This is a transcript of the Spur of the Moment episode “The intersection of food and agriculture with James Pritchett.” It is provided as a courtesy and may contain errors.
Dr. James Pritchett: So in the next five to 10 years, I think you’ll get even better, more convenient, healthier food, and you’ll know more about where it comes from, and it’ll be in new forms. That’ll be tremendous.
Jocelyn Hittle: Hello and welcome to Spur of the Moment, the podcast of Colorado State University’s Spur campus in Denver, Colorado.
Dr. James Pritchett: There’s really serious public policy discussions around the way that we go about agriculture. And I think it’s super important for our college to help convene conversations in this space to make sure that all voices are heard, and that we’re very inclusive in that approach and that we support public policy decision-making with science.
Jocelyn Hittle: On this podcast, we talk with experts in food, water, and health, and learn about their current work and their career journeys. Today I’m joined by Dr. James Pritchett, the dean of CSU College of Agricultural Sciences. Welcome, Dr. Pritchett.
Dr. James Pritchett: Hey, Jocelyn. Great to be here with you today.
Jocelyn Hittle: So maybe we can start with a description of the College of Ag Sciences at CSU. Can you tell us a little about the college?
Dr. James Pritchett: Gosh, when I think about the College of Ag Sciences, I really think about a collection of people and inspiration and ideas that are all around nurturing life and the ways that we be able to do that. So, it’s a group that is organized with scientists and employees and students that are super interested in how you nurture the human body. So, growing food do that and that seems like it’s the most obvious thing too. But growing food in ways that are really about the wise stewardship of natural resources, that’s what the College of Ag Sciences is about around the soil and the water and the air, and even the littlest microorganisms that are part of that, the microbiome. So there’s a good dose of that in the College of Ag Sciences. The college also nurtures communities, both in how communities develop, especially in rural areas, also in the lived and built environments.
We have a number of folks and we see this on the Spur campus that are really interested in what that intersection is between the growing environment, the living environment and build spaces. So we do that too. We take care of people and nurture life in that way around things that are important when it comes to healthy lives and healthy outcomes, which could be working with folks around occupational therapy and how do horses play a really important role in that. So all told that College of Ag Sciences is that collection of people of ideas. We organize ourselves into departments and we’ve got about 2,000 students. We’ve got about 250 employees. Now we work all across the state in Colorado, including 10 research centers across the state and the newest one, our newest research center is the Spur campus.
Jocelyn Hittle: Great. Thank you. That is really remarkable. It may be surprising to people how broad the topics are that the College of Ag Sciences addresses. Can you say a little bit more about some of the ones that might be more surprising for folks?
Dr. James Pritchett: Yeah. Some of the kind of things that are more surprising about the things that we work in, oh, hey, we’d love to talk that through. I mentioned a little bit about the wellness of people and the intersection of horses and people. So Temple Grandin, of course, is an iconic faculty member in the College of Agricultural Sciences. Temple has worked for many years around spaces, the design of spaces, and she has a real knack and a real appreciation for understanding how horses work with people. So it’s really in her honor and her contributions that we started the Temple Grandin Equine Center and thinking about how horses might be able to help individuals achieve therapeutic outcomes. There’s really cool things that we study. So if you put someone on a horse and you almost put a Fitbit around the person and you put a Fitbit around the horse, you find out pretty soon that their heartbeats will regulate and move in tandem at the same time.
And a lot of the focus that comes with having a great occupational therapy outcome, so learning to walk better, or maybe learning to focus your attention has a lot to do with being able to train yourself, to be able to do that. At least that we believe that’s true. So in the College of Ag Sciences, we think about those kinds of therapeutic outcomes. And so, we measure things that are going on with horses and with people. And at the same time, we’re treating in a clinical way, we’re researching at the same time. So, that’s one of the cool things that happens in the College of Ag Sciences that people don’t know about. We really are interested in the microbiology of things, the microbiome, and we’ve got some scientists that work in the college that say, “Hey, can we change the microbiology of the soil?”
