Stories Archives

HISTORY OF FARM OPERATION

Louis M Thompson
3/20/96

The idea of a farm operation curriculum originated in the curriculum committee of the Division (later the College) of Agriculture during World War II.  It was to be a four-year program to replace the two-year program in general agriculture that seemed to have little appeal.  The 1943-44 catalog states that, “This program is planned for young men who desire to farm and who find it impossible to complete a four-year curriculum.”  The two-year collegiate program in general agriculture was started in 1915 and never had more than 64 students.  It was time to revise the program to attract more students.

The non-collegiate two-year program in agriculture was started 1911 with 154 students, and reached a peak enrollment of 431 students in 1919-20.  The enrollment gradually declined in the 1920’s so that there were only four students
in 1929, and the program was discontinued.  The non-collegiate two-year graduates were very proud, grateful, and loyal.  They held a reunion on the campus every fall and were still holding their annual meetings in the 1950’s.  Their leader was Professor J.C. Cunningham, a man I never met, but I heard a lot about him.  He was one of the most beloved men of his time.  He died in 1947.

Dr. W.G. (Bill) Murray was most influential in getting the farm operation curriculum approved.  He started the Ag 450 Farm in 1941.  He did not believe farm operation should be in a department, or that it should ever become a department.  He considered it to be an interdisciplinary program.  The administrator of the program was Milton Holcomb who was assistant to Dean Kildee.  At the end of World War II, the new curriculum in farm operation really appealed to the veterans who were returning to college, or entering college for the first time.  The first two years were outlined as a two-year program that led to a certificate (like a diploma) farm operation.  The catalog provided that by taking 24 credits in physical and biological sciences, 18 credits in social sciences, 24 credits in technical agriculture, and 33 credits of free electives a student could earn a B.S. degree in farm operation.  The flexibility of the farm operation curriculum made it the most popular curriculum in agriculture.  Each student could design his or her own curriculum with the help of an adviser.  The curriculum for the junior and senior year had to be typed and signed by the adviser, the head of the farm operation curriculum, and the academic dean of agriculture, and filed with the registrar.

Agronomy 154 was a course in soils primarily for farm operation students.  The course did not require chemistry as a prerequisite.  I taught a section in most quarters, beginning in 1947 until 1960.  I became aware of many negative statements that were being made about farm operation by members of the faculty.  Farm op (as it was called) was popular with students but unpopular with the faculty.  Had the faculty realized how popular farm op would be the curriculum would never have been approved.  Farm op was taking students away from other departments.

Dean Floyd Andre became dean and director on July 1, 1949, when Dean H.H. Kildee retired.  Prior to 1946, Dean Kildee was the administrator of the teaching program, while R.K. Bliss was director of the extension service, and Dean R.E. Buchanan was dean of the graduate college and director of the Agricultural and Home Economics Experiment Station.  As they retired, Dean Kildee took their responsibilities as well as his own with administration.  The assistant administrator for the experiment station resigned and Dr. George Browning, an agronomist, became the associate director of the Experiment Station.  Dean Andre had a B.S. degree in agronomy and a Ph.D. degree in entomology from Iowa State University.  Right after Dean Andre arrived Mr. Milton Holcomb, who had been assistant to the dean and in charge of farm operation, resigned.  Dean Andre had a mandate from a member of the Board of  Regents, Mr. V.B. Hamilton, an animal scientist, that the associate dean for teaching had to be from animal husbandry.  Dean Andre decided to replace Mr. Holcomb with two men, one from Animal Husbandry and me from agronomy.  When Dean Andre called me in to offer me the job of professor in charge of farm operation, Mr. Hamilton was with him.  I had a bad opinion of farm operation which I couldn’t discuss at the time, so I simply said that I would rather teach full time and finish my textbook but Dean Andre wanted me to think it over before making a decision.  After I returned to my office, Dr. Browning came to see me.  He told me in no uncertain terms that “Louie if you are going to stay on the team, you better play where the coach puts you.”  When Dean Andre called me to his office the next day I accepted the job with the understanding that I could earn my Ph.D. degree first and teach part time.  That meant that I would become Professor in charge of farm operation at the end of the winter quarter of 1950.  Roy Kottman, who was working on his Ph.D. degree in Animal Husbandry, became the assistant dean for teaching.

