This is the VOA Special English Education Report.
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Gitek Schoene, a graduate student at the University of Florida, measures the growth of landscape plants in 2004 |
In
the United States, the area of study with the fewest international students is agriculture.
The number was about nine thousand during the last school year. More than ten
times as many studied business or engineering.
But
the crop of foreign students in agriculture and natural resources was twenty
percent bigger than the year before. The Institute of International Education
in New York says that was the biggest increase of any area of study. So this
week in our Foreign Student Series we look at agriculture programs in the
United States.
About one hundred colleges and universities began as
public agricultural schools and continue to teach agriculture. These are known
as land-grant schools.
In
eighteen sixty-two, Congress passed legislation that gave thousands of hectares
to each state. States were to sell the land and use the money to establish
colleges to teach agriculture, engineering and military science. A congressman
from Vermont, Justin Smith Morrill, wrote the legislation.
The
state of Michigan already had an agricultural college. But that college was the
first to officially agree to receive support under the Morrill Act. It grew
into what is now Michigan State University
in East Lansing.
Today, Michigan State has more than
forty thousand students. More than four thousand of them are international
students. They come from one hundred twenty-five countries.
The College of
Agriculture and Natural Resources at Michigan State University offers sixty
programs of study. Richard Brandenburg is the associate dean for graduate
programs. He says foreign agriculture students this year are from countries
including Japan, the Netherlands, Rwanda, El Salvador, Turkey, Sri Lanka and
India.
In all, the college has four
hundred thirty-three foreign students in East Lansing. It also has eleven students
at a campus in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates. The only agriculture program
currently offered in Dubai is construction management.
Michigan
State opened its Dubai campus in August. It has only about fifty students now,
but the university says it has received about ninety applications for admission
this fall. We'll talk more about foreign campuses of American universities next
week.
And
that's the VOA Special English Education Report, written by Nancy Steinbach. Our
series is online at voaspecialenglish.com. I'm Bob Doughty.