Name This Course

Undergraduate enrollment in the Virginia Tech Horticulture program has fluctuated over the years.  The late 70’s saw huge numbers of students interested in all things green and growing – nearly 300. There was a gentle decline through the 80’s and in the 90’s number held around 150. A sharper decline took place over the past 8 years, with enrollment bottoming out at 85 students in 2009. Things have picked up a bit since – we’re currently at 100 give or take a few.  But we really, really need to bump it back up to 150+ or we risk getting combined/rolled into a broader plant science program.

Fewer than half of our students start out as Hort majors their freshman year; the larger portion are transfer students, either from community college programs or internal transfers from within the university. 

A couple of our lower-level courses are what we refer to as “gateway” classes that lead to these internal transfers to our department.  Indoor Plants is a biggie –  anyone can take it as a free elective, and many students get hooked on hort as they learn some basics of identification, care, and propagation.  Floral Design is wildly popular and fills up instantly; credits earned counts toward a university-wide “core” requirement for “creativity and aesthetics.”  Something these classes have in common is the hands-on aspect, plus the student gets to take something back to the dorm or apartment, be it a terrarium or floral arrangement. 

I am in the process of developing a new course which will hopefully serve as a third “gateway” class – an introduction to gardening.

Food and flowers, digging in the dirt, all that great stuff.  I want it to be fun and exciting, not filled with do’s and don’ts.  The kind of class that will spark an interest or set off a light bulb. Or perhaps inspire them to transfer to Horticulture. This generation of undergrads (mostly young people from 18 to 22) is tough to impress. They’re glued to their smartphones, and if I’m not mistaken, attention spans aren’t quite what they used to be.  But I believe I can frame the fabulously broad and deep topic of gardening into something personal, immediate, and enjoyable. 

What I need to further this mission is a NAME for the course.  It can’t be too obscure; someone flipping through the course listings should be able to decipher class content from the title (best name ever for a university class: Magical Mushrooms and Mysterious Molds taught by plant pathologist/legend Dr. George Hudler at Cornell University). 

My working name for the course has been “Successful Gardening.”  Yawn.  "Sustainable Gardening" is also a possibility, but every department in Agriculture/Life Sciences (and beyond) is slapping "Sustainable [whatever] onto new courses. Though that may be the ticket for the immediate future.

Please, dear reader, put on your creative thinking cap and help me come up with something better!

26 thoughts on “Name This Course”

  1. Applied locavorism? Be a locavore? Locavore basics?
    I loved any class with ‘applied’ in the name, and locavore is kind of catchy these days, and perhaps not as trite as ‘sustainable’.

  2. I’d take a class that was called or subtitled “Digging in the Dirt”, but you might have some confusion with the archaeology courses.

  3. How about a sports turf management course. Learn all about taking care of grass (maybe some college kids still go home and mow yards for the summer). Te plus is you get access to Lane stadium or English field!

    You could teach how to mow all sorts of patterns in the grass. The could also learn how to paint VT on their lawn!

  4. How about Garden Basic or the reverse Basic Gardening? Or Let’s Garden? Gardening is Fun? I could go on and on…..

  5. Terrific ideas! Thank you all so much! Nietzsche, I’m more into Santayana, but the deconstructionist position sounds plausible. Ed, there’s already a turf mgt. course (from the Turf dept.) and get this – English field is now Astroturf. Yeesh. I think Karen may have hit the nail on the head with Grow Your Own. Keep the ideas coming!

  6. Or…

    1. Get you hands dirty. Learn to garden for a lifetime.

    2. Gardening 101 for fun, health, exercise and boasting rights.

    3.How to plan and grow a 21st century garden.

    4.Gardening, a hands-on learning course designed by Mother Nature.

  7. I was going to suggest “Grow Your Own” but Karen beat me to it. You would probably attract a lot of students who want to grow a plant only legal in some states and that for medicinal purposes only. How about “Down and Dirty Plant Fun”?

  8. “Cannabis, Sativa, and coca leaves are Not what this class is about, but sign up and find out what other things you can grow.”

    It will catch their attention, but I don’t really know if anyone will sign up.

  9. I was a Journalism major until I took “Vegetable Gardening” elective at UF. Graduated Ornamental Horticulture then took a MS in Plant Science at UGA. That was one little life changing course, Vegetable Gardening.

  10. Wow – this is great. So many good ideas. Our college curriculum committee has to approve the entire course proposal, including the title (that may negate some of the, er, “catchier” ones. Thank you all for your suggestions! I shall report back in a few months!

  11. A community college here has Practical Horticulture and Principles of Horticulture. As someone who took the first one (required) after 12 years of horticulture experience, i dubbed it ‘Horticulture for Dummies’. It fits with all the other dummy books. So why not classes?

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