As soon as I reported for duty after receiving my Ph.D. degree Dean Andre showed me three rooms on the floor above his office that would be used for farm operation.  I could have a full time secretary, ad a full time man to help with advising.  He said that I would be full time in his budget, but could teach part time in agronomy.  He also said I would function as an assistant dean, and attend his staff meetings, even though my title would be Professor in charge of farm operation.

President Friley called me to see him in his office.  He was concerned about the fact the last two years of the farm operation curriculum were completely flexible.  He said “Louie I don’t want those students in farm operation to develop an academic bellyache.  Help them develop programs to meet their career goals.”  Then he told me that he had arranged for me to spend one hour each week, during the spring quarter, with former President R.M. Hughes, so that he could tutor me in college administration. 

There were about 200 freshmen and sophomores in farm operation, and they were being advised by R.M. Vifquain, who was the short course officer and the placement officer for agriculture.  He could meet with his advisees only two hours each week in room 11 Beardshear Hall, which was the advising office for the junior college which was administered by Dean Maurice Helser.  I wanted a full time person, so I relieved him of advising and hired ten seniors in farm operation to work four hours each week, so that a senior was available eight hours a day during the week and four hours on Saturday morning.  There were about 100 juniors and seniors in farm operation, so I became their adviser.

At the end of the spring quarter of 1950, Mr. Alfred Odegaard, who became the instructor in Ag 450 following Mr. Holcomb’s departure, resigned and the Ag 450 farm was turned over to me.  It was a student-managed farm, so I decided to be the instructor during the summer quarter of 1950, in order to become acquainted with the farm.

Dean Helser had experienced professors from all divisions of Iowa State College helping him with his advising program.  He met with these professors periodically in the Memorial Union during a noon hour.  It was a brown bag lunch meeting.  I attended those meetings since I did not have a full time advisor hired.  I soon learned that the main job of the adviser was to preclassify students for the following quarter.  There was not enough time for “one on one” advising.  Each professor had far too many advisees for the amount of time allotted to be in Room 11 Beardshear.

I did not try to teach agronomy during that first spring quarter.  High school career days were becoming popular in Iowa, and the assistant to Dr. Friley, Professor Quincy Ayres was the contact man and coordinator for Iowa State. Since I was not teaching, I was called on regularly to represent agriculture on those career days. That is now I met Bob Skinner, who was teaching vocational agriculture in Sac City.  I hired Bob to be my assistant but his school board would not release him until January 1951.

The animal husbandry department was hurt the most by the growth of farm operation.  That department had long been the most popular department and had the largest enrollment.  Farm operation was growing at the expense of animal husbandry because of the inflexibility of the department head, Professor Phineas Shearer.  In order to substitute a course in a curriculum the student had to have the signature of the department heads affected by the substitution, as well as the signature of the head of his or her curriculum.  One of my students reported to me that Professor Shearer refused to let him substitute out of an animal husbandry course required in the first two years of the Farm operation curriculum.  I went to see Mr. Shearer to determine his reason for not approving the substitution.  He told me that if he approved one substitution he would have to approve others.  He was going to treat all students alike and not approve substitutions.  I went to Dr. Gowan, the registrar, and told him that all the names we needed on a substitution were the adviser, head of the curriculum, and the academic dean, so that the registrar’s office would know what was required for graduation.  He agreed with me and said he would get the system changed.  I assume that he worked through the president and the deans, because the system was changed.  It certainly saved much time for students, and it further increased flexibility throughout Iowa State.

I spent a lot of time analyzing the records of the farm operation students.  Their placement scores were disappointingly low.  Many of the students had transferred to farm operation after entering Iowa State.  The faculty had given the program a reputation of being the easiest program in agriculture and that it was attracting poor students.  One day in an agronomy faculty meeting, Dr. Darrel Metcalfe asked “Louie, if you get a good student in Farm operation, you don’t keep him do you?”  While I had a great many students with poor records, I had many really good students.  I had one student who had transferred from another college with three F’s in physics.  He had failed the first course in physics, and was preclassified in the second course which he had failed.  Then he was preclassified in the third course ,which he failed.  His adviser should have had him repeat the first course which he had failed, before attempting the second course in the year long series.

