About the College

Our Land-Grant Mission

As Pennsylvania’s only land-grant university, Penn State influences millions of lives across the Commonwealth.

Signed into law by President Lincoln in 1862, the Morrill Act established the land-grant system to meet the growing demand for agricultural and technical education in the United States. Supplemented with the Hatch Act of 1887 and the Smith-Lever Act of 1914, today’s land-grant institutions provide accessible and affordable education for undergraduate and graduate students, a national system of agricultural research stations, and a national cooperative extension service that disseminates science-based knowledge into every community.

The Penn State College of Agricultural Sciences carries on this successful land-grant mission and partnership in Pennsylvania with research stations and faculty researchers who seek practical solutions to scientific, economic, and social challenges affecting the Commonwealth. This new knowledge is distributed through Penn State’s twenty-four campuses and the sixty-seven cooperative extension offices throughout Pennsylvania.

We work with our industry partners to develop and disseminate the most recent technological advances, production practices, and management concepts to farmers and producers, ensuring that Pennsylvania agriculture remains a strong and viable multibillion-dollar industry while providing a safe and dependable food system to feed our nation.

Penn State faculty and extension educators identify needs and create solution-based college initiatives that address Pennsylvania priorities. Some of Penn State’s initiatives include:

• Helping to build a sustainable biobased economy by studying and improving the technologies and practices necessary to convert agricultural crops, by-products, and other biomass into renewable and alternative energy sources
• Promoting the conservation of energy and reduction of greenhouse gas footprints
• Utilizing a systems-thinking approach to issues of water quality and quantity and their connections to land use; food and energy policies; and economic, social, and political interactions
• Helping to create new businesses by teaching students the value of becoming job creators, and providing resources to ensure the success of entrepreneurs
• Supporting food systems that improve the quality of life by addressing issues of childhood obesity, food safety, and nutrition and by educating the public about healthier foods and better diet
• Providing proactive, innovative, and cost-saving approaches to dealing with pests, pathogens, and infectious diseases
• Promoting a better understanding of the relationship between agriculture, forestry, and the environment
• Programming to positively influence 170,000 Pennsylvania children annually through Penn State’s 4-H youth development programs

Education—A Reputation for Excellence

Experience comes with age. Penn State was the first American institution to offer baccalaureate degrees in agriculture, and we continue to offer nationally ranked education programs taught by world-class faculty.

In the College of Agricultural Sciences, our students study nature and science, environment and research, and engineering and leadership along with agriculture-specific topics.

Our reputation for educational excellence in dairy and animal sciences, food safety, and landscape contracting is legendary—used as models for other universities—and we are also training the next generation of scientists, business leaders, and civic and community leaders.

Education for the Future

We teach our students to be critical thinkers, equipped to tackle current and ongoing challenges in the industry. Our programs cover a broad range of needs in food and fiber systems, natural resources and environmental stewardship, and the improvement of economic and social well-being.

In the College of Agricultural Sciences, students can choose from twenty majors, three two-year programs, and three certificate programs, and can start their education at any of Penn State’s twenty-four campuses. Undergraduate students have the opportunity to expand their experience by working with their professors on a variety of student research opportunities. Our facilities are as unique as our fields of study—our students work in state-of-the-art laboratories and research farms and utilize Pennsylvania’s abundant streams, forests, and wetlands as outdoor living classrooms. For a complete listing of our majors, visit our Future Students site.

Each summer, our faculty and staff educate sixty-four of the state’s top high school juniors and seniors in the Pennsylvania Governor’s School for the Agricultural Sciences.

A World of Possibility

Our students have many unique resources and opportunities available to them in the College of Agricultural Sciences. Our scholarship program, an expression of alumni and industry faith in our programs, provides students with over $1.9 million in both merit- and need-based assistance. Students may elect to intern with companies both onshore and off, using the college’s extensive internship database to help find a perfect match. Our high postgraduation job-placement rate shows that employers value the unique education our students receive.

From spring break trips to year-long study-abroad and research programs, international experiences are abundant in the College of Agricultural Sciences. Our students gain global perspective through international programs that introduce them to innovative policies and practices in other countries.

Life on campus is rich for our students, who can join more than thirty clubs and student organizations geared toward their professional interests. Many of our clubs and teams compete nationally and are consistently ranked among the top in the nation.

