Program synthesis and future challenge
Mary M. Beck · Poultry Science · 1998
members have been concerned about disappearing poultry science departments, faculty, and programs.The earliest paper (Sunde, 1969) documenting this trend was followed by others (Barnett and Mountney, 1972;Bigbee and Shaffner, 1972;Sunde et al., 1972;Carlson et al., 1977;Cook, 1988;Gyles, 1988;Reynnells et al., 1988;Havenstein et al., 1990;Beck, 1992).With the steady attrition of poultry programs at universities has been an opposite trend in the poultry industry, where growth has steadily increased.After many years of monitoring the status of poultry science departments, the PSA Board in 1989 revamped the Status Committee to form the Ad Hoc Committee on the Status of Poultry Science in North America.The purpose of this committee, in addition to documenting changes, was to attempt a more proactive role in persuading universities not to eliminate poultry departments or faculty positions.The Ad Hoc Committee existed for approximately 6 yr, and was co-chaired by James Marion, Auburn University, and Mary Beck, University of Nebraska.During this time, the primary activity was to write letters to deans of colleges of agriculture in which poultry departments were being merged into animal science departments.Letters were sent to the deans, with copies to national and state poultry industry leaders, at the University of Florida, The Ohio State University, Washington State University, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, and the University of Wisconsin.To the extent that we learned about these pending mergers as or just before they occurred, this effort to influence the decisions was still largely reactive.Considering that these departments and programs are no longer in existence, despite our efforts, it is unclear how effective we were.In any case, the Ad Hoc Status Committee ceased to exist around 1994.One reason we were not more