So, plant has its own kind of immune response to a disease or a pathogen that might be coming in. And that might be an important disease or pathogen that really, if you can control it, you can feed more people. And so, part of our commitment is to feed a growing population and to try and do that in a way that is really, really sustainable. So, another example of the cool things that happened within the College of Ag Sciences, I had a friend who told me one of the things she loved about being in the college was that she would take all the different kinds of science that we have, whether that be chemistry or biology, ecology, and all of that comes together in agriculture as an applied way of doing things. And it makes it so exciting for us to be part of that.
Jocelyn Hittle: It is quite a connector, the whole idea of food and agriculture really bringing people together, bringing disciplines together from some of the things you just mentioned that are maybe a little bit more surprising that don’t come to mind as quickly for Ag, to some of the more traditional things that people think about. You mentioned one of the responsibilities, you see the college having is training the next generation and doing research around feeding a growing population. Can you talk a little bit about the college’s strategic direction around these global approaches to growing enough food to feed a growing population with the dwindling resources? Or I don’t know how you frame that, but can you tell us a little bit more about how you think about global food security?
Dr. James Pritchett: Yeah, thanks for that. So first things first, the college itself has sat down and said, “Hey, what are we about?” And I mentioned the Nurture Life piece. We said, that’s a kind of core value that we have. At the same time, we also started to think a little bit about the dynamics that exist within agriculture. So one thing that’s true about food and agriculture is there’s always been things that are outside that are exogenous, that affected change and really drive change around us. And our task is to be innovative and be able to adapt to those kinds of changes. So changes might be climate change, as an example. So one of the really key things we’re working on right now is, how do you make a food system that’s more resilient when we know the climate will be changing? Changing faster than plant and animal systems can actually adapt to them.
So what are the things that we can do in that space? And how can you do that and maybe so that agriculture is part of the solution for climate change as well? So, can we sequester more carbon? Can we find ways that we can provide alternatives to fossil fuels that may have a larger and more significant climate impact than what we can do in agriculture? Trying to ask those kinds of questions. So climate resiliency really an important thing and an important driver of change. I think too, that one of the ways that’s really pivotable for agriculture is how technology changes. In agriculture, one of the things that we’re really focused on is what sorts of technologies are available to us to answer questions or problems or challenges that we have in agriculture? How can you get the most crop from a single drop of water?
We know we’re water limited that also relates to climate change, but can we use sensors in the soil to measure how much water is available? And then put enough water at the right time, in the right place at the right amount, with the right forecast, going forward to know that we can do things. And part of that is being really mindful about the technology you use, too. So understanding that it’s not just having the key piece of technology, but then using that in a management system that’s very systems-based in a systems approach. I’ve got a good friend who’s a farmer, a farmer in Eastern Colorado. And we were talking about precision agriculture. So using technology so that you can minimize your inputs and be able to produce a higher quality, more nutritious crop in greater amounts. And he said to me, he said, “Hey, James, precision agriculture is okay. But what I really need is decision agriculture.”
So it’s not just, can I map all the soils that I have and can I understand how that variability in the soil I can address with different kinds of inputs and different ways of doing things, but when should I do that? And in what mount should I do that. I need to be able to make good decisions about that. So, we think about technology as a driver of change and think about food systems in a systems approach, and trying to develop the research that helps go from precision agriculture to decision agriculture and training our students to also be really successful in that kind of a space.
So those are two of the elements of what we’re thinking about strategically and the directions that were headed in the College of Ag Sciences. One thing I’d point out too, that we’re spending a lot of time thinking about is not everybody agrees on how we should grow our food or the ways in which we should do that, or maybe how that labor’s affected by those kinds of things. There’s really serious public policy discussions around the way that we go about agriculture. And I think it’s super important for our college to help convene conversations in this space to make sure that all voices are heard, that we’re very inclusive in that approach and that we support public policy decision-making with science, and we play a role then in maintaining the trust that society has in science. And we do that in the nexus of agriculture. So, the three of the areas we think a lot about and we’re investing a lot of time and effort in.
Jocelyn Hittle: Thanks for that summary. All of those show how much you as a college and you and your leadership team are looking at how the world is changing and how the college needs to address the different ways that we are approaching the various topics that you all work on. It’s a very big umbrella. And so, I’m sure that there are a lot of challenges in trying to figure out how to focus because there’s so much change and because you have such a large purview. Can you talk a little bit about how you as a leader within the college and how the college is thinking about focusing their efforts?
