(Kingsville)—Over the past 10 to 15 years, the scope of ranching in South Texas has expanded to not only include the livestock and farming areas, but wildlife and range management. To keep up with the changing region, the College of Agriculture and Human Sciences at Texas A&M University-Kingsville adapted curriculum and research to the point where 40 percent of the faculty identify themselves as having a wildlife or range management specialty.
To reflect this change in scope, the college now has adopted a new name, the College of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Human Sciences. The new name has officially been approved by The Texas A&M University System Board of Regents and the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board.
Ron Rosati, dean of the college said the name change was not made lightly. “We had an external review team evaluating our Ph.D. in wildlife science and they recommended the name change. Our faculty voted on it. We worked on this for over a year.”
“Our name change reflects the changes that have occurred in ranching in South Texas over the past 15 or 20 years,” Rosati said. “Most of a rancher’s income used to come from farming and cattle, but today, they have realized that if they continue to be good land stewards, wildlife also can be a source of income.
“Wildlife related enterprises have emerged as a dominant component of the economy of rural South Texas, often generating more income per acre than traditional production agriculture,” he added. “The college has been proactively engaged with the communities it serves and the college programming reflects this shift in land use.”
"The new college name reflects the changing and challenging times in a modern era of agriculture and the views of a progressive faculty that is providing the leadership for these changing times and helping to shape the next generation of educated leaders and producers in the agricultural industry," said Rumaldo Z. Juárez, university president.
To help the farmers and ranchers of South Texas, the scope of the college has changed with the times. Wildlife science and range management are now prominent areas of faculty expertise with 16 faculty members in that department, Rosati said. The college received approval in late 2004 for its Ph.D. in wildlife science, which is their first independent doctoral degree.
The Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Research Institute, which celebrates its 25th anniversary this year, is second to none in terms of researching the South Texas-Northern Mexico ecological region and the King Ranch Institute for Ranch Management (KRIRM) is a one-of-a-kind program that is tied to natural resource management.
Rosati added that the capital campaign for both institutes have raised just under $25 million, $16 million of that in just the past five year, indicating that donors also are interested in wildlife and range management.
KRIRM also secured a $255,000 annual line item from the 2005 Texas legislature, one of few funded.
Agriculture science research expenditures continue to climb and were at $6.4 million for 2005, making it the third highest in the state behind Texas A&M University and Texas Tech University. Divided individually, that amount also puts the college among the state leaders as far as the amount spent per full-time faculty, which stands at $188,000, Rosati said.
During 2004, a new Wildlife Services Field Station of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Services was funded and staffed. This was the only new USDA lab funded in the state that year. In 2005, an additional $40,000 federal appropriation was approved for the lab.