Fall 2022 Courses

3 credit course. Offered Fall. This course will explore intentional and unintentional threats to the agriculture-food system, history and current approaches for safeguarding this key infrastructure. Prerequisite: HLS/PHP 510 or permission from the instructor.

3 credit course. Offered Fall. The goal of this course is to provide food industry professionals with information to assist them in recognizing and applying measures to prevent intentional contamination of the food supply.

3 credit course. Offered Spring and Fall. This course is comprised of supervised student activities on research projects identified on an individual or small-group basis.

3 credit course. Offered Spring and Fall. Principles of business management are provided using a variety of examples from industries in agribusiness, which offer real-world experiences. Exploring the institutions and issues, such as food safety and biotechnology, that are unique to managers in the agribusiness sector is emphasized.

1–9 credit course. Offered Spring, Summer, and Fall. This course in Individual Studies in agronomy is for students who will be working on their capstone project with their adviser. It is based on creative projects, including non-thesis research, which are supervised on an individual basis and which fall outside the scope of formal courses.

3 credit course. Offered Fall (odd years). Lectures and exercises designed to develop student competency in plant selection to promote ecological diversity and genetically superior plants.

3 credit course. Offered Spring, Summer, and Fall. This course will introduce students to the breadth and scope of animal agriculture in North America with an emphasis on food-producing animals.

3 credit course. Offered Spring, Summer, and Fall. This course provides information that will be used to make informed decisions about pet ownership, pet care, controversial legal issues, and societal responsibilities. Satisfies General Education - Social and Behavioral Sciences (GS).

3 credit course. Offered Spring and Fall. Concepts, strategies, and techniques of local economic analysis, planning, and development; and decision-making exercises.

3 credit course. Offered Spring and Fall. Social organization, processes, and change in communities; use of sociological principles in the analysis of community problems and development.

3 credit course. Offered Spring, Summer, and Fall. Understanding theories, concepts, and frameworks of community and economic development and community decision-making models in application to community development practice and issues.

3 credit course. Offered Spring and Fall. This course provides a multidimensional overview of three key aspects of community and economic development. Population—the people. Land use—the place. Municipal finance—the things they do there.

3 credit course. This course is an overview of the field of planning. It examines the history of planning and the theories behind it, and the corresponding roles that planners can play in their communities. It establishes the legal framework for planning as a profession and examines landmark legal cases involving planning and its tools. It then looks at the different types and levels of planning and examines the process of planning, what data needs to be collected, how a comprehensive plan is made and implemented, and who planners must interact with, in the course of doing their job. Finally, the course reviews the current issues in planning, such as smart growth, new urbanism, and sustainability. Throughout, the course attempts to emphasize both the positive and negative impacts of planning.

3 credit course. Offered Spring and Fall. Typical topics include several methods and techniques in these areas: general community assessment techniques, specialized techniques for community and economic development, and leadership and process skills.

3 credit course. Offered Spring, Summer, and Fall. This course provides essential information for the process of writing and developing a framework for students to apply, integrate, and practice the theories, concepts, and methods from the CEDEV curriculum in developing the topic, outline, and literature review for their required master's paper.

1, 2, 3, or 6 credit course. Offered Spring, Summer, and Fall. Creative projects, including non-thesis research, that are supervised on an individual basis and which fall outside the scope of formal courses.

3 credit course. Offered Fall. This course provides students with an overview of ecosystem monitoring methods and analyses. Students completing the course will have the ability to apply a quantitative approach to the monitoring of ecosystems. Students will learn about monitoring planning, various sampling designs, and specific measurement methods used to accomplish particular monitoring objectives associated with ecosystem management. Students will be able to apply specific sampling, measurement, and data analysis methods for monitoring vegetation, wildlife, water quantity and quality, and soils, and they will have a statistical foundation for evaluating the various types of data that are collected. Specifically, students will be able to calculate reliability measures, trends, and indicators of ecosystem change, and apply hypothesis testing to these measures to determine their statistical significance. Specific sampling designs will be presented, such as simple random sampling, stratified random sampling, systematic sampling, and cluster sampling.

3 or 6 credit course. Offered Spring. Supervised, professionally-oriented student activities that constitute the culminating experience for the program.

3 credit course. Offered Spring and Fall. This course is designed for non-science majors who have no science background, thus, there are no course prerequisites. The amazing world of insects and how they interact with humans is the focus of the course. Materials are presented in a multi-media format, including several videos. There are 24 lessons with weekly quizzes, a midterm and a final exam. Students will complete a writing assignment involving summarizing and critically analyzing a current news story in the popular press about insects.