Dr. James Pritchett: Hey, thanks for that question, Jocelyn. I always remember and go back to the fact that CSU is a land-grant university and embedded in that as this social contract about service and that we’re going to serve people and the best way for us to be able to do that is to engage. So we prioritize by thinking through about what are the key questions that our citizens and our stakeholders are asking. So they’ll ask questions about is my food safe? And gosh, great research comes from people asking really good questions like that one. And so, we prioritize that according to the questions that our stakeholders are asking about these kinds of key areas and reform those with an eye toward the future at the same time.
Inherently, agriculture is a very practical science in the sense that the things that we do today need to answer problems that we have today. That’s part of our mandate, but we sure tap into the basic sciences and think about long-term trends, too. So when we go through a list of priorities at the beginning of the year and the College of Ag Sciences about what are we going to work on, it’s been formed by a whole lot of conversations that we’ve had and stakeholders that we’ve intersected with, and we use that as the advisors for the types of things that we do.
Jocelyn Hittle: Thanks. That is obviously something that informs a lot of how CSU operates across all of our various disciplines and how the Spur campus is also going to be thinking about our priorities is what is it that we are being asked to do by our neighbors, by the city of Denver, by the front range, by the state, by the CSU system, what are the things that are really problem-driven and user-driven rather than more top down. So, can we talk a little bit about, you’ve mentioned some things that hint at this, but how do you see agriculture changing? Maybe give ourselves a time horizon of say the next five, 10 years, and how is that shaping how you’re training the next generation of agriculturalists?
Dr. James Pritchett: We’ll ground ourselves by saying agriculture has always changed. And there are things that drive changes. One of the things that drives changes is how consumer preferences really evolve over time. So, as an income increase and as consumers have an awareness maybe that they didn’t have before of the world around, they have different kinds of preferences around the food they have. I was just thinking, Jocelyn, when you had a meal today, what were you looking for in the food that you had? What were the kinds of attributes that helped to inform how you chose the food that you wanted today?
Jocelyn Hittle: Well, it’s been a busy morning for me. So, part of it was convenience and proximity. General nutrition, always something that I think about and what will keep me going until the next chance I have to look around and find something convenient and approximate and nutritious.
Dr. James Pritchett: I think you’re spot on for what a lot of folks have. Can I get the product in the way it taste good? Generally speaking, people are interested in getting food that taste good. We could probably agree on that.
Jocelyn Hittle: I didn’t mention that, but yes, that is foundational.
Dr. James Pritchett: And what you said about convenience is really important for consumers too, and that becomes really operationally and that’s part of the lifestyle. And as society’s lifestyles change, they’ll emphasize more of those kinds of attributes, too. I thought when you said proximity, that’s interesting to me, too. I think folks increasingly want to know more about where their food is grown and the manner in which it’s grown too. And being local, that’s kind of the proximity piece, not just from the place of consumption and acquisition, but also where did it come from when it came together? We know that’s something that they think about in the Denver Metro area, too, is that proximity. I think they’ll continue to be those kinds of evolving consumer preferences that will drive what happens in agriculture. People will want to know more about what the information preserved around. Is it safe? Is it nutritious?
Was it grown locally? How were the workers treated that were part of that process? Was it sourced sustainably? Did we use sustainable production methods? And increasingly, that evolution of consumer preferences will lead to a food industry that’s more demanding around processes. So, can you verify the manner which labor was used to produce the food? Can you tell us about if it was grown locally? Is our supply chain resilience? We sure learned about that during the pandemic. And so, there’ll be more of a tighter structure on supply chains, I think, at the same time, the consumer preferences fragment.
So we’ll go away from maybe the old way of doing things with food was about bulk, blend and store. Grow things in big bulk, blend it together, store it, and then ship it to folks. Maybe we’ll have more stylized supply chains within agriculture and that’ll influence the kinds of products that we innovate first to match consumer preferences. The types of processes that we have around food technology that get us to that space, and then ultimately the kinds of production practices that agriculturalists use in order to be able to build that out. So in the next five to 10 years, I think you’ll get even better, more convenient, healthier food, and you’ll know more about where it comes from, and it’ll be in new forms. That’ll be tremendous.
