COURTNEY: Hello everybody, and welcome to
a virtual tour of the College of Ag campus at
Purdue University. We are so glad that
you're joining us today, and we look
forward to showing you just a little bit
of our home away from home. We're gonna
start by introducing ourselves. My name
is Courtney Kelley, and I am a senior
studying agriculture education. I have
enjoyed my time at Purdue more than I
can put into words, and I have been
fortunate enough to have many
internship experiences working on
campus as well as studying abroad all
over the world. I also changed my major
at Purdue, and I'll tell you a little bit
more about that as we go along. I'm gonna
go ahead and let Sohinee introduce
herself, and then Nelson will introduce himself.
SOHINEE: Hi everyone, my name is Sohinee
Bera, and I am a junior majoring in
agricultural communications with minors
in studio art and design and international
studies. So far my time at Purdue has
been very very busy. I've also been a
part of numerous internships and study
abroad programs as well as working on
campus and being involved in outreach,
and next I'll let Nelson introduce himself.
NELSON: Hello everyone, I'm Nelson
Knobloch. I'm a senior in agribusiness
management out of Wolcott, Indiana. So a
senior, so I have definitely looked back on
the last four years and have been an
absolute pleasure to be here on campus.
It's a fantastic place. I guess some of
the things that kind of highlight my
career are some different leader
development opportunities as well as
some internships across the country
and just overall place to make some
really great connections that I'll
definitely take with me.
COURTNEY: So we all three
serve as part of the AG Ambassador team
for the College of Agriculture, so
we serve as the student recruiters for
the college. We are going to be pulling
up an image of our team. There are about
30 of us, and we work throughout the year
to give tours of our campus as well as
to work at different recruitment events
across the country and here on campus as
well. So this is us. The next thing that
we are going to do, I just want to kind
of orient you to the area. So
Purdue is located about an hour north of
Indianapolis and about two hours south
of Chicago. We are nestled here. We are
actually located in West Lafayette,
Indiana.
Our sister city Lafayette, as you can see
right there, is across the river. So West
Lafayette where Purdue University is
located is predominantly a college town.
Most of the campus is made up or most of
the town is made up of Purdue
University's campus, and about 80 percent
of all people that live in West
Lafayette are in some way, shape, or form
affiliated with Purdue University. So
today our tour is going to focus on the
agriculture campus, but what you're
looking at right now is an entire map of
our campus. So in the upper left hand
corner, you're going to see the quadrant
of campus where most of our residential
life is, where all the residential halls
as well as some of our Greek life are
housed. If you have ever been to our
campus for an admissions tour, you likely
saw the main campus which is in the
upper right hand corner of your screen
right now. You got to see some of the
engineering campus, for example, or main
campus, Memorial Mall, all of those things,
but today we are going to be focusing
south of State Street. So State Street is
the only street that divides our campus,
and we are nestled right here on the
south side of State Street. So we, as you
can see, are using Google Maps, and so if
you miss something, you want to see
something a little bit better, you can at
any time go and visit any of these sites
or images that we have posted for you. So
you can see a little yellow guy in the
bottom right hand corner. He is going to
allow you to see a bunch of different
images, and you'll see these blue dots
pop up of campus. So we're gonna go ahead
and click on a few of those. There are
more than just those for the College of
Ag campus. There are tons of them located
all across Purdue University's campus,
but we're gonna focus on those in the
College of Agriculture today. So we're
gonna go ahead and start here outside of
our Ag Administration building. I'm gonna
turn it over to somebody else to talk
right now,
and I'll pop back in here in just a minute.
SOHINEE: I'm happy to take over, so right
now we are looking at one of
best views in my unbiased opinion of
Purdue campus. We are on the lawn of our
Agricultural Administration building
looking towards State Street. The bell
tower right there in the background and
Memorial mall in front of us. This lawn
area is kind of a really special place
in our College of Ag. We have a lot of where
we host some gatherings in this area,
such as a midnight pancake dinner as
well as our ice cream social at the
beginning of the fall semester. So during
our fall semester, we have all of the
clubs from the College of Ag come set up
booths right here, and each different
club sets a different ice cream flavor.
So you get to travel to each one of them,
learn a little bit about what they do as
well as get some free ice cream. So it's
just a nice little meeting ground for us
in the College of Ag, and then if we turn
around, we'll face the Ag Administration
building. So kind of just by the name,
this is where all the administrative
stuff happens. We have our offices of our
Dean and a couple of other important
rooms that we're gonna head inside and
check out. So right now, we're in the Ag
Administration building looking up the
stairs that we just came up from. Right
behind us is our office of our Dean, and
our current Dean is Dean Karen Plaut. She
is such a very cool and incredible woman.
Her background is in animal sciences, and
one really cool thing about her is that
early on in her career, she actually
worked with NASA and studying lactation
in mammals, and so I think that just
really demonstrates how agriculture
is that you could major in
animal sciences but end up working for
NASA. So you know your options are
limitless, and then to the right of us we
have a couple of our banners
highlighting some of our special
programs. So one of those is our Office
of Multicultural Programs
that is run by Dr. Morris and Myron
McClure of the College of A,g and the
Office of Multicultural Programs is
there to kind of just be a resource for
students. I mean you don't have to be a
minority student or an underrepresented
student, it's kind of for everyone in the
college to
get some more like diversity in your
college experiences and get to see some
more faces, and then the banner behind it
is for our study abroad programs. So the
College of Agriculture is really unique
in that we have our very own Study
Abroad Office. The university as a whole
has a Study Abroad Office, but so do we
which means that we have special
programs in agriculture for ag students
and ag study abroad scholarships. I know
for myself I was very lucky in that I
got to study abroad to New Zealand last
semester. So I was there for five
months enrolled as a full-time student
studying at the University of Canterbury.