I found that the farm op club was the strongest part of the farm operation program.  Kenneth Kassel was the President, and the attendance at meetings was good.  I could recognize real loyalty on the part of students.  Kenneth and I set goals of acquainting the farm operation students with the farm leaders of Iowa.  Each month we would bring in a well known farm leader as a speaker for a club meeting.  This also gave me a chance to meet farm leaders, because I would entertain them in my home for dinner before the meeting.  By the time Bob Skinner joined me in January, 1951, the future seemed brighter.  My textbook had been published the previous summer, and I was using it as a textbook for Agronomy 154.  But it was the teaching that I enjoyed the most.  I began to wonder about the future of the Farm operation Curriculum in a hostile environment.

The previous fall, Dean Andre took me with him to the land grant college meetings so that I would represent resident teaching.  He was meeting with the deans and directors who were administering teaching, research, and extension.  They were often called “over-all-deans.”  At that meeting I became reacquainted with Dean D. N. Shepardson, who was the academic dean of agriculture at Texas A&M.  He was meeting with the administrators of resident instruction, as I was.  Seventeen years earlier, Dean Shepardson had been my dairy husbandry teacher at Texas A&M.  Dean Shepardson was getting close to retirement, and he held the job that I had dreamed of holding some day.  When I was an undergraduate student, E. J. Kyle was the academic dean of agriculture, and my mentor.  Dean Kyle was still Dean while I was an instructor in Texas A&M before World War II, and it was Dean Kyle who caused me to earn a Ph.D. degree at Iowa State.  In the spring of 1951, Dean Shepardson called me and offered me a full professorship in agronomy.  Before making a decision, I decided to visit the agronomy department at Texas A&M.  My mother lived in College Station, so I had a good reason to visit Texas A&M.  I sensed that a conflict existed between the dean and department head.  It was the dean who was hiring me, not the department head.  It was not the time to return to Texas A&M.  Once I made the decision to stay with farm operation, I made it my goal to make farm operation respected by the faculty.

During Dr. Friley’s last year as president, he appointed me chairman of a committee to study the semester plan versus the quarter plan.  We prepared a list of advantages and disadvantages of each plan to send with a questionnaire to each faculty member.  We found that two thirds of the faculty member preferred the semester plan.  A general faculty meeting was held to vote on the plan.  Dr. Friley had me preside at the meeting and he remained in his office.  I was to report to him the results of the voting.  There was a very poor turn out except for agriculture.  Just about every faculty member from the division of agriculture was there to vote.  After a lengthy discussion, the vote was overwhelmingly in favor of the quarter plan.  I will never forget the surprised look on Dr. Friley’s face when I told him the outcome of the voting.  He was very disappointed.  I liked the semester plan also because that is what we had in Texas A&M.  But the quarter plan turned out to be the best for farm operation.

I was glad to see Dr. James Hilton succeed Dr. Friley as president in July, 1953.  I had met Dr. Hilton in North Carolina in 1949 when I interviewed for a position in agronomy.  After the interview in his office, he had me remain to talk with him about Iowa State.  I had a feeling that he would be our next president.  I was pleased that he remembered me in 1953.  Just a few weeks after he came to Iowa State, he called me one day and asked me to substitute for him the next day to be a speaker for the Ottumwa Rotary Club.  Shortly thereafter he organized a campus planning committee, and I was appointed to represent agriculture since I was serving as chairman of the land use committee for the division of agriculture.  I remained on the campus planning committee until 1967.

Dr. Hilton hired Dr. James Jensen from North Carolina to be provost.  Dr. Jensen liked the farm operation program very much because it was attracting students at a time when enrollment at Iowa State and in the division of agriculture was declining.

The year 1954 was a special year for farm operation.  We needed another adviser and another office.  The agronomy department had moved from Curtiss Hall, and a large corner room was available across the hall from the associate dean.  I had the room partitioned so that students entered the secretary’s office where they could wait to see an adviser, and there were three offices for advisers.  I had two advisers assisting me who were instructors working toward advanced degrees.  When I hired an adviser I made it clear that he should not expect to make a career of advising.  He would have to find another job after completing his degree program.  In 1954, I had been in farm operation four years, and I considered that long enough to be outside of a department, so I decided to look for another position.