Jocelyn Hittle: Yeah. And I would say that, that last point you just made right now, it seems to me as a consumer, that a lot of people will make a trade off between the convenient and taste good. And I want to know everything about how this was raised and where it was raised in the sustainability and moving into regenerative Ag, and they want to know. Sometimes you pick one because of where you are in your day and what you need, and sometimes you pick the other. And it seems to me that what you just said is really these two things will come together and all of those convenient choices will also need to have all of this information attached to them because people have more expectation of even the fast convenient food.
Dr. James Pritchett: I think you’re right. So, consumers will begin to make more choices based on reputational effects and what I would call credence attributes. So there’s something that in your decision-making set around buying something that’s healthy, that’s sustainable, that is an attribute that you want from your food and to have a label or a reputation for a firm that knows stands and aligns with your values, that’s going to help to drive some of those consumer choices. That’ll become part of the fragmentation. The separation of foods will be based on reputational effects.
Jocelyn Hittle: Yeah, it’s interesting, I think someone recently said to me that one of the ways that people publicly broadcast their values now is in their food choices, whether it’s what restaurants you go to, what you order when you’re at that restaurant, what’s in your fridge. All of your Instagram photos of the plates of food that you’re eating, people are broadcasting their values as it relates to food seems to be more than ever.
Dr. James Pritchett: Maybe the social media platform has enabled us and has helped drive that a little bit because there is transmission of knowledge, diffusion of knowledge that’s taking place. So people are much more cognizant of what that is.
Jocelyn Hittle: Yeah. So I’d love to switch gears a little bit and talk a little bit about your path. So, can you tell us a little how you got to be the dean of the College of Ag Sciences at CSU?
Dr. James Pritchett: Yeah. Sort of accidentally and unexpectedly, I think, which is a lot of people when things happen. A lot of my grounding, it took place having grown up in a small town in Eastern Colorado. We used to talk about our hometown as being the kind of town where you put the city limit signs on the same post. It’s small enough there. But I had a real appreciation for a few things growing up in a small town with my graduating class of eight when we graduated. One was an appreciation for the land and a sense of place because it was always present around us and nature itself was always present around us. So you get to know the cycles of the land and you get to know the importance of things and it becomes very immediate to you and everything that you do. So, the folks I grew up with two things about them one is that everybody will always scan the horizon, the very first thing they do to see what the impending weather might be.
And that’s a very plain oriented thing to see, are the clouds billowing out? Is the breeze freshening? Is it coming to you? And folks that I grew up with tended to be understated. We used to say, you can always tell an extrovert from Southeastern Colorado, because that’s the person who looks at your shoes. So there was a lot of grounding around that and there was sure a lot of grounding in small towns around service. So there was an expectation that we would all contribute to the common good in order to enhance what people are doing. So the combination of those two things took me to a land-grant university where it feels like that, that element of service and this idea that you can be in space that is directly tied to nature into ecosystems and ecology and growing things.
And that really brought me as an Ag major to Colorado State University. So not only am I employed there, not only do I work there, but I’m an alum too, and grew up with a great group of folks in that kind of an environment. Did not expect to stay in universities and be an academia. Knock on it, I got hooked by a really good teacher. And when you see a teacher who inspires and catalyzes and makes you think bigger and broader and pushes your boundaries and challenges you, well, you really respond to that. So that happened for me in an agricultural economics class that I had at CSU. And I thought, “Man, that this is really interesting. I want to learn more. I want to learn more about this. I want to do more about this. I could see myself serving in that way.” So that led to graduate school and eventually at PhD at the University of Minnesota. It turns out that the license plates. In the State of Minnesota there’s the land 10,000 frozen lakes.
So it wasn’t any surprise that it was a little bit of a shift in the environment for me and had really good education around agricultural economics and fell in love with teaching as part of that and doing research in an industry that I loved. And my first teaching opportunity was at Purdue University in Indiana, and then had the chance to come back home to Colorado and be a faculty member in 2001. And so, I’ve been there since that time. And a lot of folks at land-grant university, I started to work out in the state alongside people that I had grown up with and new people and new environments, and really tried to address problems that were important to them. So I wanted to know a lot about how we could share water better in Colorado, knowing that our urban population was growing and that we still wanted to keep agriculture in our rural areas and to keep it vibrant as well as to make sure we kept water in our streams, in our repairing areas so that we had healthy ecosystems.
