If the Missouri Coordinating Board for Higher Education agrees, Lincoln University soon could be offering a master's degree in Integrated Agricultural Systems.
A memo from John Yang, interim head of LU's Agriculture and Environmental Sciences department, explained the program "is proposed with our effort to enhance agriculture education and research and strengthen our capacity in agriculture science at LU."
Ruthi Sturdevant, interim vice president for Academic Affairs and provost, told the board Thursday: "They have provided evidence of the need for this, and they surveyed students so they have an estimate of how many people would enroll in this program."
She said the additional degree can be offered without increasing teachers and staff or expenses.
Yang's memo noted the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics "indicates that the job outlook for agricultural and food scientists will increase by 10 percent, or 3,500 jobs, from 2010 to 2020," with much of the increase caused by retirements of scientists.
A 2102 Georgetown University study showed agricultural and natural resources graduates "with advanced agricultural degrees" have an overall unemployment rate of only 2.4 percent.
The seven curators attending Thursday's meeting voted unanimously to support the additional degree, but Curator Don Cook, St. Louis, encouraged school officials to make sure that classes included an emphasis on entrepreneurship.
"One think I think - agriculture deals with grants, and I didn't see that as a part of the curriculum," Cook said. "If we're going to train our students to get into that area, that is going to be looking at grants and subsidies and that type of thing, somewhere that training needs to be there."
Curator Marvin Teer, Jefferson City, agreed: "I know people who make a living writing grants for different disciplines - and just to have that as part of the core curriculum would make them instantly attractive."
Sturdevant said LU already has a strong research component, and she thinks the existing classes, "even if they're not, necessarily, taking a course in grant writing, they're definitely going to be working on grants."
Curators also approved a modified plan for graduation ceremonies.
"Particularly since we've gone to just having one commencement ceremony," Sturdevant said, "there are people who are wanting to participate and, particularly, students who are going to complete the requirements during the summer and don't want to have to wait, really, a whole "nother year."
Lincoln dropped its winter graduation program two years ago to save money.
Dropping the December ceremonies was estimated to save between $7,000 and $10,000 a year, Controller Sandy Koetting told the News Tribune in May 2012.
With that change, all students who've completed their course requirements "walk" during the Mid-May commencement program, usually Mother's Day weekend.
To accommodate those summer students who don't want to wait almost a full year, the curators approved a rules change allowing students who will complete all requirements during the summer semester to participate in the May ceremonies before they finish their classes. The students must file for graduation, pay the graduation fee and enroll in all courses needed for graduation.
Sturdevant told curators the policy they adopted the same as the policyt at University of Central Missouri, Warrensburg.
During its closed session, the board voted to award "Professor Emeritus" status to Connie Hamacher, head of LU's Nursing program, when she retires at the end of July.
Hamacher served as interim president between the time Carolyn Mahoney retired in August 2012 and Kevin Rome became LU's president on June 1, 2013.