3 credit course. Offered Summer (even years) and Fall. Introduces students to a thorough understanding of insects and their relatives, Integrated Pest Management (IPM), and control strategies.

3 credit course. Offered Summer. The field of Sensory and Consumer Science is primarily focused on responses of consumers to food products and non-food fast-moving consumer goods (e.g., shampoo). These responses may be sensory/perceptual (i.e., how sweet, how bitter, how smooth) or affective (i.e., liking/preference), with the assumption that the former generally drives the later. Numerous tools have been developed by sensory practitioners over the last 70 years, with additional influences from experimental psychology. The course also addresses contemporary research on pedagogy that indicates applied statistics are best taught in context to the field in which students will apply the statistical concepts. Here, students will gain practice applying introductory statistical topics (t-tests, Analysis of Variance, etc.) to sensory and consumer data collected from human participants.

3 credit course. Offered Fall. This course aims to allow each student to develop and apply the fundamental dimensions and value of consumer insights to product development objectives; implement key qualitative, quantitative, and hybrid approaches for consumer insights; recognize, identify, and apply key consumer biases, and examine trade-offs in research and consumer behavior.

3 credit course. Offered Spring, Summer, and Fall. Introduction to horticulture with an emphasis on plant domestication, morphology, classification, world food crops, commodities, gardens, propagation, and agrochemicals.

3 credit course. Offered Summer and Fall. Plants have played a dynamic role in shaping our life. In reality, human existence on Earth is made possible by the breath of plants through photosynthesis. Likewise, our botanical connections and interactions are many: we need plants for food, beverages, medicines, materials, healthy lifestyles, and aesthetics. Plants have also played an important role in where our ancestors settled and where we live today. Some of the important topics discussed in this class will include the role of tea in transforming world cultures, the importance of sugar in the Civil War and the establishment of the Caribbean nations, the effect of the Irish potato famine on Europe and the US, and the use of plants in solving crimes.

3 credit course. Offered Fall. Fundamentals of Home Landscaping offers broad coverage of the environmental, human, technological, and aesthetic issues associated with residential landscape design. Beginning with the way we perceive, manage, and design the landscape, the course examines the arrangement of land, water, plant forms, and structures for their best use and greater enjoyment. Relying on actual procedures and underlying principles utilized by experienced residential landscape designers, the course will introduce students to basic design principles, concepts, specific procedures for preparing site plans and associated documents. The course will also explore designing with and general care of plants, assorted hardscape types, and how to properly assess a site. From choosing trees, shrubs, groundcovers that are correct for the site to properly installing patios, decks, and walkways, students will be presented with the varied ways plants and hardscape are installed and maintained. The course will conclude with students completing a design for a residential site.

3 credit course. Offered Spring and Fall. This course provides an introduction to various aspects of plants including growth strategies, cellular makeup, genetics, and reproduction. Special attention will be paid to gardening, crop biotechnologies, and to plant adaptations in response to environmental stressors.

3 credit course. Offered Spring and Fall. This course provides a broad overview of hemp's natural ecosystem, biology, domestication, phenotypic plasticity, industrial cultivation, and business models within the hemp industry that foster bioeconomic empowerment for growers. The course starts with the basic biology of Cannabis species, the effects of light on the production of cannabinoids, the various uses in the economic fabric of industrialized nations, and concludes with what makes hemp (THC < 0.3%) a unique plant for industrial production. Despite the legalization of hemp, optimal conditions for indoor and outdoor cultivation of cannabis remain not well understood. The purpose of this course is to introduce students to basic principles, best horticultural practices, and specific concepts for getting started in industrial hemp production. Throughout this course, potential business opportunities are emphasized for various aspects of the hemp industry.

3 credit course. Offered Spring and Fall. This course provides an introduction to plant pathology. Diseases of horticultural crops are examined stressing their cause, diagnosis, control and the roles they play in national and international trade and bio-security. The biology of plant diseases involving a broad range of biotic and abiotic plant pathogens will be discussed.

3 credit course. Offered Fall. This course provides an introduction to concepts of disease processes in plants and biology of plant pathogens, environmental and cultural management factors influencing disease development, and integrated turfgrass disease management practices for root and foliar disease.

3 credit course. Offered Summer and Fall. Introduces students to the variety and complexity of soils on a local, national, and international scale. The students learn to identify the physical, chemical, and biological properties and processes of soils and relate these to the way that societies use and abuse soils.