And so, spent a fair bit of time working in that, working with lots of other kinds of scientists, not just economists and doing those sorts of things. And over time, my career grew so that I found more often than not, I was helping other people to be successful, trying to help them place them in a place where they could succeed and do the science they wanted to answer the questions that they did. And part of that was engaging with citizens of Colorado and helping them ask good questions and then being able to share the knowledge that we generate when we came out. And eventually, that leads to a leadership position, like a dean’s position, where it’s all about serving others and trying to elevate what we can do together. So, I’m really proud of our university, really proud of the people that I work with and just love the mission of doing that. And that’s why I ended up here.
Jocelyn Hittle: It is not uncommon when I’m talking with people about their journey, that there was someone in there who was influential, a teacher, a mentor, a boss who pivots people thinking a little bit, maybe not in a 180, but you weren’t thinking about academia, but here you are.
Dr. James Pritchett: Yeah, that’s right. And sometimes you look back and say, “How in the world did I get here?” And then you remember somebody had a talk with you or they challenged you or said, “Hey, I believe in you,” in a variety of different ways, and then you end up. And I think so maybe the little bit of the critical thing is some people directly make changes in your life and help you to become the person that you’re going to be. And others, you observe what they do and you say, “I want to be like that. I want to aspire to be like that.”
For folks that are trying to get things sorted, sometimes that’s the conversation I have with them and say, “Hey, if you look at someone who’s 10 years, 15 years further down the road than you are, look at them. And if you could say, I want to be like that. I want to do that.” Well, that helps you find out what the purpose is for you, which is sometimes what we struggle with, how is what I’m doing align with my purpose, with my values. And that’s a neat place to be in.
Jocelyn Hittle: And I would say that the part of what you’re getting at there in looking at who is someone that I want to emulate is understanding what the things are that they are doing if you break it down, get specific, what is it that they’re doing that you would like to be able to do yourself in your own specific context? So, I’d love to chat a little bit about what a day in the life of a dean is. So you’ve told us a little how you got here. What does a day look like? What does a week look like? What might surprise people?
Dr. James Pritchett: Oh, what a great question. There is no typical day in the life of a dean, let me say that from the beginning. It is really, there are common themes though. And my common theme is always about people, and what are the opportunities for others? What are the ways that we’re building up that we’re creating something together? What are the kinds of things that we can do that will help folks be successful? So I’ll start my day in the inbox, like a lot of people do and look through and categorize and think about, “Hey, here’s where I could make a difference. And here’s one where I need to empower somebody to help them to make that difference.” And maybe being a leader is knowing the difference between those two things. Or I like to think of parenting. Sometimes the hardest part about being a parent is figuring out when not to parent. The hardest part about being a leader is trying to figure out when to be directive and when to let things unfold as they need to.
So, a typical day is a lot about people with me and I strive to make personal connections. So I’ll walk the halls, be an example, or I’ll hop in the vehicle and drive out to the farm and check in with folks to see how things are going. And so, I’ll spend some time thinking about that and just learning and engaging and finding out where I could serve. There’s the passage from one place to another, and that quiet moment of reflection is the time when I start to think about long-term and strategically, where do we need to be and check in with myself and say, “Hey, are the things that we’re doing are those the ones that are making the difference that are aligned with what our vision and mission is?” So, a dean spends a fair bit of time thinking about those kinds of questions. On the one hand, at a personal level, understanding details. And at a broader level, thinking about the big picture and how things fit together and where might we be able to make a difference.
So sometimes those are days where, gosh, I’m having lunch with fourth graders who happen to be on campus, because they’re here for a water expo and then maybe I’m walking down with them to go see the bug zoo and the hissing cockroaches that we have, and we try to pick the one that we think is the fastest out of the cockroaches that are there. And then there are other times where I get the chance to introduce our top notch agricultural voltaic person, so somebody who works at solar power and agriculture. Introducing them to Senator Michael Bennet, who is curious about what that might mean to help fight climate change, and agreeable tech adopted more broadly. So, that’s what the day in the life of the dean looks like.
