Dordt College, in the northwest Iowa town of Sioux Center, has signed a cooperative education agreement with the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Duane Bajema, an agriculture professor at Dordt, says the deal will help supply high school ag teachers across the region.
Bajema says, "We are giving the ag ed profession another opportunity to produce ag teachers for our schools in the four-state area and beyond." He says the agreement makes sense because of the many connections Dordt has in Nebraska.
Bajema says Dordt has the only full-fledged ag program in the Great Plains Athletic Conference (G-PAC), with courses in a host of areas including animal science, plant science, agribusiness, ag missions and many others. He says beside the formal agreement with U-N-L, Dordt officials look to continue their education cooperation with Iowa State University, the University of Minnesota and South Dakota State University.
He says, "We benefit from one another. We’re not an island unto ourselves. We are all interested in promoting agriculture, we just come about it at different ways." Bajema says Dordt now has about 70 students enrolled in ag education courses.