it has helped them.\u201d<\/p>\n

McGlinch then moved to Iowa, where he worked for a local farmer and in the materials engineering lab at the John Deere Engine Works facility, where he analyzed the metal parts of motors used in agricultural and construction equipment.<\/p>\n

After getting his master\u2019s degree in agronomy from Iowa State University, he returned to the family farm in Ohio and also took a job with the Darke Soil and Water Conservation District. But teaching beckoned, and he landed at Wright State.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday\u2019s students see a lot of the opportunities in agriculture and crave that knowledge to move forward and continually learn,\u201d he said. \u201cEven if they still farm, they want to get additional exposure to education, get some new concepts and ideas so they can continue to advance.\u201d<\/p>\n

The future of the agricultural program looks bright.<\/p>\n

A total of $1.5 million in state funding has been awarded for a Progressive Agriculture Convention and Education Center, which will be built at the Mercer County Fairgrounds. The facility will include classrooms, labs and an arena for livestock and farm equipment that will be used to teach.<\/p>\n

McGlinch is hoping the university\u2019s agricultural program will evolve into the offering of specialized degrees such as agronomy, animal science and farm business.<\/p>\n

\u201cI see it growing and Wright State becoming a name in agriculture,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Lake Campus is growing its agriculture program and now offers associate and bachelor\u2019s degrees in technical and applied studies with an agriculture concentration. Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":31649,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[722,4276,2048,2023,725,731,715],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31647","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academics","category-center-for-workforce-development","category-enrollment-management","category-faculty","category-home-news-sidebar","category-lake-campus","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31647","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31647"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31647\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37464,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31647\/revisions\/37464"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}