The Environmental Horticulture Program provides our students with experiential learning opportunities within a progressive curriculum, linked with internships and community service, to instill the awareness and skills necessary for developing productive futures.
This program has one full-time instructor and four associate faculty. We have seen increasing student enrollment, industry interest and collaboration and advisory committee involvement steadily for the past sixteen years. With over 2500 employers in Northern California and ten times that on the west coast, the demand for our students and alumni far outstrips our ability to produce them. Many students enter the workforce prior to completing the program. This fact sometimes leads to problems with enrollment in ‘capstone’ classes, even though annual enrollments average over 450. We currently offer several avenues of education for our students. These avenues are: Certificates of Achievement - Environmental Horticulture, Nursery Technician, Landscape/Turfgrass Technician, and Crop Protection. We also have an Associate of Science Degree - Environmental Horticulture. We are actively creating an A.S. Degree in Viticulture & Winery Management and Certificates of Achievement in Vineyard Management and Winery Operations. The Viticulture and Winery Operations courses were approved by the Chancellor’s Office and are ready for scheduling in future semesters, once the AS degrees and certificates are submitted in spring 2018. The need for irrigation technicians and engineers in California has tripled in recent years due to impending retirements and decreased resources, coupled with higher demands on those resources. We are partnered with other community colleges through California Agriculture Teachers Association (CATA), working on the development of a two new Irrigation Technology Certificates-Beginning and Advanced, with the creation of additional irrigation technology, auditing, and CAD courses. We reviewed the certificate proposal at the Mid Winter Conference in December 2017 and approved it to move forward. Anticipated availability is Fall 2018. Courses currently exist, at Butte, in EH, AGS, DFT, and others to meet the requirements. This situation is similar to the increased need for PCAs (Pest Control Advisers) and CCAs (Certified Crop Advisers) seen in recent years. The additional courses to the Crop Protection curriculum have allowed our students to sit and pass Department of Pesticide Regulations State PCA and CCA exams. These successful students are accepting great internships and jobs all over the west coast in Environmental Horticulture and Production Agriculture. Our EH 66, Orchard Production and Management course, was offered in the fall semester 2017. A new fruit and nut tree orchard, in the old Organic Garden area, is in the planning stages and will assist in having quality on-campus laboratories for this class. EH 62 Weed Science and Invasive Species is being offered for the fourth time this semester, Spring 2018, and is now taught face-to-face. Another new course, EH 23 Fall Plant Identification was offered in Fall 2017 with high success and retention. Many of those students are back, currently enrolled in EH 24 Spring Plant Identification. We host four active clubs on campus. The Environmental Horticulture Club is the oldest club on campus. The Western Heritage and Agriculture Association is a three year old club now. This year we started a Beekeeping Club to meet the extreme demand for knowledge about bees and their very necessary roll in agriculture, conservation and sustainability. The demand is so strong that we will move forward with re-kindling our Beekeeping class. Justin Edson, an EH/AGS Associate Faculty member is advising the Butte College Agriculture Ambassadors and bringing new energy and commitment to it. Our transfer rate has been steadily increasing each year. We have sent students to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, U.C. Davis, CSU, Chico, CSU, Fresno, CSU Humboldt, University of Florida, University of Oregon and others. We are currently conducting research projects in the nursery system in collaboration with CSU, Chico College of Agriculture and Butte College Biology students and staff. Our student surveys have concluded that research is high on their list of objectives. Retention is high, considering the industry demand, as a result of strong efforts to create a sense of place and camaraderie in the courses and within the clubs that we advise and promote. Hard work by our faculty and technicians to establish and maintain a beautiful and welcoming area helps to hold students here even when they have no classes. This strong sense of place and belonging is fostered by everyone in the program. The Environmental Horticulture Club is one of the most populated and active clubs on and off campus consistently participating in many community service projects year round.
New Holland tractor for vineyard and field operations.