Jocelyn Hittle: And what does your interface with students tend to look like?
Dr. James Pritchett: Oh, man. So first things first, best part of my day is to be able to sit down and talk to students. Two favorite days of the year. First day is classes when all the students are coming in, they got lots of energy. And my second favorite day is commencement, when all the students are walking across the stage. So I interface with them and their families and those two days. And in between, it is really me stopping in the halls to chat with them about what are they studying, what are they interested in, spending a little time with them around their clubs and organizations. And gosh, things can get really messy when you’re a student in college and maybe you’re trying to plan an event or run an organization, or maybe you’re just really trying to figure out what direction you want to go in in life.
And I think my interactions with students then are primarily about listening and being able to validate and be able to share ideas and ask hard questions. Sometimes that help to make visible things that the students already know about. Every once in a while, I get the chance to talk economics, agricultural economics with students. I try to limit that to know more than about five minutes and 25 seconds because I lose people after that, even though I’ve been trained to talk in 75 minute increments. So, those are all the different ways that we intersect with each other. Jocelyn, it’s a pretty neat group of students we have. It really, really is. This generation is super purpose-driven and maybe contrary to what people think about in the College of Ag Sciences. Most of my students don’t have production agricultural experiences, or if they do, they’re pretty tight around some very specific things. And so, they’re really hungry and interested for learning about all the different parts of agriculture. And that’s a lot of fun. That’s infectious excitement that builds. I really like that.
Jocelyn Hittle: And we heard from one of your students at the recent opening of the Nutrien Building, and maybe you could talk a little bit more about that new building, but I was blown away by how he described what it meant to be a student within the college as well, and that sense of family. Even with 2,000 students and 250 staff, you have a family feel there. And maybe you can comment a little on that, but then also I’d love to hear a little bit about your new facility.
Dr. James Pritchett: Oh, you bet. So Sam Machio was the student that we were talking about, who probably walked out off, he spoke to the crowd and you just got a feeling for what connectivity was for him and how things matter to your point. And he talked a lot about how I think students really take care of each other in the college of agriculture and they have a sense of common identity. Sometimes it’s focused on a particular major. I’m super interested in becoming a vet. I’m an animal sciences and I’m connecting with other animal sciences students for that reason, and they’re drawing connections with each other and forming an identity. And sometimes it’s with the whole college that I’m here because I want to feed the world and that’s what we do in our college. And so, they feel that kind of identity and there’s a personal touch that comes with that.
Our advisors are really well known for spending meaningful time, not just helping you plan your classes, but helping you understand what you want to do in life and that personal connection and being invested in your success and saying, “Hey, we believe in you.” And that’s another cultural touchpoint that we have within the College of Agricultural Sciences. And I think the vast majority of our faculty are the same way. So it’s not a scientist who happens to be teaching, it’s about somebody who’s a scientist that wants to get you excited about agricultural sciences and what you are going to do in the world and really invests in helping you to see that and understand that in very practical ways. So it builds community in that space. I think that’s just a pretty neat way of doing things. So you mentioned that new building, we just opened Nutrien Agricultural Sciences Building.
We really thought about students in designing that building. So they’ve got a student success suite, it’s one stop shopping for everything that you want to do within the College of Ag Sciences. And we have this really neat round classroom, we call the Knowledge Well, named after Bernie Rollin, who was had a joint appointment in philosophy where he studied ethics, especially animal ethics and animal scientists. And he would just challenge students to think about why we’re doing what we’re doing, and is it always just because you can do it, is it the right thing to do in the context of agriculture. So he had some students that just changed their lives as a really talented faculty will do. And his students wanted to name that round classroom, the Knowledge Well after them. So in that classroom, the instructor stands in the middle and the students surround them in a circle outside.
And even though you can fit 170 students within that classroom, you’re no more than five rows away from the instructor. There’s no hiding in a classroom like that. And when we designed that, we thought a lot about the geometry of learning. So how can you be really actively engaging students? So they do better in the classes. And what we found by studying other round classrooms around the United States, students do better, especially those that haven’t been as successful in a traditional environment, in a rectangular kind of classroom. And part of it is the active engagement, seeing people across the room from each other, part of it is that in that round classroom, people tend not to sit in the same seat every day. So they’re always engaging with one another and maybe it’s just the novelty of being in a space that’s really designed for learning.
