Milling & Baking News - March 23, 2004 - 31

ingly difficult task for the Grain Science
and Industry Department at K.S.U., which
has experienced a drop-off in enrollment
in recent years. While it is impossible to
pinpoint one factor behind the decline,
Mr. McFall provided some perspective as
someone previously in the industry and
now a member of the department.
"If I was looking at the department in
terms of where it has been and where it
needs to go, I think it's primarily been a
group focused on education and research,
which obviously is expected," he said.
"But what has been missing in the past
probably is an effort to attract students.
I think it's not that the department has
changed necessarily in its approach, but
that it's possible that young people today
come into a profession a little bit differently than maybe 20 years ago. It seems
to me that students are expecting to be
marketed. In other words, we need to sell
them on why this is a good program, why
the industry is a good industry, why it's a
good career choice, because I don't think
milling is something that most people
today grow up thinking about."
By the same token, he said the industry
may have sent conflicting messages to
the university about what the expectations were for students. At different times
industry has pushed a trend toward
students focused more on management
versus engineering or has sought greater
diversity, he said. The varied tactics may
have muddied the overall message of attracting students.
"I'm wondering if those messages
caused the view to be to target specific and was not focused enough on
just growing the overall department," he
said. "The department always has prided
itself on having jobs for every student.
While that's a great thing, it could be said
that we should have been putting more
students through in recent years even if
some didn't find jobs in a specific part of
the industry. That's just an observation
looking backward. It didn't dawn on
me at the time. I thought we were giving
good input to the department in terms of
what we thought we needed."
He said that both the department and
industry could also be guilty of thinking
that declining enrollment was just part of
a cycle that would eventually reverse, but
it has become obvious that a turnaround
just won't happen on its own.
K.S.U. is not standing pat. In an effort
to boost enrollment, the department has
worked with area community colleges

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in Kansas and Missouri to introduce students to the program. In addition, recruitment of students that have declared an
interest in agriculture at the school also
is a strategy.
"I don't think it's a big dollar issue,"
Mr. McFall said of bringing students back
to the program. "We just need to focus on
getting our message in front of potential
students and that's not necessarily big
dollars. I think it's one of those things that

may not be easily accomplished, but it's
easily measured."
For the time being, though, Mr. McFall
plans to continue to work to educate the
students he does have and to help the department grow in any way he can.
"I'm certainly having a lot of fun," he
said. "It's a good environment to be a part
of - students and the industry support
for the department have been good." MBN
- Eric Schroeder

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Milling & Baking News - March 23, 2004

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