I got to take some really incredible
classes and learn things that I would
have never gotten to learn if I had to
spend that semester at Purdue. I got
to learn about the indigenous people of
New Zealand, some of the native
ecosystem and biodiversity of the island,
and at the end of my study abroad
experience, I also got to participate in
an internship doing some communication
work. So that was really awesome and kind
of one of the biggest highlights I've
had at Purdue so far. So I know
Courtney has also studied abroad as well,
and she's done some of our shorter term
programs. I don't know if you want to
talk about those as well.
COURTNEY: Yeah so as Sohinee
mentioned, we do go to a lot of
different places. We travel to over 60
countries every year and have a wide
range of trips. As you can see, we do
offer shorter trips that are not a full
semester if you can't fit that into your
schedule. That was the case for me. So I
elected to do two May-mester or short term
summer programs. So those are three to
four weeks at the end of finals in May,
and I chose to do those. One of those was
specific to my major of Agriculture
Education, and I went to Jamaica for that
trip, and then I also was fortunate
enough to get to go to New Zealand on
any short term study abroad the
following summer.
I've also been on two that were shorter
term in terms of a week or less. So I've
been on a spring break trip as well as a
winter break trip. Both of those are
about nine days in length, and they
are really fast but really impactful, and
I think that the great thing about the
College of Ag study abroad programs is
they're all ran by faculty and staff
within the College of Agriculture for
the most part. So you're working with
your peers either in your major or in your
college, and you're also working with
faculty and staff very closely in those
situations. So that's one of my favorite
parts about studying abroad.
SOHINEE: And next, we're gonna head into our
Student Commons area. Nelson, do you want to
take over and talk a little bit about that?
NELSON: Yeah sure, so this is kind of, to be
totally honest with you, kind of my home
away from home when it comes to campus.
So this is the Student Success Center
here in the Office of Academic Programs.
So you'll see within here, there's a lot
of different resources. There's lab
computers as well as some printing that
links to your BoilerLink
account, and so all that printing money
is hooked up. It's about twenty dollars
per semester at the rate of four cents a
sheet. It's never really been an issue
for me as a student as far as having
enough of those funds, but that's all
connected and tied into the
overall system. So this is a really
good place to study, or if you have group
meetings, there are some conference rooms
back around to the right behind that
wall there, and so there's lots of
different space if that's what you need.
I think a couple of really cool things
within here, there's the scholarship
board right there on the, what would
that be, on the north wall, and so
there's always different scholarships
posted there. I mean one that I really
want to highlight is the College of
Agriculture supplemental scholarship
application, and so that is for both
current and admitted students who will
be joining us the following academic
year, and I believe last year we
gave out over 2.5 million dollars of
scholarships to our students which is
pretty awesome especially for a college
of our size of about 2800 undergrads. So
there's definitely a lot of funds
available there, and I would definitely
encourage any and every student to apply
for those funds. There's also some
resources around career services,
potential internship opportunities,
and things of that nature.
COURTNEY: It's also a great
place to get snacks during finals week.
NELSON: That is correct.
We love the snacks.
COURTNEY: All right, so I think
we're gonna hop outside, and we're
going to be positioned on the Ag Mall. So
this is kind of the central location of
the College of Ag campus. So we're
gonna kind of spin around and you'll get
to see several of the different
buildings that make up our campus,
including the Forestry building, Whistler
Hall which is part of the Biochemistry
Department. You can see far in the
distance the Agricultural & Biological
Engineering building as well as
Philip E. Nelson Hall of Food Science and
the Horticulture building. This is
another one of those areas as Sohinee
mentioned about the ag lawn that we have
events. So we often host an event out here called
the College of Ag Hog Roast. It often
happens here. For a college that's made
up of less than 30% of students who
actually came from a farming background,
we do have one evening a year where we
spend a lot of time acting like farmers.
We chuck hay bales, we catapult
shovels, we haul greased pumpkins, you
name, we shuck corn, can't forget that one.
You name it, we probably do it here at
this event, but another one of those
events that helps make the College of Ag
feel like home and feel like a family. So as
Nelson mentioned, we are a college of about 2800 students, which in terms of
university of about 40,000 students is
not that many. So it's
really nice to be part of a smaller
community. Purdue, whenever I came, felt
ginormous. We'll go into a lecture hall
later where my entire high school and most
of the eighth grade class would fit in.
So coming to Purdue was a little bit
intimidating because of the size, but
events like this help to make the
College of Ag a lot smaller. Kind of
going ahead with some of those events
that we host, as Sohinee mentioned, a lot
of our clubs come to those events, and in
the College of Ag, we have about 70 clubs
specifically tied to our college. However,
university wide, there are
well over a thousand different
student organizations that you can be a
part of: anything from the Quidditch Club,
Disney Movie Watching Club, Collegiate
Farm Bureau, you name it, you can probably
do it here in our college. So there are
tons of opportunities for you to get
involved with a lot of organizations on
campus. Part of being in those
organizations, we encourage our students
to take part in what we consider College
of Ag Transformational Experiences or
better known as CATE, and so being a part
of student organizations is one of the
ways that you can do that. Sohinee and I
mentioned studying abroad as part of our
CATE experiences. I'm gonna let Nelson
talk just a little bit more about some
of his CATE experiences, and then we'll
move on to our next section.
NELSON: Yeah so a
couple of those like Courtney
mentioned: things like undergraduate
research, leadership opportunities within
those club involvements, internship and
professional development opportunities.
So I guess a couple that come to my mind
is getting the chance to be a part of
the College of Ag Student Council known
as AG Council for the college. So some of
those events we've mentioned like ice
cream social and the moonlight pancake
breakfast and hog roast, so the
student council really focuses on
hosting and then executing those events
and facilitating what goes on during
those. So I had the chance to facilitate
that and help really promote current
engagement for our students that are on
campus as well as facilitate some
of the logistics and planning behind
that with a team of about 20 different
students, and then had the chance to lead
them one year as well as president. So
just some really cool, I think,
opportunities to learn as far as how to
work with people and how to manage them
and how to plan big events and things
that are definitely going to impact
you as you move in your career. Another
thing I want to talk a little bit about
that I found really transformational
would be the career opportunities
within the College of Ag. So the
college provides a lot of resources and
opportunities
of that through things like through our
College of Ag Career Fair, and so in the
fall, in October, we have over 155
companies here on campus:
everything from nonprofits, startups to
Fortune 100 companies to government
organizations, anyone and everyone. We
fill two massive sized gyms up at the
France Cordova Recreational Center. It
is massive, and it is awesome. Absolutely
love going to the career fair, but I
guess some of those opportunities as I
look back, those have been the
opportunities that have really helped to
shape and grow me as a person, an individual.