We now have a reliable piece of equipment for students in labs when they need it. The bulk of our equipment, especially the field tractors are very old and well used. Despite the great efforts of our mechanics, these pieces of equipment break down often costing students valuable experience time. This new tractor offers the chance to operate the most modern set of controls as well.
We are co-writing a new Certificate of Achievement - Landscape Irrigation Technician as a Beginning Level certificate. This is a collaborative effort with three other California Community Colleges and would only require us to develop one more course to be able to offer the whole program. The beauty of this collaboration is that students can take the classes from any of the institutions offering them toward completion, in a state-wide cooperation. The Advanced Irrigation Systems Design & Management Certificate will require a pumps class, a course in micro-irrigation and an agricultural irrigation class. This holds many possibilities for Precision Agriculture Technology as well. Can we provide certification exams through the Irrigation Association if one of our faculty become certified? We are investigating those certification possibilities.
Overall EH SLO Assessment (fall 2017):
Part 1 – Findings - Last semester was a challenge as we hired three new Associate Faculty to teach (5) courses, all for the first time, with only days or weeks to train and prepare them before the semester started. We face the same situation this spring semster.
There is a fine balance between having students repeat critical skills often enough to master them and having them get bored with repetition.
It has been evident that the students who are efficient at taking notes during class, both lecture and laboratory, have higher levels of success and knowledge retention.
Each instructor has at least one writing requirement, some more than one, with a formal paper due in each class as well. The writing skills are sub-par and require practice.
Part 2 – Strategies - We are all working together to minimize repetiveness and overlap in our courses, while still emphasizing the need for mastering skills necessary in the job field.
We are requiring notebooks in every class now to evaluate knowledge retention and increased success.
We are recommending the critical skills workshops through Center For Academic Success and giving extra credit for attendees. We are also advising students to enroll in writing/composition classes to increase these skills. Our Advisory Committees, both local and state-wide are asking for this too. Trying to correct the errors in these papers is very time consuming and we are not English teachers, by training.
We are going to look over our course SLOs and PLOs to determine what we can add to our classes to emphasize these successes, that is, what can we include as incremental steps to increase or speed up learning and understanding. The use of small projects leads to the fulfillment of larger ones, which truly reflect the actual job skills our students must possess upon graduation. One thing that is missing is the connection to plant diseases and pests due to our lack of lab equipment. We also need to update our PLOs for the program, and complete the viticulture certificates, and AS degree.
| 2012FA | 71.07% | |
| 2013FA | 68.16% | |
| 2014FA | 73.51% | |
| 2015FA | 75.61% | |
| 2016FA | 74.61% | |
1. Enhancing a Culture of Completion and Academic Achievement
2. Supporting Student, Faculty, and Staff Success – We are engaged with students from daily class contact to club activities (e.g., Environmental Horticulture Club, Agriculture Ambassadors, Western Heritage and Agriculture Association and the Beekeeping Club). Faculty and staff are encouraged to attend Professional Development conferences and workshops, and gain digital/technological expertise. We believe in Students First, and foster that mantra with every class, la and activity. We are involved with many committees throughout campus, some volunteer and some elected by the faculty vote. We are involved with accreditation, and have active advisory committees.
3. Using Data-Informed Processes for Continuous Improvement – Our faculty utilize data from the Reports Server, from the Office of Institutional Research, personal data collection and analysis, SLOs assessment, enrollment management/scheduling, to promote greater student learning.
4. Maximizing Resources to Support Student Learning – We utilize academic advising and the use of Colleague’s degree audit function to assist students with course, degree, certificate, transfer, and career planning. We have received dollars for SB1070 grant (PCA Camp), sector navigator funds for travel and curriculum development, and Strong Workforce funding for an across disciplines CTE research study on student persistence, retention, and graduation.
5. Modeling Sustainability – The EH Department models sustainability by recycling paper, plastic, glass, and aluminum. We utilize the latest in irrigation technology to ensure efficient irrigation of our crops when EvapoTranspiration demands it. We installed a water bottle filling station to significantly reduce the use of bottled water. Sustainability is a constant in all of our curriculum, in every way that we can teach it.