I was offered the position of associate dean at South Dakota State in the spring of 1954.  I drove to Brookings to meet the department heads, the associate director of research, the associate director of extension, and the “over-all-dean.”  I was ready to accept the position when I met with the president before leaving, but I turned down the job when he said that I was to report to him instead of the dean.  I had taught staff functioning for a year in the infantry school at Fort Benning, Georgia, during World War II, and I knew better than to get in a mess like that.  A man from Nebraska took the job, and he didn’t last long because the old dean had a lot of friends in the state who were about to get the president fired, but the president shot himself while hunting pheasants.

I told Provost Jensen, as well as Dean Andre, that I didn’t want to stay in farm operation much longer, because I wanted a departmental home.  I told Dr. Jensen that farm operation was a “square peg in around hole” and that it should have a departmental home.  I also told him that I expected farm operation to be phased out in my lifetime.

Dr. Hilton said to me one day that the smartest move that Iowa State ever made was establishing a degree program in farm operation.  He said that it had dignified farming in Iowa.  I learned that while the department heads would like to get rid of farm operation, the top administrators liked the program, because it was attracting students and the retention was improving with good advising.

In the fall of 1954, the dean and director of agriculture at the University of Minnesota invited me to come to St. Paul to meet with department heads and tell them about farm operation.  I knew the dean wanted the program and I told them how the program had grown.  A third of all the freshmen in the College of Agriculture at Iowa State were enrolled in farm operation at the time I was visiting with them.  That wasn’t what they wanted to hear.  They were afraid that they would lose students to a curriculum in Farm operation, and the dean was never able to get such a program started.

As far as I know, Iowa State was the only agricultural college in the land grant system to have a farm operation program as an interdisciplinary program administered in the dean’s office.

One day in the summer of 1954, I asked Dean Andre if I could visit incoming freshmen on their home farms.  I would phone for an appointment.  I found it to be a very pleasant experience and most rewarding.  The parents really appreciated the visit.  After meeting the parents and seeing the farm, I could tell whether the student would be returning to the farm after graduation.  If the father was fairly young, I knew that the student might have to work somewhere for a while before taking over the farm.  I took my camera along to take pictures of the students.  I was able to call the student by name the first time I would see him in the fall.  That was about 40 years ago and it may be different today, but I always visited the parents in the kitchen and I entered the house through the back door.  If an older farm house was remodeled at all it was the kitchen first.  One day I looked the situation over and decided this was an exceptionally nice home and that I should knock on the front door.  In a few minutes I could hear a voice from inside saying “You will have to come around to the back.  We have furniture against the door.”

I got the idea of the visits to the home farm from my teacher of vocational agriculture.  He was the only teacher I ever had who visited in our home, and he became my unofficial adviser.

The home visits were continued until 1979.  Dr. Jensen was so impressed with the home visits in the late 1950’s that he said that he would provide the money for all the departments to call on their incoming freshmen.  We did not go outside the state for these visits.  We were short of current expense money in 1979, so, after talking with President Parks, we discontinued the practice.

As I would attend high school career days, I met many students who said they could only attend college during the winter.  I helped many students take only agriculture courses for the one quarter they could attend college.  Iowa State had a herdsmen’s program which was a non-collegiate program, and the enrollment was dropping so low that it was expensive to offer.  I proposed to Associate Dean Dr. Kottman that we drop the herdsmen’s program and offer a winter quarter program in farm operation in 1955.  He agreed, and I developed an attractive brochure which I sent to teachers of vocational agriculture and to county extension directors.  We had 54 students in the first winter quarter program.  I taught them their agronomy 154, and served as their adviser.  It was a tremendous success. I was amazed at the talent they had for music and acting.  We had a nice graduation banquet, without a speech, but with some fine entertainment provided by the students.  We developed a booklet with all their photographs and information that they would want to keep to remember the good time they had at Iowa State.  Each student received a nice certificate (like a diploma) which he could frame.  Many of those students in the winter quarter program returned for more education.  Dr. Harold Stockdale, who recently retired as head of the entomology department, started in a winter quarter program.

My idea has always been that satisfied students are your best recruiters.  Our farm operation students were happy with their curriculum that had so much flexibility and they like their advisers.

While I was the adviser of the juniors and seniors for eight years, I helped a great many qualify to teach vocational agriculture.  Many took courses to prepare for graduate college.  I also helped many students prepare to enter the College of Veterinary Medicine.  And up to 1955, when agricultural business was established, I helped many students prepare for a job in business or industry.  But my main job was to help students prepare for a career in farming.