So I had an internship with a large
equipment manufacturer, John Deere, and so
got to work with them for two summers
and moving away from home and you know
really as far as pushing and
understanding what I do and what I don't
want in a career has been really really
helpful and really helped to transform
me as a person throughout my time in college.
COURTNEY: I think that Sohinee has one
other transformational experience that I
think is valuable for us to talk about,
so I'll let her talk about that really
quickly and then we'll move forward.
SOHINEE: Yeah, definitely, so I was lucky enough to
get to participate in a year-long
program known as Issues 360 that's
offered by our College of Agriculture. So
basically Issues 360 is a issues
engagement initiative. Its a year-long
program where you're with about 20
to 30 other students who have applied
into this program as well as
communication experts across the college,
and basically you learn how to talk and
discuss controversial and really
important topics within the fields of
agriculture and science, learn how to
constructively listen as well as develop
logical and sound decision making
skills. So basically, it's like a really
great program in increasing your kind of
professional as well as personal
development to show those future
employers that you know how to talk
about controversial issues, you know how
to listen to people, and you know how to
communicate effectively. It was a really
cool program that I got to be a part of.
COURTNEY: All right, so the next thing that we're
gonna do, we are gonna hop in to
the horticulture area. So we're gonna
start here in the Jules Janick Horticultural
Garden which was recently redone about a
year ago at this point. Man, it's hard to
believe it's been a whole year, but this
is a really unique space on campus that
I really enjoyed getting to be a part of
and getting to work out here. This
specific area of campus is pretty quiet,
and in the spring and in the fall, I love
to study out here under the gazebo, but
as you can see, there are lots of
different plants here. There are actually
over 200 varieties of plants mostly
native to Indiana but some not, but this
was redesigned by a landscape
architecture student here as well as
with contributions from some of our
faculty, but I'll talk a little bit more
about Landscape Architecture here in
just a second. One of the things I think
is really awesome about our horticulture
program is the amount of hands-on
learning that happens because of an
expansive system of greenhouses that our
professors get to work in. So Purdue
University is a land-grant university,
which means that we focus on three main
areas: teaching, research, and extension,
and so all of our professors do all of
that which leads me to some of my
experiences doing a little bit of
research. So I got to work in one of
these greenhouses. There are 40
greenhouses in this location, and several
more in another location on campus that
we'll visit here in just a few minutes,
but as you can see, we're here on the
back side of these greenhouses. Each one
of these greenhouses has a specific
purpose and generally a specific
research project that's going on. I was
fortunate enough to get to work in Dr.
Kim's research lab my sophomore year. So
she does research on aquaponics and
aquaculture, and I got to feed her
tilapia. There she is. There's Dr. Kim. It
was a very glamorous job, but it was one
that I really valued. Dr. Kim is an
amazing professor and teacher, and so it
was really great to get to work with her.
One of the other greenhouses
inside of the horticultural greenhouses
is this greenhouse that's tied to the
Purdue Student Farm, so one of those
student organizations that we're really
proud of on our campus that helps to
provide food for our dining courts as
well as local restaurants. So the student
farm has one greenhouse where they have
a hydroponic system on campus, and they
also have about six acres off of campus
where they have a couple of high tunnels.
This is Dr. Steve Hallett, and he works with a
lot of our students with a student farm,
and they grow year round out there. So
it's really cool, and they've been able
to do a lot of work with Food Finders
which is a food bank system in the
Lafayette-West Lafayette community, and
so they get to do a lot of really cool
things. So those are some of the cool,
cool features of our Horticulture
Department. We're gonna pop back inside
the Horticulture Building, and I'm going
to come back to the landscape
architecture major. So within the
horticulture department, the major
landscape architecture is housed. It's
actually a five-year program. So our
students work on campus for the first
three years. Their junior year, they're
actually given one of these desks spaces
to work in, and then their fourth year on
campus, they actually take a year-long
co-op. So a co-op is an internship
equivalent that they take for an entire
year. So in a lot of cases, they're going
to large cities all across the country
and working for a year at large
landscaping firms, and then they'll come
back for their senior year, do several
senior design projects of different
areas on campus and other spaces before
graduating at the end of their fifth
year, but this is one of the unique
spaces that our students get to work in.
We are now going to be moving into the
Philip E. Nelson Hall of Food Science.
So food science is a really interesting
major. As I mentioned, I changed my major.
When I came to Purdue and I actually
started in food science, so had a love
for chemistry as well as a love for food,
and I still do. I just decided I was too
much of a people person to love that
more than
people, but anyways, Dr. Nelson
is a really interesting person, and his
research is very, very interesting, and he
was actually Purdue's first World Food
Prize Laureate. I'm gonna let somebody
else talk just a little bit about the
World Food Prize program before we head
back to the pilot plant.
SOHINEE: Yeah, I can take over,
so yeah Phil Nelson here he was our, as
Courtney was mentioning, our first World
Food Prize Laureate. The World Food Prize
is basically like the Nobel Prize but
for within the field of agriculture. So
it's given to people that have made
important research contributions as well
as economic, political contributions in
this field. So Phil Nelson, he was a food
scientist, and what he developed was a
new technology of aseptic packaging
which allowed foods to be transported
over longer distances and larger
quantities and basically that technology
is similar to what a capri-sun package
looks like. So he basically did that and
took it onto a large scale, and that was
a really important contribution. So he won
the World Food Prize in 2007, and
we're actually really proud to say that
we've had two other World Food Prize
Laureates since then: one in 2009 and one
in 2017. So here are our three World Food
Prize Laureates. That's Phil Nelson on the
left, and then I'll jump over to the right.
