Like many land-grant institutions of higher learning, the University of Kentucky has, for some time, been feeling the pinch of declining enrollment among students seeking an education in some iteration of turfgrass management. And like most other schools, educators there have been pondering just what to do to reverse that trend. In fact, the late A.J. Powell, Ph.D., who just about grew the program from scratch in the 1970s until his retirement in 2010, was involved in looking for ways to boost enrollment before he died in October 2013.
Gregg Munshaw, Ph.D., the turf extension specialist at the school in Lexington, figures UK is like a lot of places when it comes to declining enrollment. He points at factors like a struggling golf market, the housing crisis and ensuing recession, as well as a saturated turf education market in a relatively small state, for declining enrollment. And as many universities around the country struggle with a solution for the future of their respective turfgrass programs, Munshaw is taking a step back to take a critical view of traditional turf education at UK, and he is heading efforts to change the face of the program to more accurately reflect the needs of today's students and hopefully boost enrollment in the process.
"Student numbers are down. That was something A.J. and I talked about a lot," Munshaw said. "We still thought there was a market for these kids to get jobs. It might take a little longer for them to become a superintendent, but there are still jobs out there, and there are different kinds of jobs out there now."
Although more golf courses have been closing than opening every year since 2006 according to the National Golf Foundation, UK's enrollment woes go deeper than a stagnant golf market. The state of Kentucky has three established turf programs in UK, Eastern Kentucky and Western Kentucky, creating quite a competition for students in a state that ranks just 26th in population with 4.4 million residents.
Todd Pfeiffer, Ph.D., department head for plant and soil sciences has been supportive of the notion of a new-look program as well, as Munshaw seeks ways to grow the program that once flourished under Powell's watchful eye.
"We should be able to find 10 more students. Why shouldn't we be able to get 10 more students who want to do this?" Munshaw said. "We talked about ways to do that. We have a recruiter out looking for students."
What students likely will find at UK in the near future is a program unlike any other in the country. Although the details have not yet been finalized, the future of turfgrass management at UK most likely will be a program that combines turf management, with general horticulture along with a landscape background.
A UK graduate, Munshaw spent several years as a professor at Mississippi State before returning to his alma mater in 2012. MSU not only has a large turf management program ? with as many as 85 students when Munshaw worked there ? but also offers a successful landscape architecture program that had nearly twice as many students as the turf program. Some combination of what worked in Starkville likely will serve as a blueprint for the future of a revamped Kentucky program.
"We taught kids how to run their own landscape contracting business. That included landscape architecture, design, lighting and irrigation," Munshaw said.
"We're going to try to take elements from those things, plus what we've traditionally done well here and come up with a new major that is not necessarily completely turf focused. We're going to broaden it out and try to attract some kids who might have gone into horticulture. The sports turf and golf guys have to deal with beds and trees anyway. By making it broader instead of so narrowly focused, 1, it offers more career opportunities, and 2, gives students more skills to do their jobs."
The new look program, although it won't be specifically a turf major, will include separate tracks of study and career-specific internship opportunities geared toward professions such as sports turf, golf and landscape management.
Since last October, Munshaw has been pulling double duty as the state's only turf extension agent and the head of turf research at the university. The plant and soil sciences department is seeking a research coordinator so Munshaw can concentrate on extension, and the university can again become a leader in research conducted at the 27-acre A.J. Powell Jr. Turfgrass Research Center.Munshaw has solicited input from Marcus Dean about how to construct the new program. Dean is a UK alum as well as the sports turf manager in the athletic department, where he oversees several natural grass and artificial turf fields for the school's athletic teams.
He knows there are jobs out there, and wants to help position UK to become a leader in educating students for those opportunities.
"There are jobs in Kentucky for turfgrass students. I have just hired three full-time spots in the last seven months," Dean said.
"Would it have been nice to hire some Kentucky kids? Yeah, it would've."
He's also happy to see Munshaw shaking up the status quo on behalf of the university, its students and professional turf managers throughout the region. Staying abreast of current issues in turf can be a challenge for those working in the field, since they often come faster than academia can research them.
"The curriculum needs to be updated . . . with the current issues in the turf industry," he said.
"I think Gregg's thoughts and experiences at different universities around the nation have allowed him to be a much different approach to freshen up the curriculum here at UK," Dean said. "He has seen the success and failures, he knows what works and what needs to be implemented here at UK."
Munshaw thinks back to why he came all the way from his native Canada to attend UK, and hopes to recreate some of that attraction, albeit in a new wrapper that includes not only a new major with a new curriculum, but a new way of developing the whole student as well through community service projects that also fit in with their major.
"When I came here, I sat down with A.J., and he was slick and he was funny, and he was really good at recruiting. I became that way too. I always thought if I could get a kid into my office to talk to him, I thought I could land him," he said. "The thing is, we have a lot to offer. Lexington has a lot to offer. When I talk to kids and their parents, I want them to know that the kid the drop off now, when they get them back in four years, their character will have developed as well over that time. We want to do things that develop our students as people, not just as students."