Replacement of a full-time faculty member for the associate faculty members and overload for full-time faculty that we have. 

• Enhancing a Culture of Completion and Academic Achievement
• Supporting Student, Faculty and Staff Success

It is difficult to acquire and retain qualified faculty with an agricultural background in areas of animal science, soil science, crop science, plant science, and plant protection. 

At present we offer only what is necessary to maintain our program at a minimum, and we significantly under-serve the CSU-transfer student population (in particular, animal science majors), yet our three full-time faculty members who teach in ag science have an annual teaching load greater than 150%, plus the load from our associate faculty. Two of our full-time faculty teach ag business, so it is critical that we also work toward hiring a full-time ag business faculty member as well. It is difficult to employ qualified, available associate faculty in our service area. To allow our faculty time for curriculum development, managing industry relationships, mentoring students, and the many other responsibilities in a CTE program, it is imperative that we hire an additional full-time faculty member.

A growing component of our program is in ecology of pest and disease and plant nutrition and soil science. With the increased demand for state-licensed Pest Control Advisors (PCA), ag biologists, and Certified Crop Advisors (CCA), we are constantly looking at our curriculum to meet the needs of California's #1 industry, which is agriculture.

Increase the ag staff positions (farm manager, EH technician, and farm shop personnel) all to 100%, 40-hour work week.

• Supporting Student, Faculty and Staff Success
• Using Data-Informed Processes for Continuous Improvement
• Maximizing Resources to Support Student Learning
• Enhancing a Culture of Inclusiveness

Agriculture does not stop at 5pm or take weekends off. It is critical that our ag staff members get their salaries and work time increased to 100% since their services are critical to the success of the faculty, students, and entire Ag Department. When equipment breaks down, staff must be available to fix and maintain the equipment so classes and labs can use it. These are the key support personnel that allows our department to continue to run smoothly. Faculty don't have the luxury of switching lab activities at the last minute because a piece of equipment is down or crops were not planted, irrigated, fertilized, or sprayed.

In order to prepare students for careers in agricultural consulting (CCAs and PCAs), research as well as outreach/extension, the Agricultural Science Department needs to secure the most up-to-date technological tools for analyzing crop and soil parameters. 

• Enhancing a Culture of Completion and Academic Achievement
• Supporting Student, Faculty and Staff Success
• Maximizing Resources to Support Student Learning

With the addition of two new Plant Protection and Plant Nutrition courses in AGS/EH, we offer a 42 unit Program approved by the California Department of Pesticide Regulation that will allow a student along with 2 years of related work experience to quality to take the state licensure exam to become a Certified Pest Control Advisor. For careers in agricultural consulting including Certified Crop Advisors (CCAs) and PCAs, research as well as outreach/extension, the Agricultural Science Department needs to secure the most up-to-date technological tools for analyzing crop and soil parameters to add rigor to the program.

These supply needs include professional soil and plant tissue testing kits, plant pathology lab kits, weather and precipitation data collection and analysis, and a class set of laptop computers loaded with appropriate software on mobile cart storage. These outfits come with a multitude of testing capabilities related to soil and plant tissue nutrient status as well as for assessing soil quality indicators and weather station data. Additionally, leaf porometers to measure stomatal conductance as well as pressure chambers to measure plant water status are valuable tools for enhancing laboratory capabilities in AGS and EH classes, such as AGS 50, AGS 51, and PLS 20 (AGS 20). Students would directly benefit from experience using this equipment in a way that applies concepts learned in the classroom.

As the industry leader, Licor Instruments has a LI-COR Environmental Education Fund (LEEF) Program, which offers grants toward the purchase of instrument packages, two of which are listed in the supply needs section of the AGS unit plan.  The LEEF Program and the included packages are specifically designed for undergraduate institutions looking to integrate research grade instrumentation into their classrooms and labs.  The Agriculture Science Program at Butte College is ideally positioned for receiving a competitive grant through the LEEF Program due to our strong connection and relevance to the regional agriculture industry as well as two highly regarded agricultural universities nearby.  If awarded, the LEEF grants will off-set the cost of these instrument packages by 50%.  Supplemental grant funding may also be secured for the remaining 50% needed to purchase these instruments.  These instrument packages would provide valuable hands-on experience for numerous classes in AGS, namely AGS 50 (Soil Science), AGS 51 (Plant Nutrition), PLS 20/AGS 20 (Plant Science), EH 41 & EH 42 (Wine Growing Practices, fall and spring) and EH 62 (Weed Science). Currently we borrow old lab equipment from the Biology Department with the assistance of their lab technicians. It would be better for us to have our own current equipment that they could use in their labs as well. 

To support our classes, our students and staff need new and safe equipment, tools, and vehicles to work in the crops, orchards, and vineyard areas on the college farm. Accessibility for transportation and restroom facilities needs to be addressed.

• Supporting Student, Faculty and Staff Success
• Using Data-Informed Processes for Continuous Improvement

Some of the Farm Shop tools and equipment have reached the end of their useful lives. Many are in need of significant repairs, which justify simple replacement, since they are being used to train students in their use. Student and staff safety is our #1 responsibility, followed by training with modern equipment and technology.

We believe that using industry standard equipment is vital and our students need this exposure to maximize their employment potential, including the use of GPS technology on our tractors. Equipment needed includes hand power tools such as weed eaters, chain saws, all-terrain-vehicle (ATV), rotor hammer, and MIG welder, and large farm equipment including a new ag pickup truck, hay baler, hay squeeze, and hay rake. Simple hand tools needed include T-post drivers and tool box of both metric and standard hand tools. We also have a need for a portable restroom and sink facilities for students who work on the farm far away from restroom facilities on main campus, and for students with physical disabilities.

