Pallion Farms Fonds: Agricultural Financial Management Course
https://collections.galtmuseum.com/link/descriptions64454
- Material Type
- Manuscript
- Date Range
- 1982-1984
- Accession No.
- 20091003062
- Physical Description
- approximately 3 cm
- Scope and Content
- Course materials and notes for the first Agricultural Financial Management Course taught by John Whitehead at the Lethbridge Community College.
- Material Type
- Manuscript
- Date Range
- 1982-1984
- Physical Description
- approximately 3 cm
- Physical Condition
- Excellent
- History Biographical
- The Agricultural Business program offered by Lethbridge Community College with financial and other assistance from Alberta Agriculture and Agriculture Canada ran from 1979 to 1999. Mr. John Whitehead was the first instructor, and later coordinator, of the Agricultural Business program. The idea for an agricultural business course took shape in 1979 when Dale Hyland and Doug Scotney visited Lane College in Eugene, Oregon. Lane was one of a number of community colleges in Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Minnesota offering such courses. The two men brought the idea for a course back with them to Lethbridge. The first course dealt purely with farm bookkeeping. The next year, the course was re-structured as a three-year program based on a follow-up visit to Lane Community College by John Whitehead. The three year program started with bookkeeping, and then covered other subjects pertaining to modern farm management in the following two years. People who took the course, mostly married couples in the business of farming, attended classes in the winter and put what they learned into practice during the summer. The instructors were predominantly people who had graduated from the University of Alberta or another post-secondary institution, and were operating their own farms. At the peak of the program in the late 1980s and early 1990s, there were 17 instructors and 25 classes running simultaneously each year. The classes were a mix of first, second and third year courses and were taught at locations across southern Alberta: Pincher Creek, Fort Macleod, Lethbridge, Vauxhall, Taber, Brooks, Medicine Hat and other communities. Approximately 230 people were taking a course – first, second or third year – at any given time. Instructors and administrators from agricultural business programs in Alberta, Idaho, Oregon and Washington state eventually formed a Northwest association. Mr. Whitehead was, and remains, a member of a national organization in the United States as well. The program came to an end in 1999 as support from Alberta Agriculture dried up. The provincial government established other priorities in their agricultural policies, and education fell off the list. [Source: Archivist's conversation with John Whitehead, 31 July 2009]
- Language
- English
- Scope and Content
- Course materials and notes for the first Agricultural Financial Management Course taught by John Whitehead at the Lethbridge Community College.
- Access Restrictions
- Public Access
- Accession No.
- 20091003062
- Collection
- Archive
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