THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, September 29, 1996 TAG: 9609270251
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: 12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: COVER STORY
SOURCE: BY MEREDITH COHN, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 141 lines
MARTY STOKES SAYS she's expecting to grow with her landscaping company. Or she'll open a florist shop or operate a greenhouse.
Once the 39-year-old Deep Creek resident earns her associate's degree in horticulture from Tidewater Community College this year, it will be her choice. She will have a career and not just a job.
But as news circulated that the horticulture degree may be cut from the college's curriculum, Stokes became angry. College officials have not been able to make their case, she said. It was an opinion she shared with fellow students in her class in greenhouse crop production on a recent evening.
Most of 18 students in the class said they planned to earn the degree and use it to find work as floral and landscape designers, equipment and feed company representatives, golf course greenskeepers and greenhouse supervisors, among other pursuits. They aspire to work at such public facilities as city parks, zoos and botanical gardens and at private retail stores.
Many of them work in the horticulture fields, but say their age or ambition prevents them from doing years of manual labor and working their way up. Others say they could not acquire enough skills without formal education to advance.
The students charge that the State Council of Higher Education will cancel their futures by just looking at narrowly collected facts.
The council says the horticulture program produces too few graduates for its $108,000 yearly cost - averaging only five in the 1990s when at least seven are needed to be considered productive by the state. The members plan to vote Oct. 7 on whether to kill the program, maintain it or allow students to earn certificates with fewer credits.
Money, in tight supply, could be shifted to other more popular programs or new initiatives, council members said.
But the TCC students say, for them, other horticulture programs are too far, inadequate or expensive. There are no similar programs in South Hampton Roads.
``This program is extremely vocationally oriented and just about everyone wants a good job out of it,'' Stokes said. ``We need the degree for the skills, not just to get any job. Advancement would take a lot longer without this program.''
Other students say they have already planned their careers, or career advancement, based on the degree.
Bill Davis plans to pursue a position as a representative of a feed or equipment company.
``I grew up on a farm, and I thought I knew a lot about gardening,'' said Davis, 60, of Virginia Beach. ``But you can learn a lot from a book that you can't learn from digging a hole in the ground.''
Davis said he will be able to compete for a job as a factory representative with others holding bachelor's degrees.
``You really have to know your stuff,'' he said. ``It takes years and years to learn to identify pests, for example, or you can take classes and get a specialized degree like this one.''
Debi Chinn, 39 of Virginia Beach, said she will eventually become a florist and run her own greenhouse. She works for a florist already doing deliveries and helping at weddings. Since she's had classes, her boss assigns her some designing duties.
The degree will give her the skills and the confidence to strike out on her own, she said.
In their crop production course, one of about two dozen courses offered, the students have been learning how to plant and care for chrysanthemums, pansies and poinsettias. They learn from Ken Spencer, an assistant professor at the college, the proper temperature, pruning techniques and how to manipulate their light to control when they bloom. They plan to sell the hundreds of multicolored plants during the holidays.
Others said they see specific benefits from the courses.
``Recently I was out on a job and I recognized that a tree wasn't planted properly,'' said Mamie Moore, 41, of Virginia Beach, who works at a Suffolk landscape company.
``Someone dug a hole, put in a tree and mulched around it,'' she said. ``It was a $100 tree and it wasn't planted right. That leaves it susceptible to disease and death.''
Moore said the TCC program also prepared her for her pesticide license.
``That's a major thing now,'' she said. ``You need to know about safety and proper application. . . . Think about someone who is going to become a golf course manager. You can do real damage with all those fertilizers if you don't know what you're doing.''
Hazel Freeman, a master gardener for the city of Chesapeake, said what she learns in class will be a benefit to local residents. She hands out free gardening advice on an extension service phone line.
``This is where I learn what to tell people,'' said Freeman, 41, of Chesapeake. ``The degree will give me even more credibility.''
Another student just starting out in horticulture said his choice to attend TCC was about money. Twenty-one-year-old Billy Fleming of Virginia Beach plans to get his degree from TCC, transfer to Virginia Tech for his bachelor's degree and go right to work in a nursery or state forestry program.
``It's a lot cheaper for me to go to school here for two years and live at home instead of spending all four years at Tech,'' said Fleming, who also works part-time at TCC cleaning up the horticulture workrooms and maintaining the greenhouses to pay tuition.
These students are counted among about 100 full-time and part-time students who attend about 275 classes a semester. Started in the 1970s, the program has two full-time professors and some adjunct instructors.
The school took over part of a new campus building in 1983, and students this semester are using $80,000 to $100,000 in new greenhouse equipment - partially paid for by a $35,000 private grant. The greenhouses and computer controls are so state-of-the-art and pricey many commercial greenhouses have yet to install them. They were assembled by Spencer, the horticulture professor, his father and some students when the money ran out.
About 16 students are graduating this year, which is a high number, Spencer said.
Attendance peaked in 1988, slid in the following three or four years and is rising again, according to his records. The state council, Spencer said, looked at the five-year projection for graduation starting in the late 1980s, which showed the number to be stagnant.
``That's not the case anymore,'' Spencer said. ``I'm confident we can hit seven (graduates) each year.''
Spencer said new equipment would be a draw and, now that companies have begun seeing horticulture graduates, they will start expecting workers with degrees.
``We'll have a growing demand,'' he said.
In letters to the state council, employers from around the region confirmed TCC was becoming one of their top recruiting grounds for new employees and a place to send current workers for training.
``This program has become our No. 1 source of off-site training and development of our people,'' said a letter from White's Nursery and Greenhouse in Chesapeake. ``The curriculum provides invaluable educational material that we cannot provide in the workplace.''
Peter G. Frederick, executive director of the Norfolk Botanical Garden, wrote: ``Our experience with graduates of the course is that they are reliable, knowledgeable and industrious. Indeed, I believe there is a growing demand for these graduates to enter the landscape business.'' ILLUSTRATION: Staff photos, including the color cover photo, by MORT
FRYMAN
Students are counting on horticulture degrees from Tidewater
Community College to help them get work, but the State Council on
Higher Education says the program costs too much and may have to go.
As professor Ken Spencer looks on, horticulture student Billy
Fleming flushes out one of the power sprayers used to water or feed
plants.
Horticulture student Bobby Brown measures and adds fungicide to a
power sprayer. by CNB