The Ag Department is one of the few programs that can generate funds through its farm-inclusive curriculum. By providing modern equipment, the farm can generate additional dollars for the Ag Department, which maintaining important connections to current ag industry practices through hands-on work experiences in classes and lab settings.

The need for vehicles come from the fact that ag faculty need to use the Ag van during the week for lab trips, and the van is regularly in use by three ag faculty. Three of the six fulltime faculty have a commercial driver's license for driving the current 15-passenger van, so it would be appropriate to request funding for a 12-passenger van and a new pickup truck so all of the faculty can use a van or truck for field trips instead of depending on the pool of vans in Facilities, and this would reduce the congestion placed on the one van currently in place.

The Ag Department has three clubs (Ag Ambassadors, Hort Club, and Friends of the Refuge) which use the van and truck for off-campus field trips and conferences and having transportation is critical to the success of these club activities. Many of the trips are for recruitment to high school ag and FFA programs, and the Ag Department will be applying for Student Equity funding to increase the diversity of our current student population (e.g., African American, Asian, and Hispanic students). Many times we tour ag facilities who insist that we accept donated plants, and having a new ag truck would be useful to haul supplies and materials to labs.

A request for an additional ATV comes from the number of disabled students entering our program. We plan on working with the Butte College Veterans Office and Brian Shobe of the Farmer Veteran Coalition to apply for Student Equity funding and a USDA grant to secure resources to encourage and recruit US veterans to the Ag Department. Having improved transportation and recruitment materials will increase our chances of increased diverse populations at Butte College (e.g., veterans, African Americans, Asian, and Hispanic students).

There is a need for improved creek crossings, ag yard development, and the construction of a new ag facility which includes an additional farm shop, farm manager's office, ADA compliant classrooms, pavilion, and kitchen.

• Modeling Sustainability
• Enhancing a Culture of Completion and Academic Achievement
• Supporting Student, Faculty and Staff Success
• Maximizing Resources to Support Student Learning

Improved accessibility to college farm fields, orchards, riparian habitats, and outdoor ag science, natural resource, EH, and biology labs needs to occur with the construction of creek crossings and improvement of the ag yard. Depending on the vendors and construction supplier (external or through Butte College Heavy Equipment Operation students and staff), construction costs vary from $30,000 to $276,000 for the creek crossings and up to $304,000 for the ag yard.

Improvements to the ag yard do not include the design and construction of a new Ag/Farm Facility. Our farm is in need of an ADA-compliant, accessible facility with classrooms, pavilion, farm repair shop, farm manager office, kitchen, and restrooms. We are proposing a feasibility study to determine the costs and need for the Ag/Farm Facility, which could be estimated at $3,000,000.

One thing all agriculturalists pride themselves on is their real-world, boots-on-the-ground, hands-on experience. We want to give our students as many of these opportunities as we can, and offer paid work experience positions to students. These positions include both farm and ag science student workers.

• Enhancing a Culture of Completion and Academic Achievement
• Supporting Student, Faculty and Staff Success
• Maximizing Resources to Support Student Learning

Farm and ag science lab activities require the support of students for setup, in addition to farm, shop, and EH staff. There isn't enough time to go around to assist with all of the purchasing, pickup, and setup of labs, so increasing our paid student work force would not only assist our staff, but would provide valuable work experience opportunities for our ag majors.

The Product Process Technology proposed AS degree program offers a beneficial learning opportunity for Butte College undergraduates aspiring to a variety of industry processing careers and should be attractive to many who are interested in welding, fabrication, computer science, drafting, agriculture, and how they all play important roles in the processing industries and their regulatory agencies in California. This is an important program that will be a pioneering venture in California where agriculture is the number one industry valued in over $45 billion in revenues, which will provide our graduates with opportunities to capture those revenues into expanded ag product manufacturing programs with state-of-the-art technologies while being well-informed of regulatory frameworks. 

• Enhancing a Culture of Completion and Academic Achievement
• Supporting Student, Faculty and Staff Success

The advisory committees of the Agriculture, Welding, Drafting, and Computer Science have directed us to improve student opportunities in fabrication skills and procedures in Product Process Technology, our proposed new AS degree. We are in the process of evaluating our curriculum to determine the best fit for these enhancements, also looking for outdated information and techniques which could be removed from curriculum. Instruction in these four areas will require some additional equipment, facilities, instructors, and courses. This would generate FTES for the college, meet industry needs, and provide students with another educational/career pathway with abundant prospects and the potential for high skill, high wage employment. 

This is an additional opportunity to recruit a more diverse population into these areas (e.g., women, minorities, and disabled students).

All of our students benefit when our staff and faculty participate in current industry meetings, inservices, and conferences. Three of our staff hold required applicator's licenses which must be renewed every two years, and these staff must attend mandatory training to keep up these licenses. Two of our faculty hold PCA and CCA licenses which also must be renewed every two years. 

It would be to the benefit of the department and college as a whole to have faculty participate in data analysis training and software purchase, have the data tools, and expertise to use these tools, to conduct meaningful program reviews, unit planning, and implement Student Learning Outcomes.

• Supporting Student, Faculty and Staff Success
• Using Data-Informed Processes for Continuous Improvement

Ag Department staff need to attend ag industry conferences, meetings, and inservices to maintain currency in their disciplines, classrooms, and labs. With the ever-changing needs and technology of industry, it's critical to the success of our students that all staff are current in their disciplines.

As researchers and scientists, there is tremendous opportunity to learn more about our student population, their majors, their backgrounds, and potential recruitment sites, and connect that information to careers and funding opportunities. Having the additional research tools, training, and data analysis software will helps you construct a narrative and interactively share findings in ways colleagues and decision makers can readily understand and act upon.