In 1954, the animal husbandry department offered some new animal production courses for seniors (other than animal husbandry majors) with few prerequisites, and they revised their own curriculum to increase the prerequisites for their senior production courses.  But that didn’t keep the farm operation students out of their senior production courses.  I wanted the farm operation majors to be just as well educated in swine and beef cattle production as the animal husbandry majors.  Dr. Leslie Johnson, who earned his Ph.D. degree at Iowa State in 1941, returned to Iowa State in 1954 to succeed Professor Shearer.  Leslie and I became close friends, and the animosity that existed from 1950 to 1954 between farm operation and animal husbandry disappeared.

In the summer of 1955, I was offered the position of head of agronomy at Oklahoma State and decided to accept the offer.  Dean Andre asked me to hold on my decision until we could talk to Dr. Jensen, who told me that if I would stay at Iowa State I would be the next associate dean of agriculture.

The year 1955 was a turning point for farm operation.  Dean Helser retired in July, 1955, and the junior college was discontinued.  Farm operation was already independent of the junior college except for the academic standards committee.  The responsibilities for academic standards were turned over to the divisions (colleges) in 1955.

Iowa had a drought in 1954 that was intensified in 1955.  There was liquidation of hogs and cattle, and prices fell to their lowest level of the decade of the 1950’s.  Farming became less attractive to farm operation students.  I spent my last three years in farm operation helping most of the juniors and seniors prepare for a job after graduation.  The agricultural economics curriculum was restructured in 1955 to become agricultural business.  Agricultural business became more popular than farm operation in attraction students after 1955.

The academic year 1954 turned out to be the peak year in enrollment for farm operation (in terms of percentage of students in agriculture) when 24.8 percent of the undergraduates in agriculture were in farm operation, and 21.6 percent of the B.S. degrees awarded in agriculture were to farm operation students.  In that year, the enrollments in the four largest curricula were:  farm operation 539, animal husbandry 287, agricultural education 232, and agronomy 131.

Dr.  Roy Kottman became dean of agriculture in West Virginia in July, 1958, and I became associate dean of agriculture in charge of resident instruction at Iowa State.

I selected Dr. Duane Acker from animal husbandry to be professor in charge of farm operation, with the understanding that it would be a four year appointment.  I told him that he would probably get an offer to be an administrator by that time, but if he didn’t get such an offer he would go back to animal husbandry.  Dr. Acker did a great job and was a good leader.  At the beginning of his fourth year, he came in to talk about going back to his department.  I told him to give me a few more months.  Shortly after that I was in Manhattan, Kansas, for a meeting.  Dean Beck asked me if I knew someone who might make a good associate dean of agriculture.  I told him about Duane Acker who was hired for the job.  Duane moved up pretty fast.  He went to South Dakota State as dean, then to the University of Nebraska as the administrator for agriculture, and returned to Kansas State as president.

Dr. Roger Mitchell, who is now dean of agriculture at the University of Missouri, followed Dr. Acker as professor in charge of farm operation in 1962.  Dr. Mitchell was a very popular teacher in agronomy, and was an excellent administrator.  Both Dr. Mitchell and Dr. Acker taught part time, just as I did when I was professor in charge of farm operation.  I told Roger that he should spend no more than four years as professor in charge of farm operation.  He went back to the agronomy department, but it was not long before he became head of agronomy at the University of Missouri.

The next professor in charge of farm operation was Dr. Harold Crawford from agricultural education.  He moved from farm operation to become head of agricultural education.  He was associate dean for international programs when he retired in 1995.

While I had to approve the appointments of those who helped with the advising in farm operation, I always left the selection of advisers to the professor in charge of farm operation.  Roger Bruene had been assisting Harold Crawford and was one of the best advisers that I have ever known, so I selected Roger Bruene as the next professor in charge of farm operation.  After his term expired I offered him the position of placement officer, a position which he will hold until he soon retires.  He has the reputation of being the outstanding placement officer in the land grant college system.

Dr. Mitchell Geasler from animal science followed Roger Bruene, but he stayed only a short time, and moved to a higher administrative position at Michigan State.

Dr. Donald Woolley from agronomy, who was a popular teacher and an excellent adviser, was my net appointment as professor in charge of farm operation.  He went back to agronomy after serving his term.