That is our 2009 winner, Dr. Gebisa Ejeta,
and he is a Purdue agronomist, and he
focused  his research on a grain
called sorghum which a lot of the people
in Sub-Saharan Africa rely on as kind of
like a cereal grain for sustenance
and stuff, and what he did as an
agronomist was develop a pest and
drought free variety of that, and that
has helped improve the food security in
Sub-Saharan Africa immensely. One thing
that's really special about Dr. Ejeta is
that he's still a faculty member here at
Purdue. So you can take classes from him
and get to work with him. He also leads a
study abroad program, so I feel like
that's really special that you get to
work one-on-one with a World Food Prize
winner, and then in the middle, we have
Dr. Akin Adesina, and he's our 2017
World Food Prize winner, and
he is an ag economist, and his work
focused on a e-wallet system also in
Africa, and it reduced the corruption
that was happening between farmers and
chemical and seeds suppliers by reducing
the need for a middleman since with the
e-wallet system, they could kind of do
everything directly. So we're really
proud to say that we have three World
Food Prize winners, and we're hoping that
one of you guys listening will be our next one.
I'll give it back to Courtney
now. She wants to talk a little bit more
about the food science building.
COURTNEY: Yeah so there are a lot of
really cool things in
this building, one of those being the
pilot lab. I'll also talk just
briefly about some of the other rooms
that we are not going to see. In the
basement, there is a sensory test kitchen.
So a lot of the products that they
manufacture in the pilot plant, they are
testing in the basement, in the sensory
lab with students. So you can sign up for
their listserv, and you can be a part of
different surveys for either gift cards
or other things on campus. So anyways
those are great options to do that,
sometimes it's chocolate cake, sometimes
it's cheeseburgers, other times it's, I
tested one a couple months ago,
and it was like mashed potatoes and
gravy. You can always win you know. So
anyways, so that's one of the rooms
that's downstairs. It's really cool. We
also house, within the food science
department, the Indiana Wine and Grape
Team. So believe it or not, Indiana is
actually home to a lot of grapes as well
as a lot of other wineries. So about 10
years ago, there were less than 20
wineries in the state of Indiana, and now
there are well over a hundred which is
really awesome, but this is our enology
library and has as an extension collection,
extension, extensive, that's the word, a
collection of wine from across the world.
The former wine appreciation professor
who I kid you not his name was Dr. Vine.
This was the only job this man could
have. He was a wine taster for an airline,
and this is his private collection which
he donated to the university. So very
few people get to go in this room. We've
been fortunate enough to have a few Ag
Ambassador meetings down there as well
as I've been in a few meetings down
there as well, but anyways we're gonna
hop back to the pilot plant now. So this
is a great resource for students to work
in. Most food science students start
working in this facility their freshman
year, so I worked in this facility my
first semester my freshman year, and this
is a really cool space for a lot of
people to work in. As you can see, there
are tons of different types of equipment,
and all of those garage doors that are
along the right side of this plant are
all full of other different equipment
from everything from pasteurization to
packaging all kinds of things. We can do
just about anything any major
manufacturing plant can do in this space,
and because of that we actually have a
lot of our alumni who send products back
to Purdue to be tested and then used in
that sensory lab as I mentioned, but also
just so they don't have to shut down
operations somewhere else. So pretty much
every major food company in the United
States has some variety of a food
science, of a Purdue food science alum in
the building so anyways. So that's where
we are, but one of the cool things that
we got to do in the past year is create
the Boiler Bee Honey, which is a
partnership between a whole bunch of
departments at the College of Ag, so
that's really cool. So our food science
students worked with our entomology
students to harvest honey for the first
time and then worked with Ag Comm as well
as our ag econ department to create
labels as well as market the product. So
the first crop of Boiler Bee Honey came
out in February at our College of Ag
Alumni Fish Fry which was a great
surprise. We loved the honey, but it's
really cool to get to see a lot of our
departments work together. This is not
something that's unique. This was,
oftentimes our departments do work
together. Agriculture and biological engineering
students frequently work in this
facility as well. We have a food
processing minor that you can pick up,
and they do a lot of work in here as well.
So we're gonna hop over next to
Creighton Hall of Animal Sciences. I'm
gonna let Nelson talk about this if you
wouldn't mind. So go ahead.
NELSON: Awesome, so right now, we're standing in
the Purina Pavilion part of the new
Creighton Hall of Animal Sciences
Building. So this is one of our newest
buildings on the ag campus, kind of our
shining star and gem right now. So this
opened January of 2018. This was a
brand-new 70 million dollar construction
project with donors from both the state
of Indiana as well as large corporate
sponsors as well as money coming from
the state as well. So there's definitely
some really strong partnerships with
different organizations and corporations
across the nation that want to give
back because they also benefit through
hiring our students who go on to create
a lot of value for them through their
business value chain. So right now, we're
sitting in the Purina Pavilion like I
mentioned. So this is basically one big
massive wet lab, so our student,
student farm where most of the animals
are housed is about 10 to 15 minutes
from campus, can make a little bit
challenging. There it is, so that's one of
the main ones, so I guess. So within
the Animal Sciences Research and
Education Center, so there's
aquaculture, beef, dairy, poultry, sheep,
swine, and then there's some feed mill
and farm operations things as well, but
they're all fully functioning operations
that there's opportunities for student
employment and things like that, but for
instructors who are maybe wanting to do
some hands-on teaching with a
specific species or something like that,
taking students out to the farm during
a class period can be a little
challenging, and so the Purina Pavillion
really enables for some to kind of speed
up or make that process more efficient.
So the instructor can have the animals
here on campus for when those students
come into class to learn, and so I've
been in here. They've had sheep or goats.
I've seen sheep intestines on the floor,
all sorts of cool things.