6. Enhancing a Culture of Inclusiveness – We have worked hard to include students from all backgrounds and demographics to promote diversity and equity in our program. We have students who represent nearly every possible population and lifestyle choice in this country, in this program. They are made to know that they are welcome, will be supported and assisted in every way toward their goals and employment in our industry.
Most of the latest Program Review recommendations have been implemented. We are continuing to work on adding more irrigation technology classes and certificates as this area of industry is in strong need of trained technicians. Currently, we are partners with California Agricultural Irrigation Association, California Landscape Contractor's Association, Irrigation Association, California Farm Bureau, several irrigation equipment manufacturers, educators throughout California, and many local industry partners to train students to fill the demand for technicians.
We are moving forward with the Viticulture/Enology and Landscape Irrigation Technician degrees and certificates, at least the parts of it that are in our control. At our Advisory Committee meeting last fall, there was unanimous support to complete that program as originally envisioned. If cooperation is given, we can have that entire program, complete with three certificates, in place by this fall. We were also given the green light by the Advisory Committee to complete our Hydroponic Greenhouse and the class to teach its operation. We are working on finishing the electrical installation now and the course will be written soon. Students have high interest in this type of operation as it is becoming more useful and recognized world-wide. You can produce high quality food and a good income without the need for quality real estate and soil. This class will be full immedietely upon its offering.
1. Hire a new Full Time Faculty member to replace Carrie Monlux after her move to the Dean position.
2. Complete reinstatement of all five of our Agriculture and Environmental Sciences Technicians to 100% contracts - now! Very necessary for everyone's morale and efficiency.
3. Increase the Student Assistant budget by four students per year for quality control and efficiency in our programs.
4. Increase the supply funding for consumables, equipment purchase and upgrades and vehicles. This will help to improve program quality, student learning and success, build enrollment and help with external relationships.
5. Purchase, repair and upgrade storage facilities and greenhouses. Our storage facilities are disgusting, unhealthy to students and staff and not providing the protection that our expensive equipment needs. Most of the greenhouses are (50) years old and 'Deferred Maintenance' only goes so far!
6. Increase funding for conference and industry participation. The agriculture world is evolving rapidly and we need to keep up with changes in order to provide the best experiences and training for our students.
Strategy 1 - Hire a full-time tenure track faculty member
Carrie Monlux moved into a Dean position last May. Her position needs to be refilled.
AGS 20, Plant Science, currently has a total four section offered each year. Carrie taught two sections per semester. We turn away students in each section, semester after semester. There should be at least one more section added. Currently, we do not have faculty available to staff another section. All qualified faculty are teaching two classes of overload per semester. We have experienced too much turn over with Associate Faculty in these classes. Consistency is lacking.
AGS 51 Fertilizers and Plant Nutrition is critical for our CCA and PCA students and is an easy fill. Without additional staffing we cannot offer this class.
We have had to eliminate two sections of AGS 20 Plant Science per due to lack of available associate faculty. With a new hire we could easily fill two-four new section per year. The AGS 20 classes have been taught and managed by Robert Landry. Robert has been setting up labs and providing leadership for associate faculty, but beginning in fall 2017 he will shift out of AGS 20 into AGS 50. It is difficult to acquire and retain qualified associate faculty with an agricultural background in areas of animal science, soil science, crop science, plant science, environmental horticulture and plant protection.
The one full time faculty in Environmetal Horticulture has had to shift teaching load to classes that were not going to be staffed with qualified assiciate faculty and move the associates we have into classes that they have not taught before. We are making due, but with stress at all levels.
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.
Strategy 2 - Reinstate Ag Staff positions to 100%
Increase the ag staff positions (farm manager, EH technician, and farm shop personnel) all to 100%, 40-hour work week.
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.