The last person to serve as professor in charge of farm operation was Dr. Keith Whigham, an agronomist who had served as one of the advisers while he was graduate student.  He was serving in that capacity when I retired in 1983.  After I retired, he had the name changed to agricultural studies – farm operation.  Shortly after Dr. David Topel became dean of agriculture in 1988, Dr. Whigham left agricultural studies – farm operation to work with international programs at the university level.  Dean Topel appointed Dr. David Williams, who was head of agricultural education, to be also interim professor in charge of agricultural studies – farm operation.  The two programs were eventually merged by Dean Topel.  The name of farm operation was dropped as the 1991-93 catalog was prepared, and the name of the department was changed to agricultural education and studies.

Dr. Richard Carter who is head of agricultural education and Studies, told me recently* that there are about 250 student in agricultural studies, and that 30 to 40 percent of the graduates of agricultural studies become farmers.

After Iowa State changed to the semester plan in 1980, the winter quarter program was changed to three terms of eight weeks offered during the winter.  The name farm operation was dropped in 1991 and plans were made to phase out the program.  The last classes for the winter program were taught in the winter of 1996.

I am glad to see that the advisers in agricultural studies have a departmental home.  Time will tell whether the name of agricultural studies will be more attractive to prospective students than the name of Farm operation.  I believe that having the farm operation program helped us become the largest Land Grant College of agriculture all through the 1960’s and 1970’s.  As industrial education, landscape architecture, and urban planning were transferred to other colleges, our enrollment declined.  The peak in enrollment in agriculture at Iowa State and nationally was in 1977.  That was expected because of the declining birthrate after 1958.

When I was a student in Texas A&M, we were continually reminded by Dean Kyle that we were the largest agricultural college in the United States.  But in the late 1960’s Iowa State had twice as many students in agriculture as Texas A&M.  Part of our growth was due to our attracting women to study Agriculture.  Texas A&M was slow to make that change.  Dr. Kottman used to remark that that there was something magical about the name of farm op that attracted students.

Duane Acker was in charge of farm operation during a difficult time for two reasons.  One was that agricultural business was started in 1955 and soon had the largest enrollment in the College of Agriculture.  The other reason was that agricultural enrollment as declining from 1958 to 1963 at the national level.  The year 1963 was the low point in enrollment after World War II.  The baby boomers started to college in 1964 and we went through a golden age in agriculture that was capped with an economic boom in agriculture from 1974 to 1980.  Of course the livestock producers had a rough time in 1975 but they had recovered by 1980.

Duane Acker had the same philosophy that I had about training farm operators.  We wanted farm operation graduates to be as well educated in swine and beef production as the animal science graduates.  When Roger Mitchell prepared material for the 1967-69 catalog, he outlined the junior and senior years in the same manner as other four year-curricula.  In other words, required courses were shown for each quarter of the junior and senior years.  It was no longer necessary to type up a special curriculum for each student in the junior year.  As I look at the four-year farm operation curriculum outlined in the 1967-69 catalog, I can see a strong resemblance to the animal science curriculum.

I have referred to animal husbandry and animal science.  When Dr. Hilton became president in 1953, he started us thinking about a name change for Iowa State College.  We finally became Iowa State University in 1959, the year after I became associate dean.  We also became colleges of the university instead of divisions.  It was Dr. Hilton who took the initiative, in 1962, to change the name of the Department of Animal Husbandry.  One morning he called me about a general faculty meeting that we were going to have that afternoon.  He asked me to make a motion to change the name of the Department of Animal Husbandry to the Department of Animal Science, and that the names of the curricula in animal husbandry, dairy husbandry, and poultry husbandry be changed accordingly.  The reasons I gave were that the journal names had been changed to reflect science rather than husbandry, and that we would be following a national trend in the name change.  There was no discussion of my motion and it passed unanimously.

As I write this history, I can’t help but think about the centennial celebration of the Department of Animal Science, which will be on March 24, 1996.  It had a solid base for longevity because it had the right kind of organization and leadership.  And, I can’t help but mourn the death of farm operation because it shaped my career.  It had a short life, but it had a tremendous impact on the College of Agriculture, and it came about because it was needed.  It was the right program, in the right place, at the right time.

* Essay prepared 3/20/96