They do all sorts of really
cool stuff in here, and then also there's
the entrance to where they take the live
animals into the Butcher Block which is
Purdue's meat locker where students can
learn about the meat science and process
inside of animals. So those animals are
taken in. They all come from the student
farm, actually from mostly have been
involved in different types of research
projects, maybe they are experimenting
with different types of proteins or
different rations of mixtures as far as
feed diets go and things like that, and
then they're taken in there and then
harvested and processed and then sold at our
retail location just beyond the pavilion.
COURTNEY: The Butcher Block is a USDA inspected facility which is good to know.
It is also open to the public. So
there is a retail space that anybody can
purchase Purdue associated items, and
Boiler Bee Honey is sold there. Ag Alumni
Swiss Cheese is sold there as well as
Purdue specific ice cream flavors
brought to you in part
by Round Barn Creamery, anyways, as well
as lots especially meat cuts. I'll let
him continue. I just wanted to add that.
NELSON: Oh you're good, yeah so
that's, so that's pretty awesome. It's
very affordable, I mean very reasonably
priced as well, so definitely purchased a
meat from there during my time here,
and it's always excellent quality. So
definitely would recommend. So now we're
standing in the main lobby of
Creighton Hall. So this building is
mostly faculty space as well as
laboratories. There's actually only two
classrooms in the entire building, and
then there's those main lobby areas as
well. So this is one of the classrooms
that you'll see. So this one's set up a
little bit differently than maybe a
traditional classroom. This is considered
part of the 21st century kind of
teaching model focused around
collaborative learning, and so instead of
having traditional rows of desks, you'll
see the tables and chairs set up that
allows for more collaborative on
learning so students can work on
different assignments or things like
that together or just better discuss the
things that they may be
learning in class. So both of the
classrooms in this building are in that
new format which is pretty awesome.
COURTNEY: We're gonna head outside.
We'll spin around just a little bit.
This is the exterior of Creighton, so
when you're driving around campus, this
is what you'll be looking for if you're
looking for the animal science
facilities, but across the lawn from that
are the rest of the greenhouses. As I
mentioned when we were at the
horticultural greenhouses, there are
quite a few on our campus. It's actually
one of Purdue's most expensive asset
which I think is really interesting, that and the turf on the
football field you know. No, I'm just
kidding, but anyways, so we do a lot of
really cool things in these greenhouses
as I mentioned. Dr. Gebisa Ejeta's
research, as Sohinee was talking about,
happened in some part in these greenhouses,
and more so, we in Indiana are often
pegged as being a corn and soybean state
which we are. However, research happens
on a lot of different products and crops
in these greenhouses. So these
greenhouses are specifically related to our
agronomy, our botany, plant pathology,
plant breeding and genetics. These are
their bases. So we'll spin around,
see a few soybeans, but as I
mentioned, we do have a lot of crops that
are not those typical Indiana crops, so
we have a whole entire greenhouse that's
full of succulents and cacti which is
really cool, and one of my favorite
spaces that's attached to the
greenhouses is our Controlled
Environment Phenotyping Facility which
is unique to Purdue. So we are the only one
in the entire world who has it. I like to
think of the phenotyping center as
like the really fancy 360 camera
that they have at the Oscars on the
runway. That's how I like to think of the
phenotyping center, but basically we can
scan full-size corn plants and learn all
kinds of genetic information about them.
It's really really cool. As you can see,
they run them through, they
take all these crazy pictures and images,
and then they come back out, and we know
all the things about them which is
really cool, but I really like the
Controlled Environment Phenotyping
Center. Off campus, Nelson mentioned our animal
science research farms. We also have an
agronomy research farm which is a little
over 2,000 acres that students manage.
Professors are doing research out there
on corn, soybeans. There's sorghum
planted out there. I think there's a
patch of sunflowers planted out there,
all kinds of different stuff but a great
facility for students to work in, and a
lot of the agronomy classes actually go
out there and do some labs as well, but
we have a larger phenotyping center out
there and lots of fun toys. We're gonna
head back inside. We're gonna head into
Lilly Hall of Life Sciences. So Lilly Hall of
Life Sciences is kind of the granddaddy of
them all. A lot of our departments are
currently housed in this facility. My
department as well as Sohinee's department,
we're in the same department,
we are located upstairs. I guess I'll
talk about it just for a second because
we don't have any pictures of any of our
facilities but because we use a lot of
other people's facilities for our
education, but our agriculture science
education and communications department
is upstairs on the third floor in this
department. They recently moved into this
building as a new permanent home. So our
department does a lot of unique
things. My favorite part about ag
education has been the opportunity to
take classes in every department in the
College of Ag whether that was just the
100 level class or 100, 200, or even 300
level classes in some of the departments.
So that's been my favorite part about ag
education for me is getting to learn a
lot of different things. I like to call
myself a Swiss Army knife because I can
do a little bit of everything, but I'm
not good at any of it you know. I'm
not an expert in animal science and not
an expert in plant science, but I
can I can tell you a little bit about
everything, so that's what I like about
education and ag communications for the
same, but we both have professional
organizations that you can be a part of,
but hopping back into Lilly here. We are
going to kind of hop through some of the
different departmental area
of this building and then look at some
classroom spaces, so I'm going to turn it
over to somebody else and let them talk
about some of the departmental areas and
then we'll hop back into some of the
classrooms.
SOHINEE: I can take over. So right now,
we are in one of our ABE
classrooms. That's a temporary classroom
that you're viewing here. We're
about to get our new building to be
finished within I believe this next year.
So that's going to be pretty exciting to
have that attachment. I don't know if you
remember earlier when you were kind of
looking at that transformation statue,
you saw a bit of the old building. So
they're building a new addition now, but
until that's done, they're housed in
Lilly, and so right now we are looking at
the 3D printing lab which is pretty cool.