Jocelyn Hittle: Yeah. I have been in that space. It is remarkable and it is very different and I love how it reflects the science of learning that the design of that space is based on actual scientific research on how people learn. It kind of speaks to, or is in a similar bend as using science to inform policy. It’s a lot of folks don’t always think there is science that can inform a decision like the design of a classroom. So seeking out the science that can tell you a different way, I think is certainly shows that that ethos exists within the college in a lot of different ways.
Dr. James Pritchett: Yeah. I think we want to do everything with intention and mindful when we do. The design spaces is like that, design of programs is like that, design of research initiatives is like that. Let’s be mindful and intentional.
Jocelyn Hittle: So that’s a great segue to talk a little bit about your engagement at Spur. So, the College of Ag Sciences has a very robust presence at the CSU Spur campus. And I’d love to hear a little bit about what you’re most excited about how you approached what to do in Denver with intentionality.
Dr. James Pritchett: We’re so excited about the location of the Spur campus because it allows us to fulfill the land-grant mission in places where we have not been able to do that before. And the design of the Spur campus is just disruptive in the way to think about academia. Folks have a concept of a university as being this college campus, young people there, very intentional design academic programs. You walk in, you learn, you walk out. Now, Spur campus didn’t like that. It’s where it all lives. And there are community members that’ll be there and young people that’ll be there and scientists that’ll be all intersecting together at the same time. It’s going to be a big frothy experience. And the college of Ag was super excited to be able to do that. But we did start to ask the question intentionally about what’s the relevance that we need. Place matters so much.
So, from being in an urban setting next to a place where historically the college has been involved, but in a very targeted way around the National Western Stock Show, and we haven’t really been involved around things in the neighborhoods like food access, thinking about career pathways and what those high schools mean. We haven’t always had a lens that looked in an urban area and said, “This is a place where we can develop career pathways for folks.” We started to pull together our faculty and ask those kinds of questions, what is unique and special about Spur in that place in that time? And what can we bring to the table that will be helpful in those spaces? So one of the areas that was pretty straightforward that came as a grassroots effort was around urban agriculture. So thinking about in controlled environments, greenhouse type situations, what are food products that we can grow, and what are the other kinds of agriculture that can take place?
And can we demonstrate that and share that? So above all, Spur has this effective engagement strategy that’s around it. So that started to show up right away around green roof and around greenhouses and classes that we might teach in those spaces. We recognize too, that folks increasingly are interested more and more about their food and where it comes from, the things we do. So there’s a piece about that that is showing and telling the story creating a narrative about what agriculture is, and then elevating the knowledge base that people have, not just so that they’re aware of what happens in agriculture, but also they can turn that into actionable decisions that they want to make. So being able to describe things, and we think about our programming that’s educational, K-12 kinds of programming, like our CAM’s Ag Academy, which is all about teaching kids of all ages about agriculture. That takes place in that Spur campus.
We thought that was really, really important. We could also be able to provide services that we normally would do at the CSU campus. We could do that now in an area where we hadn’t been able to do that before. So, we’ll help homeowners understand the composition of their soil and be able to help them to grow the things that they want to grow by using a soil testing lab and a plant diagnostic lab. And we’ll be able to utilize the water testing facilities that’ll be there. So that’s another element of what we’ve done. We talked earlier in this venue about the Temple Grandin Equine Center. We’re actually taking some of those equine assisted services and doing those on the Spur campus, in the Vida building already see clients in those spaces. People get so excited to be able to come and see the horses and to spend time there, and it just has an energy about it that we love to have in that space.
I think the other thing too, just about Colorado that’s so cool and early on in the Spur process, both from a complete campus engagement and from the College of Ag Sciences, that one thing we noticed was how much innovation is taking place in agriculture and in food in city of Denver, National Western Stock Show. And CSU was really interested in, can you pull the innovation community together? And then what kinds of things can you do that’ll help small businesses to get started, entrepreneurs to get started, firms to be able to expand out into areas of agriculture all around the innovation space? And so, we have a master’s degree in food industry management kind of the innovation side of things. We have lab spaces that will allow people to take for a test drive, things that they might do in food and agriculture.