Continuing Education

The college offers a wide range of opportunities to continue your education with issue-oriented and process-related courses and conferences on diverse topics. Whether you’re looking for professional workforce development for yourself or your employees or to learn more about an emerging industry issue, the College of Agricultural Sciences is your resource. Our continuing education offerings, including our world-renowned Ice Cream Short Course, bring together partners from academia, government, and industry to collaborate on issues and processes. To learn more about upcoming events in the college’s Office of Conferences and Short Courses.

Extension—Information You Can Trust

For nearly one hundred years, Penn State Cooperative Extension has been translating cutting-edge University research into practical knowledge to help Pennsylvanians.

Funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and state and county governments, Penn State Cooperative Extension brings together extension educators, faculty, and volunteers to share research-based knowledge with their fellow citizens. Our unique network—present in every county— delivers Penn State expertise directly to your community and works to assess and address the social, educational, and physical needs of citizens throughout the state.

Penn State Cooperative Extension reaches Pennsylvania citizens on both personal and organizational levels. We collaborate with individuals, organizations, agencies, and local governments to ensure the information we deliver to your community is timely, relevant, and useful.

Creating a Brighter Future

Extension educational programs keep Pennsylvania communities healthy and strong. We design our programs to reach and relate to Pennsylvanians of every demographic, ensuring that no Pennsylvania citizen is without access to valuable information and education. Penn State Cooperative Extension aims to engage Pennsylvania citizens to solve problems and create new opportunities.

Penn State Cooperative Extension is sensitive to long-standing issues of agricultural profitability, energy independence, emergency preparedness, and youth development:

• During times of emergency, Penn State’s wide range of knowledge and our unique extension presence in each county assists communities with preparations for and response to outbreaks, safety concerns, and natural disasters.
• We aim to sustain agriculture as a profitable industry in Pennsylvania by educating entrepreneurs on best-management practices. By using our research to discover new technology, products, and processes, we hope to improve the growth of new businesses in the state.
• Our researchers and extension educators work together to develop and demonstrate alternative energy sources and technologies to decrease our dependence on foreign oil with a goal of creating greener forms of energy and new markets for agricultural products.
• Youth development is an investment in Pennsylvanians. Our 4-H program works with more than 170,000 Pennsylvania youth aged five to nineteen in cities, towns, and rural areas of the state. Participants in 4-H master skills that will provide them with the tools to succeed. Whether it’s learning responsibility by caring for an animal, developing leadership by working on a community project, or increasing math and science knowledge with the 4-H National Science Experiment, 4-H youth development programs enrich the lives of children statewide.

Research—Science-Based Solutions

Driven by our founding land-grant mission—to create, analyze, and share knowledge that improves the lives of people in Pennsylvania, the nation, and the world—the College of Agricultural Sciences invests more than $89 million in research and graduate study yearly.

Whether it’s investigating the collapse of honey bee colonies or developing energy for the future, research in the College of Agricultural Sciences addresses both near-term and long-term issues. In addition to advancing the fundamentals of basic science, our research works to create science-based solutions to problems.

Issues of environmental balance and sustainability, bioenergy, food safety, and pest prediction rank high on our list of research priorities. Our long-established expertise in animal health, reproductive biology, and specialty crops continues to grow and improve the foundations of agriculture.

From the Classroom to the Field

The College of Agricultural Sciences is committed to providing high-quality graduate programs to train the next generation of academics and industry and government professionals.

Each year, the college enrolls nearly five hundred graduate students from all over the world in our sixteen graduate program areas. Almost all of our graduate students study and perform research with support in the form of an assistantship. Our students engage in dynamic study and interdisciplinary research, mentored by college faculty who help them succeed within a diverse campus community. Diversity among students and faculty is a top priority for the dean and faculty within the College of Agricultural Sciences. Our proactive graduate scholarship program actively recruits and assists underrepresented scholars.

Student research ties classroom experience to problem solving. We support more than 240 active student and faculty research projects addressing the critical issues of profitability, environmental impact, youth development, health and safety, resource utilization, conservation, and aesthetics. Our research activities within each unit provide a breadth of science-based data and analysis developed to respond to our land-grant mission.

The college maintains many specialized research facilities for students, faculty, and researchers to use. From livestock and domestic fowl facilities and our three regional specialty crop research centers to our 13,800 acres of research forests and farmland, our researchers work in a wide span of facilities tailored to their focus areas.