The Delphi Study

The committee appointed to develop the undergraduate major began by conducting a web-based Delphi survey of four groups: Practitioners, Academics, Alumni and Students. They were asked what:

1. Content-Knowledge
2. Experiences, and
3. Skills

do graduates of a sustainable agriculture major need to be successful?

There was considerable agreement between the four stakeholder groups. Highlights of their recommendations include:

Content: All students should have knowledge of disciplinary and interdisciplinary natural and social sciences that is integrated across fields and understand different ways of knowing and research methods.

Experiences: Should be diverse and include learning in classrooms and via field trips and internships and expose students to the whole agri-food system.

Skills: Reasoning, analytical, communication and interpersonal skills, as well as farming, business and research skills were seen to be very important.

The Delphi Study Report can be downloaded as a pdf here.

You can also read an article that focuses on what experiences practitioners recommended for inclusion in the major (Trexler, CJ, DM Parr, N Khanna, 2006, Journal of Agricultural Education 47 (4): 15-25.