Strategy 3 - Upgrade and Install new Greenhouse and Storage Facilities
Update and expand greenhouses, storage facilities, and upgrade lab supplies which improve student learning experiences in the EH Department.
Agriculture and horticulture are applied sciences and require scientific equipment that is current and meets the needs of industry standards (e.g., measuring vessels, microscopes, and grafting tools). Our requests for a new greenhouse, heaters, benches, and irrigation systems come from the fact that our facilities are approximately 40 years old and need to be replaced. While we do have functional greenhouses currently in use, they are not running at an efficient level and do need to have improvements made to keep them running. They provide an income stream to support our program and help us be more self-sufficient, but are not contributing to sustainability since they are so outdated and inefficient energy-wise.
Our greenhouses are all over forty years old or are hand-me-downs that were well used when donated to us. A new polycarbonate greenhouse would be more energy efficient and meet the standards of the modern nursery industry for educating our students.
Several of our equipment storage buildings are in bad need of new roofing. They leak when it rains which exposes tens of thousands of dollars worth of valuable equipment and tools to damage or degradation. We need roofing materials to make the necessary repairs.
Our plant sales carts and most of the nursery/greenhouse benches are so old they are falling apart and need to be replaced for continued production values to be sustained and to allow for a better educational experience. We have replaced some, but need to do more.
Strategy 4 - Increase the supply funds for equipment, vehicles, and consumables
Provide for accessibility and improve program quality for all students in the EH Department.
Our request for vehicles and portable toilet/sink station comes from the need to support our students who are conducting lab activities throughout the campus. There are no restroom facilities on the outskirts of the campus core where many of our field laboratories are, so students have to be shuttled back to use toilet facilities, having our own restroom station would eliminate downtime during on-the-farm labs.
In the event we have students with physical disabilities, we need to have a farm vehicle to transport these students around the farm, to the vineyard, and other remote or hard-to-access points on campus. We believe in providing a superior lab experience for all students, no matter the disability or location or terrain. The aquisition of our new Yamaha Viking VI ATV will assist transportation to and from our remote labs immensely.
We could still use a portable, trailered field toilet and sink, especially at the vineyards and mandarin orchard to maximize comfort and site use hours. Some of the EH 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.
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.
We have a need for improvements to and construction of:
1. The Historic Building (equipment storage, covered lab area),
2. The greenhouses
3. The storage sheds
4. Nursery growing grounds
5. New orchard
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 and the fact that we may have multiple labs occuring at the same time. 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).
Strategy 5 - Conference and industry meeting participation
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.
We also could increase student numbers and enrollment across disciplines with our recruitment activities to gain FTES.
EH 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.
Strategy 6 - Facility Support by Student Workers
Our nursery and greenhouse system, along with our large and diversified field crops laboratories need consistent management and labor. Faculty and classified staff can take care of the management, but need additional labor to accomplish these needs. Student workers need to be paid to drive out here and devote their time for these needs. We need some student assistant money for that purpose. These budgets used to exist and were constant until the budget cuts ten years ago. We always put our student assistants on work experiences which also generates FTE for the district.
The duties and tasks that need to be performed on a daily and weekly basis throughout our system of living laboratories cannot be ignored during weekends and holidays. Somebody needs to take care of them. We need more student assistant money to hire those individuals.
Our request for additional funding to expand our student assistant program with work-study or other financial assistance. We do require the use of student help to run our programs, and it is an extremely valuable learning experience for our students to receive hands-on management experiences.
EH 26 (Landscape Planning and Design, EH 38 (Greenhouse Production) and EH 74 (Irrigation System Design) would benefit from the use of a computer lab during the crop scheduling exercises and the design exercises. Use of CAD software would allow successful students to attain valuable and sellable skills that are required for these jobs. This would enable all students to be on their specialty software programs at the same time for more efficient use of instruction.
The number one request of our industry partners and Advisory Committees is to expose students to 'Precision Agriculture'. These instruments, sensors and applications, even if donated, need computer lab space to teach them and the computers need enough software bandwidth to run them.