So students in the ABE department will
actually get to use this lab to print
out anything that they need for homework
to create models and such, and then right
there in the corner is a combine
simulator that has been generously
donated by John Deere. So John Deere
really wanted to make learning about
agriculture technology more accessible
to every student because you know we in
the College of Ag, we recognize that not
every student is from a farm background
nor in any ways do you have to be. So with
the generosity of John Deere and
having that combine simulator, students
actually get to learn about how to drive
a combine simulator and what technology
and parts are use there without actually
having to go on, so that's pretty cool.
And then we have a couple of our posters
from our Purdue Utility Project as well
as some of our other ABE competitions,
and then a computer lab around here.
All right and now we are in a genetics
laboratory. So if you're in more of our
hard science majors, you will probably
end up taking a genetics class in here.
You kind of have all the basic equipment
that you would need to do genetic stuff
like a PCR and all that other stuff. I
personally have not had any genetics
class in here, if anyone else has.
COURTNEY: I have. Nelson, have you had one in here
as well? I'll let you talk about it if
you have.
NELSON: Intro to agronomy, agronomy
105, we had our laboratory in here as well.
COURTNEY: Yeah, I would just say that with a
lot of the labs at Purdue, you get to
work with a lot of really cool equipment,
and it's again a very hands-on approach.
I think a pretty generalized
statement in terms of the College of Ag
and Purdue University as a whole, it's a
very hands-on approach to learning. So a
lot of our science classes have an
attached lab for that specific reason,
and they are all very, very updated
facilities that you're getting to work
in. So the general biology and general
chemistry labs across State
Street were recently renovated. So
they're all top-of-the-line now as well
as a lot of our other spaces. Again, not
only are students using these spaces for
research, but so are faculty, and so there
are a lot of really awesome pieces of
equipment that you will likely get to
use in your career, if that's your given
area of choice, that you are getting to
work on in your freshman, sophomore years
of college way before you would be ready
to take on a full-time job.
NELSON: So now we're gonna dive into,
this is going to be the
Agronomy Resource Center. So they have a
couple of these. I believe this is on the
third floor, but this one has a bunch of
the soil monoliths in this building. So
we actually here Purdue have
the second largest collection of soil
monoliths, believe there's over 300 of these
basically soil cross-sections from
across the world, and some of these are
from as old as the 1970s. So we've
been collecting these for a while, and
some of them are old as dirt, but so
when I took soil science,
otherwise known as agronomy 255,
we actually used a lot of these for
different teaching methods throughout
the course. So when we were learning how
to identify different parts of soil and
why there are different colors and
things like that, they utilize all of
these different resources. So it's not
just a museum of soils from around the
world, but we use them on a
regular basis which is really, really
cool, and they're always pulling
different ones. So that was really
awesome, and agronomy is a very hands-on
type of how to grow plants and crops in
a production type setting, and so really
focusing on the practical application of
that transcends into all of their
courses and kind of speaks as an example
for the rest of the college as well.
SOHINEE: So next we're gonna jump into what a larger
lecture hall looks like. So right now,
we're in the third largest lecture hall
on campus. This is still located in Lilly
Hall, and this is kind of just an example
of what a larger classroom would look
like. Most of the classes that would take
place in this room are more of your
general education or core classes as we
call them. So that's kind of like your
basic English or biology or chemistry
class, and those classes are kind of
something that's a part of every Purdue
student or every university student's
experience is being in these large lecture
halls. So I know for myself when I was a
freshman coming into chemistry 100 and
stepping into a classroom of about a
thousand students was pretty
overwhelming on that first day, but
what's really nice about these classes
is the way that they're broken down. So
you'll usually have a lecture that'll be
twice a week held in this large space,
but then you'll also have a recitation
and lab period,
and in those recitations and lab periods
you'll be split up with about twenty other
students from the class and a teaching
assistant, and a teaching assistant is
either a graduate student of the
professor or an undergraduate that's
taken the class before and have gone
through all the trainings that
they needed to do,
and so that teaching assistant will lead
discussions during recitation which
will meet once a week to go over any
information you learned in lecture that
week or any homework or questions you
may have, and then you also have a lab
that'll be taught with that teaching
assistant in those spaces that
we just looked at earlier. So I know that,
oh you wanna jump in.
COURTNEY: I just wanted to add
something about recitation. I personally
found that really valuable as a person
who does not like to take tests. I am not
wired to take them, not any good at it,
and so to be able to use recitation as a
time to take quizzes was really, really
valuable for me. Taking a quiz with 25 of
my closest friends was a lot more
appealing than taking quizzes with 450
of my closest friends. So that was
something that I really enjoyed. As I
mentioned earlier, my entire high school
and then some fits in this room. So
it can be really intimidating. One of the
things that I was told before I even got
to college was in these large lecture
halls that it's really valuable if you
sit in the front of the room, and for me
that was really quite true. As we zoom in
a little bit closer to the front, it
makes the room feel a lot smaller. If I
can only see 50 people, I think only 50
of us are there, even though there are
380 behind us. If I can only see the
first 50, then it's a lot closer
relationship with the professor. You
might feel a little more inclined to ask
questions, not as nervous about asking
those in that setting. The only other
thing I would add is for a lot of those
large classes, there's also what we call
supplemental instruction or SI, which is
also led by TA's or other students who
have taken the class, and it's an evening
usually time where you can go.
They're usually held in the residence
halls, and you can go and get specific
help with homework, generally. I met with
a TA during SI for an advanced chemistry class
that I took, and I could not have gotten
through the class without that, but
supplemental instruction is great.
It's a free resource to students. I
always tell people interested in coming to
Purdue that we have a
whole bouquet of resources. You just have
to go pick up the flowers to make it
because they're all over, all over the
place, and there are tons of ways to make
Purdue what you need it to be for you.
However you learn as a person, there are
tons of resources for you, and
supplemental instruction is one of those.
