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Plant Pathology Education in America:
Current Status and Future Challenges

James D. MacDonald
Executive Associate Dean 
College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences
University of California
1 Shields Ave 
Davis, CA 95616-8680
jdmacdonald@ucdavis.edu

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These findings were originally presented to the APS leadership at the Annual Meeting in San Diego in July, 2007. They also will play an important role in framing the discussion at a national workshop on education in plant pathology being planned for late 2008 or early 2009.

Parts 1 of 3

In this first of a three-part presentation, I describe the issues that our committee was asked to examine and provide data on graduate student demographics, what attracts students to plant pathology, and how well graduate programs feel they are doing in student recruitment. In the second installment, I will describe what our committee learned regarding student career aspirations and graduate program curricula. In the third and final installment, I will describe what we learned about how employers view the preparation of program graduates, what they anticipate as important skills for the future, and then summarize what students, graduate programs and employers see as possible roles for APS in this arena.

View and Listen to Part 1 
(32:42 minutes)

Part 2 of 3

In this second of a three-part presentation, I describe what our committee learned regarding student career aspirations and graduate program curricula. In the first part, I described the issues that our committee was asked to examine and provided data on graduate student demographics, what attracts students to plant pathology, and how well graduate programs feel they are doing in student recruitment. In the third and final installment, I will describe what we learned about how employers view the preparation of program graduates, what they anticipate as important skills for the future, and then summarize what students, graduate programs and employers see as possible roles for APS in this arena.

View and Listen to the Presentation
(23:20 minutes)

Part 3 of 3

In this final installment of a three-part presentation, I describe what we learned about how employers view the preparation of program graduates, what they anticipate as important skills for the future, and then summarize what students, graduate programs and employers see as possible roles for APS in this arena. In the first part, I described the issues that our committee was asked to examine and provided data on graduate student demographics, what attracts students to plant pathology, and how well graduate programs feel they are doing in student recruitment. In the second installment, I described what our committee learned regarding student career aspirations and graduate program curricula.

View and Listen to the Presentation
(42:30 minutes)