As our Agriculture and Environmental Sciences Department programs expand, we have experienced some minor difficulties finding classrooms in which to teach.
We do make some money with the plant sales from the nursery operations. This will increase as the expansion area out back between the treeline and back shade area gets filled with inventory or custom grows. The completed expansion will double our effective production values. This process has been ongoing for many years and we have had to complete this with volunteer labor, donated materials and meager funds as they became available. Any monies made from the income account go right back out to support materials, equipment and student assistant labor to keep this department afloat.
The District budget allocated from year to year has never met the needs of this program. We have used Perkins funds, along with the District funds to get us through about 4/5ths of each year. We have calculated the enology classes and wine sales could provide additional revenue to our program, making it a self-sustaining program and have changed from organic to sustainable practices in the vineyard to increase yield, thereby increasing revenue.
A couple years ago, one of our students asked his landscape maintenance clients to donate to a vineyard tractor fund and a Foundation account was started with those monies, however not enough money was donated to buy a tractor, so it remains there. We will pull all that money out very soon.
Our industry partners have previously wanted to host a fundraiser for the winemaking program in years past, which we feel would reap great benefits, however this program has not come to fruition yet. When we submit the Viticulture & Winery Management AS degree this spring, perhaps this can be done next fall.
Our staff continues to pursue grant opportunities, but full time faculty are in double overloads and have many other time consuming duties which make grant writing very stressful.
We were succesful at attaining an industry donation of plant material and potting media, but cannot rely on these donations to support the hands-on activities required of our classes.
| Original Priority | Program, Unit, Area | Resource Type | Account Number | Object Code | One Time Augment | Ongoing Augment |
| Description | Supporting Rationale | Potential Alternative Funding Sources | Prioritization Criteria | |||
| 1 | EH/AGS | Personnel | $0.00 | $109,877.00 | ||
| Hire a new EH/AGS faculty member | We need to maintain core programs and services (e.g., Soils instructor, academic advising). Finding part-time faculty is very difficult so to maintain consistency and continuity in our program, a new hire is vital. Bruce Hicks is retiring and we weren't given a hire due to him having a year of banked leave. Our students are going to suffer without fundamental courses such as Soil Science and Plant Nutrition. |
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| 2 | EH | Personnel | $0.00 | $25,000.00 | ||
| Restoring all staff members in the Agriculture Department to 100% funded positions. | The five classified staff that support all of the agriculture programs and labs, along with many cross-campus duties, have not been restored to full salaries since the cuts many years ago. This has detrimental impacts to morale as well as unavailability of those staff certain hours per week as they don't get paid to be here all week. Many times, we need their help and expertise when they are not here. This leads to frustration of faculty and loss of student learning and success in many instances. |
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| 3 | EH | Facilities | $57,000.00 | $0.00 | ||
| roofing and wall materials | The roofing, walls and ceilings on the Historic/Equipment Building is leaking badly and it needs two new rollup doors. About $100,000 worth of equipment, vital to our program, is stored within and is being damaged. We also have a family of owls and some squirrels that live in the building crapping all over our equipment. Faculty, staff and students have to deal with this unsanitary condition on a weekly basis. The condition of this building and the lack of other storage for our valuable equipment is causing degradation to that equipment. When the equipment is in filthy condition or does not operate when the students need it, their learning is inhibited and our programs suffer. We are embarrassed by the condition of this facility and hate for students and off campus visitors to see it. We are forced to continue to use this building as we have no other storage. I have repeatedly asked for help from Facilities to make the necessary repairs, with no positive response. This would be my highest priority for either District augmentation funds or Strong Work Force monies. |
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| 4 | EH | Personnel | $0.00 | $20,000.00 | ||
| Increase number of paid student assistants | Farm and EH 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. |
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| 5 | EH | Facilities | $88,850.00 | $0.00 | ||
