Welcome

This site is designed to help you learn more about Perspectives on Agriculture and the Environment (11:015:101).  The course is offered each Fall semester for two credits. Perspectives examines several current issues to introduce the land-grant mission of the college and the multidisciplinary nature of both the problems and solutions it addresses. The course is intended for new, first-year Cook College students and class sizes are kept to a minimum (25 or less). Perspectives fulfills Area I: Interdisciplinary/Ethical Analysis of the Cook College Core Curriculum Requirements.

Jim Applegate, Cook College ‘64
Professor of Natural Resources, Emeritus and Coordinator of Perspectives (1985-2002)

September, 1960. I am sitting in AG 211, a classroom in the Ag Administration Building. I am a freshman enrolled, with my 100, all male, classmates in the 1credit course called General Agriculture. Dean Westerfelt Griffin is lecturing to us about the programs of the College of Agriculture in an attempt to broaden our understanding of what it means to be attending New Jersey’s land-grant institution.

Cut to 2005. The College of Ag has undergone two name changes. Ag Admin is now Martin Hall; Ag 211 has been converted to the Cooperative Education office. The class of 2008, 600+ strong with more women than men, is beginning its educational odyssey at New Jersey’s land-grant institution. The faculty of Cook College, with only five members the same as the faculty of 1960 (bonus points if you identify them), continues to believe that it is important for incoming students to begin to understand the college they are attending. “General Ag” has been through at least four revisions as the faculty seeks a meaningful way to expose an ever-changing student body to the spirit of the land-grant college.

You are now enrolled in “Perspectives on Agriculture and the Environment,” the most recent and longest running iteration of the evolution of “General Ag.” Twenty years ago, we adopted the current format for the course—small discussion sections with several common lectures interspersed. You deserve to know what we intend to do and what we expect of you.

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