And we’re able to support folks with technical services in those lab spaces in an Ag innovation center. So that’s another piece that the college said, “Hey, there’s a need, there’s a gap that exists here.” And this disruptive presence, Spur campus, that’s the place to be able to do it.
Jocelyn Hittle: Thanks for that description of your thought process. And I think a lot of what we have ended up with in terms of agriculture and food programming at Spur goes back to that service and that what are people asking for ethos that you have as well as the Spur campus, what is the gap that we can suitably fill, where are people not getting done what they could get done with a little bit of additional help from the university in some form or fashion, whether it’s research or business services that would help launch a new company, things like that. We’re going to wrap up here in just a few minutes. So, I’d love to give our listeners where they can find more information about what the college of Ag is all about. Where can we point people social media websites?
Dr. James Pritchett: Hey, that’s a great question. You can always go to colostate.edu for Colorado State University and just search for Ag sciences. But if you go to AgSci, A-G-S-C-I.colostate.edu, that’s the website that can take you for a test. You can take for a test drive, all kinds of things that happen in agriculture. We have some folks that really like Twitter in our college, too, and to be able to share cool pictures of things like bugs, or maybe the great food that’s growing and the things that they’re going to be eating, and maybe a pithy joke will make its way out. One of the ways to keep track of that is to go to the Twitter handle @CSU.AgSci, A-G-S-C-I, and that’ll keep you up to speed on lots of good things that are taking place. And similarly, we have an Instagram approaches that’s there. The rumors that the dean has a TikTok account and posts himself dancing are not true.
Jocelyn Hittle: I’m a little disappointed.
Dr. James Pritchett: Yeah. Yep. Yeah, don’t be. And that’s because there is a Pritchett children ban on fathers being able to access that something that’s that close to their own peer group. So maybe sometime when that becomes passe, that’ll be about the time I adopt.
Jocelyn Hittle: I’m also a late adopter of some of the social media. So, I will get on TikTok at the same time you do, maybe. That is very helpful. Thank you. And do encourage folks to follow those handles in order to stay up on the research on the comedy stylings of the Ag sciences faculty. So, I have one last question for you. This is our spur of the moment question. So you have had a career that has focused on a variety of different disciplines and has always had its lens on food and Ag. And you grew up on a farm, so I’m using all of this to frame up this question which is, if you could only eat one fruit or vegetable for the rest of your life, what would it be?
Dr. James Pritchett: I would have to say honey crisp apples would fall in that category. The honey crisp has a high relevance in my household. We have a whole bowl form almost all the time. And that variety of apple was named and propagated by a fellow named [inaudible 00:40:56], when he was at the University of Minnesota, who later became a faculty member at Colorado State University. And I did not know that specifically until I happened to be chatting with some of our folks in horticulture already loved the apple before then, but that’s what I would need all the time. That’d be good. And you could prepare it lots of different ways. You didn’t say I had to eat it raw, because I could make like apple crisp. I could make apple jam. I could do fried apples. I could make apple pancakes.
Jocelyn Hittle: Apples and a good cheddar cheese, a honey crisp with a good slice of cheddar. That’s one of my favorites. I should’ve known in asking that question that I would get more than just, I would pick this fruit that there would be history and research and deep knowledge behind it.
Dr. James Pritchett: You can tell that we listen to Paul Harvey all the time growing up that in Southeast Colorado. Now you know the rest of the story.
Jocelyn Hittle: The rest of the story, I hadn’t thought about Paul Harvey in years. The voices that shape our upbringings.
Dr. James Pritchett: Yeah.
Jocelyn Hittle: Yeah. Well, thank you very much for sharing your voice with us today. Very much appreciate you joining us on Spur of the moment. Thanks again, Dr. Pritchett for joining me today.
Dr. James Pritchett: You bet. Grateful for the opportunity, Jocelyn.
Jocelyn Hittle: The CSU Spur of the Moment podcast is produced by Kevin Samuelson and our theme music is by Ketsa. Please visit the show notes for links mentioned in this episode. We hope you’ll join us in two weeks for the next episode. Until then, be well.