| Agra-Tech Polycarbonate Greenhouses | Need more energy efficient greenhouses to reduce heating and cooling costs while improving plant growing environment. All of our greenhouses need to be replaced, so we could start with the main greenhouse. |
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| 6 | EH | Personnel | $24,000.00 | $0.00 | ||
| Professional Development: Conference and industry meeting participation | 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. All three of our faculty hold either PCA and CCA licenses and two of our technicians also hold QAC 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 in ag science. 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. Conferences and meeting supplies include CATA ($6000), CAPCA, PAPA, and DPR ($5100), JMP ($3200), FarWest Trade Show ($2200), and ASHS ($5700). |
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| 7 | EH | Equipment | $0.00 | $1,900.00 | ||
| Portable/trailered toilet and sanitation station | Due to the lack of restroom facilities at the vineyard and mandarin orchard, we need a portable toilet and sink station for student use during weekly labs. Several classes use the vineyard and orchard throughout the year. |
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| 8 | EH | Equipment | $26,363.00 | $0.00 | ||
| State-of-the-art irrigation management equipment for the farm operations | Since sustainability is so important to us and our future water resources are in question, it makes sense to be able to train our irrigation technicians on the newest water management equipment. It also fits in nicely to curriculum upgrades and demand for experienced water managers for industry. |
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| 9 | EH | Equipment | $64,000.00 | $0.00 | ||
| Vehicles (truck and van) | 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 full-time 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 (specifically a 2017 Ford Transit 12 person van $34,000, as per quote from facilities) 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. |
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| 10 | EH | Personnel | $18,000.00 | $0.00 | ||
| National FFA Convention, State FFA Convention, CAPCA, and CATA participation | This is the largest student organizational expo and trade show in the US (approximately 60,000 attendees). It is an excellent opportunity to recruit students for Butte College as a whole, not just the EH Department. Participation would allow faculty an opportunity to see the latest industry products and developments, but also recruit new students and out-of-state students. This is held in Indianapolis, IN October 25-28, 2017. This item has also been sent to Enrollment Management and the Office of Recruitment and Outreach due to its out-of-state travel and connection with these funding streams. |
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| 11 | EH | Equipment | $24,500.00 | $0.00 | ||
| Development of new AS degrees | Our EH Advisory Committee has directed us to create an AS degree (with stackable certificates) in Landscape Irrigation Systems Design. We also need to get materials, equipment, and supplies for the Viticulture/Enology certificates and AS degree. |
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| 12 | EH | Facilities | $78,560.00 | $0.00 | ||
| Equipment and supplies storage buildings (the Ls and Rs storage) | These old facilities need new roofing, electrical, outlets, lighting, and shelving. Our programs use a lot of different and expensive equipment and tools which must be protected from weather and theft. |
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| 13 | EH/AGS | Equipment | $14,600.00 | $0.00 | ||
| AirBlast (packblast) sprayer | This is a foliage-applied pesticide sprayer that would be used for multiple crops and in multiple classes in both AGS and EH. As an industry-standard for safe equipment use, calibration, and application, an addition of a new (and functional) airblast sprayer would compliment our program, provide students with practical experience, and improve our efforts in plant protection in the mandarins, vineyard, and hopefully upcoming replacement fruit and nut orchard. |
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| 14 | EH | Equipment | $18,650.00 | $0.00 | ||
| Trade show booth | The Butte College Ag Department is invited to recruit and demonstrate at various trade shows, field days, and conferences. With the current need for increasing FTES, we need to update and create a new, modern recruitment booth that will aid in presenting our degrees and certificate programs to students and the general public plus allow us to sign up and track interested leads. Items in this request include two iPads and lead capture apps, banners, tabletop display, signs, literature displays, badges and name tags, tablecloths/tableskirt, flags, backdrops, projector, monitor, transport cart, prize wheels, portable tent, carpet, promotional items with department and Butte College logos, staff shirts, hats, and jackets. |
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