Another fall semester has passed quickly. As we get ready to wrap up the semester, I would like to highlight some of the departmental teaching, research, and extension accomplishments within the department.
Our undergraduate program enrollment has increased by 100% in the last ten years. The undergraduate student body consists of 40% transfer students that are made up of students entering from other Departments and from community colleges. Ms. Cherie Hodgson continues to lead our recruiting strategy, and bring diverse demographics into our student body. During the fall, we hosted the annual awards banquet and awarded over $200,000 in scholarships to our students. Our department continues to outperform the university average in graduation rates with an 80% graduation rate. We graduated 118 students during the year.
We continue to generate extensive and impactful research. As an example, Nathan Hendricks earned the 2015 Southern Agricultural Economics Association Emerging Scholar Award in July and the 2015 American Journal of Agricultural Economics Outstanding Journal article award. In this newsletter we will be telling the story of a team of researchers who are completing the final phases of data analysis on a large scale project located in northern Ghana.
Our achievements are directly related to the continued support of our alumni and corporate sponsorships. This support helps us provide our students and outreach programs the proper foundation to continue our tradition of excellence. We appreciate the dedication and engagement of our alumni and outside supporters. Thank-you to our generous donors who give back to the Department.
Please take time to learn more about the activities of our department. We also encourage you to share your career and family developments so we can keep your fellow alumni informed. Please email me at afeather@ksu.edu or Thomas Reust, our newly minted communications coordinator, at tomreust@ksu.edu with information you would like to share with your fellow alumni.
