Re-engineering the Land Grant
College of Agriculture

The original LGCA was built from the ground up, state by state, not from the top down, and was based upon a concern for agriculture of the times that is no longer valid today. The makeup and variability of agriculture and its related industries and of the natural environments from one state to the next are so great and complex that they mandate re-engineering this college to meet each individual state's requirements today and for the future. The method I chose to examine the problem and its solutions was to study the literature and consult with colleagues who have experience as administrators, consultants and writers of research papers on the subject of the future of the LGCA. I concluded that the college needs extensive re-engineering.

What is required is two-fold: 1) A well-thought-out process for re-engineering the organization, with 2) a leader, that is, the dean, who stays in office for at least ten years, in order for plans to be developed and restructuring of the organization to be realized.

Some suggestions are as follows:

• History, experience and institutional research are not only useful but necessary and can be persuasive arguments for implementing academic and organizational change, accomplished by each LGCA independently.
• Knowledge of who benefits from the fruits of mission-oriented academic programs is critical, and the mission should be consonant with the interests of beneficiaries, patrons and stakeholders.
• Utilizing a steering committee appointed and created as a group for management of academic change, chaired by the dean, will be required.
• The steering committee must go through its own learning process and design the organizational learning process for the college, campus and stakeholders by widening its circle of constituents and addressing the major issues.
• The committee must develop a process for communicating throughout the college and among present and future stakeholders.
• The goal of revitalization is to define a mission that can be used in reorienting, reorganizing and developing new programs to meet that mission's goal.
• At some point a new organizational structure will be needed to provide the framework, especially to change the culture and thought processes. The result would be a new vision and direction that should be taken to solidify teaching, research and extension programs focused on the new mission's goals and the needs of the clientele and patrons in the region and the state.

Re-engineering the LGCA requires recognition of two separate internal decision-makers with final authority, at the academic and administrative levels. These are the faculty, who decide for the most part what to teach and what to research, and the administration, which oversees and administers the campus.