I think we're gonna transition into a
different classroom style. So not all of
your classes are going to have 500
people in them. We actually have an
average class size or professor to
student ratio of about 31 students. So as
you get farther into a lot of your
programs, their classes are going to get
way smaller. So as a senior completing
the program at Purdue, the last two years
I haven't had a class that's had more
than 29 students in it in the last two
years, and that's evident for a lot of
different programs, but this is a more
average size lecture hall, seats about 50,
and there are a lot of classes that
happen in spaces that look like this
across campus, not just in Lilly. So I'm
gonna let somebody else talk about this
flipped classroom just a little bit. Anybody,
Nelson, do you want to talk about that?
NELSON: Sure, yeah, so the flipped classroom, I've
talked a little bit about 21st century
learning styles when we were in
Creighton, and the flipped classroom is
another example of that. So instead of
going to class and listening to a
lecture and then having
assignments to do outside of class, you
watch a recorded lecture online or
something of that nature before you go
to class, and then in class you spend
that time doing assignments or
worksheets or exercises with the other
students, and so it's a little bit more
of a hands-on type of learning, and so
allows for more collaboration and
hopefully more learning outcomes away
from that, and I mean watching
lectures can be sometimes less
challenging at home because you may not,
it's more just taking the material. You
can stop and pause and take that
material in at your own pace which is
good as well. So I've had, I think
I only had one class
in that format, but I enjoyed it.
It's a little different, but I definitely
enjoyed it, and hopefully, we may
see more classes trending towards that
in the future.
SOHINEE: I'll take over now. So
right now, we are in Smith Hall which is
home to our department of entomology. So
much like Courtney, I have also changed
my major. So my freshman year, I actually
started off in our insect biology
program, and I really loved biology, and
then I found I also missed the people
side of things and switching to ag
communications, but since then I've still
been pretty involved with the entomology
department and then helping out with
outreach as well as working in one of
the labs. So right now you're kind of
looking at one of our examples of
outreach. So this is the insect petting
zoo, Bug Barn in Smith Hall, and so in this
room, we have a collection of tens of
thousands or tens of hundreds of
incredible insects from around the world.
So we have things like Rose Hair
Tarantulas to Hercules beetles to African
millipedes to a bunch of other pretty
crazy things. So we use all of these
insects as resources when we're teaching
about the fields of insect biology to
just general community members, the
public as well as classroom settings. So
it's kind of fits in really well with
our Purdue land-grant mission of doing
that outreach and actually connecting
with the community and making sure
people know that you know what we're
doing at Purdue is accessible to
everybody. So it's just really cool thing
that we get to have, and you know even if
you're not you know particularly
interested in bugs, they are, I don't know,
I think pretty cool. We have an annual
event called the Bug Bowl or Spring Fest
every year that's hosted by the College
of Agriculture, and so each one of our
departments will set up tents kind of
also doing more that outreach stuff and
explaining what they do and engaging
with members of the public, and one
really special part of that is the
Bug Bowl, and so you'll get a chance to
spit crickets as well as taste some bugs.
So that's a really fun part that the
Purdue entomology department
gets to be involved in.
COURTNEY: I'll mention just to add a
little bit to Spring Fest, so Spring Fest
is the culmination of a week-long event
That the College of Ag puts on known as Ag
Week. So with our Ag Alumni Office
as well as many other companies from
across the country who support Purdue
University, we throw a week-long event
where we promote agriculture all across
our campus, so whether that's grilled
cheeses on Monday for Milk Monday, we
have an event on Tuesday night where we
pack meals for our local community as
well as those globally in need of meals,
we do, oh goodness I don't, I can't even
remember everything that we do. It's a
very, very busy week which
again culminates at Spring Fest. So Ag
Week is really the student version of
that, and then Spring Fest is an
opportunity to get to educate our
community. So people come from here, there,
and everywhere. It's usually conveniently
placed with the spring football game at
Purdue. So you can go and watch a
scrimmage and get your plant on
a necklace and whatever else you need to
get at the Spring Fest event, but there
are a lot of opportunities that we, are a
lot of really cool things that we do
that week, those seven days which are a
blur usually for students involved with
it, but looking back is one of the best
weeks of the year. So anyways, we are now
standing outside of Pfendler Hall which is
a beautiful building. I just think she's
so pretty, isn't she?
But anyways Pfendler is the second
oldest building on Purdue's campus, right
after University Hall. So when you're on
campus, University Hall is the building
that looks kind of like a church in the
middle of campus, and this is the second
building that was built on Purdue's
campus. So this building which has a
lot of its original woodwork as well as
original ceiling tiles, and another
interesting original feature is the
vault which we will,
there she is. So there is a vault in the
first floor of this building. So this wa
originally an administrative building, and
student records as well as temporarily
tuition was held in this vault.
Unfortunately, I can't find the code and
see if there was any left over in there,
but that's okay. So within this building,
part of our forestry and natural
resources offices are in here as well as
the office of our Ag Alumni which is
here. I mentioned earlier an event called
the Ag Alumni Fish Fry which is an event
that we host every February in
Indianapolis, and it's one of the largest
collections of Purdue Alumni every year
that gathers. So about 2,000 of our
alumni as well as students and faculty
will join together for an afternoon, just
celebrating Purdue's accomplishments in
agriculture for another year. It is one
of my favorite events ever, and I get to,
I've been fortunate enough to get to
help plan it for the last four years, and
it is awesome, but they're a great
resource for you on campus. They also
host a mentorship program which a lot of
our students take advantage of in terms
of working with young alumni or even
those who are not all that young but
work with alumni from across the country
to get to do different things. This is,
here's some pictures from the Ag Alumni
Fish Fry because it's just great,
but usually President Daniels is in
attendance, our Dean of course, and then
lots of other distinguished Indiana as
well as US agricultural figures. Ted
McKinney who is the Under Secretary of
Agriculture has been there in the past
as well as our state director of
Agriculture Bruce Kettler, many others, but
it's just a great day to celebrate
agriculture, and it's one of my favorite
events that happens, but anyways the
other thing that's in Pfendler that a lot
of our students will get to be a part of
and take advantage of is the Dean's
Auditorium which is located upstairs in
this building. So the Dean's Auditorium
is a unique space where everyone
is interacting with one another. So
instead of a typical lecture style or
meeting room style
where only the speaker has a microphone,
each seat is actually equipped
with a microphone that students can use
or guests can use to directly respond to
the speaker. So our Purdue Student
Government and Senate meet in this
facility for that specific reason as
well as President Mitch Daniels uses
this room for fireside chats, other
random things, but we also host a lot of
distinguished alumni as well as
researchers to come and give seminars in
this room. So this room is a great use of
space for a lot of our clubs as well as
a lot of students who just are
interested in learning a little bit more
about some of the things we do on campus.
