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Stockbridge School of Agriculture

2-year and 4-year career-minded degrees through hands-on learning

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  • 8 students in UMass shirts pose as a team

    Stockbridge Returns to National Turf Bowl Competition

    A team of 8 Turfgrass Science and Management students escaped our New-England-in-February weather for a trip to Orlando, Florida, location of the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America (GCSAA) Annual Conference. Their focus was the 28th annual Turf Bowl Competition, for which Stockbridge has been a standard bearer for many years, often placing in the top ten against collegiate teams from all around the country. The annual conference of the GCSAA is national and draws upwards of 10,000 turf professionals, vendors, educators, students, and recent graduates with a focus on turf management for the golf industry.
  • Elsa Petit Headshot

    Elsa Petit Selected as Fellow for Public Engagement Project

    Stockbridge plant pathologist and soil scientist Elsa Petit was selected as a Fellow for the university's Public Engagement Project.  The program facilitates connections between researchers, lawmakers in both in the U.S. Congress and Massachusetts State House, and journalists.  Fellows receive a stipend and technical training in communicating scientific research to non-academic audiences. Dr Petit will develop material for growers to adopt environmentally-friendly agricultural practices, and will communicate with legislators to create public policy that support growers.
  • Cam Anderson poses with sign on office door of Congress Representative Jim McGovern

    Stockbridge Tells Congress to Follow the Research

    Cam Anderson, PhD candidate in Environmental Conservation, and recipient of the Future Leaders in Science Award, went to Washington DC to advocate in Congress for agricultural and climate policies that are based in peer-reviewed research.   After learning how to have effective meetings with busy congressional representatives, Anderson led their team's meeting with the office of Rep. Jim McGovern (D), who represents the second district of Massachusetts and the home of UMass Amherst. "We discussed the importance of research in bringing us towards a safe, secure, and accessible food system," reports Anderson
  • Kristina Bezanson poses with PowerCorps BOS participants in a group selfie

    Stockbridge Offers Job Training to PowerCorps Boston

    The Arboriculture program at Stockbridge School of Agriculture is actively partnering with PowerCorps Boston, a federally funded program to train under-employed adults for living-wage careers in the green industries and other growing fields. The university’s Principles of Arboriculture course is now taught in-person at the Mt Ida campus over 14 weeks as part of the PowerCorps BOS workforce development program. The hands-on learning focus, which is the historic specialty of the Stockbridge School of Agriculture has proven successful in providing the experiential learning style best suited for under-employed adults.
  • We're Sponsoring As Schools Match Wits Saturdays at 7pm on NEPM

    Stockbridge Sponsors Quiz Competition of Local High Schools

    Beginning with the Spring 2023 season, Stockbridge School will be a promoted sponsor for "As Schools Match Wits," the televised quiz competition for more than 25 teams of academic achievers from local and regional high schools. Two fifteen-second video spots will air in alternation, announcing our sponsorship at the start of each episode, along with some of the majors we offer.  Previews of the two spots are available in the article.
  • Woman on Laptop with Images of Sustainable Farming Below

    UMass Ranked Top One Percent for Online Bachelor Degree Programs

    For 2023 U.S. News & World Report assessed online programs at more than 1,800 colleges and universities and ranked 1,730 online bachelor's and master's degree programs, the most in the survey’s history. Overall, all UMass online bachelor’s degree programs ranked 16th nationally, up from 19th last year, cementing our place in the top one percent. Stockbridge established, and continues to offer, the nation's largest fully online bachelor degree program in sustainable agriculture.  Over 300 students are currently enrolled in Stockbridge courses online.  The degree can be completed online, or student may transfer courses upon admission to our on-campus degree program.

Professor Lisa Depiano Awarded $30,000 Grant to Host Climate Adaptation Learning Lab On Campus

Stockbridge professor Lisa Depiano founded the UMass Carbon Farming Initiative, which for five years has trained students at our Agricultural Learning Center (ALC) in the use of agroecology, regenerative food production and climate mitigation techniques.

Carbon farming, in which carbon is sequestered into soil stocks and above-ground biomass, reduces the harmful release of carbon into the atmosphere that comes from commercial farming. 

Instructors Lisa Depiano and Nicole Burton, along with our Sustainable Food & Farming students, also manage the university's first Chestnut/Sheep Silvopasture, in which trees and livestock are used to enrich soil productivity without the use of powered tractors.

The new grant, awarded to Depiano by the Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) Partnership, will fund a new site at the ALC to teach "alley cropping," the integration of trees among farm crops, giving students additional hands-on learning opportunities to practice climate mitigation and sustainable farming techniques proven by science.

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Lisa Depiano

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