All right, would somebody like to talk
about NRES and summer practicum?
SOHINEE: I can take over it real quick. So
right now, we are in between
Pfendler Hall which is the building that
we were just in and our Agricultural
Administration building which is the
building that we started in, and we're
looking at our Forestry Products
building here. So this is home to our
Natural Resources and Environmental
Sciences program. This is I think a
really unique program that we have in
that it's very interdisciplinary.
Students can kind of choose their own
major and form their own concentration
within natural resources, or they can
kind of choose a predetermined plan
either focusing on water quality or
environmental policy or numerous other
things. So it's all very tailored to a
student's interest and what they want to
research. I've actually, I've had an
experience working over the summer in a
Conservation Corps serving in California
for about eight weeks, and so while I was
in California, I worked on a trail crew
building a trail on top of a mountain as
well as an ecological restoration crew
doing some vegetative restoration. So
that was a really cool experience that I
had the help of the NRES department to
help obtain, and one thing that I think
that kind of really emphasizes is that
your major doesn't define who you are at
Purdue. So even though I'm an Ag Comm
major, I've been able to have experiences with
NRES and entomology. So you know even if you
are majoring in something but you really
like this, you can do it both. So I
think the NRES Department is a really
good example of that.
COURTNEY: I might have spaced out, but did you talk
specifically about the summer practicum
program for the sophomores?
SOHINEE: Oh, I have not.
Do you want to fill on that? I actually,
Nelson do you?
NELSON: Yeah, so as part of the, I
believe it's forestry and most of the
forestry program, correct me if I'm wrong.
COURTNEY: Both departments.
NELSON: Okay, both departments:
forestry & natural resources and
environmental sciences. So this practical
field experience that you'll see pulled
up on the screen, this actually
takes place, I think it's a
five-week program during their sophomore
summer, takes place up in the northern
peninsula of Michigan, and so they spend
five weeks up there getting some hands-on
experience in all sorts of various
things from forestry and learning how to
effectively scale trees, I don't know if
you've ever seen like the the STIHL
timber sports competitions, probably not
to that speed but learning those types of
skills as well as things like relocating
wildlife and fish effectively and in
the correct manner, managing all sorts of
different things within those areas. So
some really, really cool hands-on
learning opportunities that these
students definitely get to have.
COURTNEY: Yeah, they've been going
to the same facility
for summer practicum for many years, and
so professors actually have ongoing
research that happens every year, but
specifically our newest major in
forestry and natural
resources is our aquatic science major
which for those of you interested in
marine biology is your most landlocked
version of marine biology, but a very
heavily science-based program, but also
offers you a lot of opportunities to
work with aquaculture and aquatic
animals. So it's it's pretty cool, but I
just wanted to point that out.
Nelson, since we are now standing outside
of your other home, I'll let you talk
about our agriculture economics and
ag business programs.
NELSON: Awesome, yeah so this is, so like I mentioned earlier I'm an ag business student which is part
of the agricultural economics building.
This unfortunately is not our, this
entire building isn't our home. The
bottom four floors are home to Krannert
School of Business and Management, but the
top three floors actually are home to
the agricultural economics department,
and so we'll go ahead and go upstairs.
We'll get to meet some fine folks. So
like Courtney mentioned with ag education
and communication, we don't maybe
necessarily have as much as far as lab
and physical spaces go, but being a
social science and a focused on business
and economics, it's all about the people,
and so these are just a few examples of
some of the really great people we have
within the agricultural economics
department. Most of these are academic
advisors, but we have some really great
faculty on staff as well, but they are
all here. Across the college, I would say
that the faculty are outstanding. They're
here to make your experience as learning
as possible, so like I mentioned we're
not as much of a, or
things that we teach are a little
bit more conceptual like this market
planning model that you'll see Dr. Downey
talking through. So lots of
different opportunities as far as
understanding different parts of
business and economics and how those
things work together and
influence. I can tell you right now the
economists are going nuts. We're filming
this during the whole COVID-19
thing, and these are gonna be economic
examples we're gonna talk about for
decades, and so like Sohinee
mentioned earlier Dr. Akin Adesina is an
ag econ alumni. So when he won his award
back in 2017, and he got to address the
department as well as some other
opportunities as well. So we've had some
corporate sponsorship from the Becks
department, so some really cool decorated
floors and things like that, but lots of
different areas as far as teaching goes.
There's opportunities as far as
business management to sales and
marketing to much more the economic
theory behind things as well as finance
and commodity marketing and trading as
far as the commodities on the
exchanges and learning how to do those
things effectively as well as farm
management, so a lot of diversity within
the department. We're, I believe, the second
largest department with I think we're
about 500 undergrad students.
COURTNEY: So I think that is all we have to show you
guys today. If you have any questions,
please feel free to reach out to the
College of Agriculture, and someone is
happy to answer those questions. We also
have a phone number where you can text
our team, and that will send a text
message straight to our AG Ambassador
team. We're happy to answer that, and you
can find that information on our website.
There are also lots of resources on the
College of Ag website including a link
to our career finder which is a great
resource to help you take a short 14
question quiz to help you determine kind
of an area that you might be interested
in studying and what you need to do in high
school to get to that point as well as
what that might look like in your
studies at Purdue, but we really thank
you for joining us today. It's been great
to get to show you our home away from
home. We look forward to being able to
see you whenever we get to see you
you
