Campus Farm
Officials from the University of Maryland’s agriculture and natural resources college said they plan to move forward with multimillion-dollar renovations of the Campus Farm this year — the facility’s first major refurbishment in five decades.
The three-phase plan would transform the farm into a state-of-the-art teaching center by adding an indoor pavilion, providing new technology and integrating modern sustainability practices. This revitalization project would also allow for better teaching and research facilities and more learning opportunities for students, said Chad Stahl, a professor and department chairman who joined the faculty June 1.
College officials began discussing the project as early as 2012, and they aim to announce a date for groundbreaking this year, Leslie Joyce, assistant director of development, wrote in an email. The completion of the phases of construction will require an additional two to three years following the acquisition of necessary funds.
“The College has a wide range as to what this project might cost,” Joyce wrote. “Because of this range our project team will begin prioritizing what the Campus Farm must have, should have, could have and would like to have but won’t get.”
To date, the college has raised just more than $522,000, most of it from a single donor, Joyce wrote. The college’s development team will soon start its direct donor outreach to alumni and local poultry, dairy and horse companies, Stahl said.
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The revitalization “is critical to helping us train the students who will work in those industries,” said Stahl, who plans to work aggressively to secure donations. “The college will match whatever we generate, but we need $2.5 million to match at all.”
The renovation will rework the existing layout and will not require additional space, said Libby Dufour, the animal and avian science department’s assistant director of undergraduate program.
The campuswide budget freeze halted progress last year, Joyce wrote. However, she added, progress is expected this year with Stahl at the helm.
“There’s pressure on me to move this initiative forward,” Stahl said. “It’s important for us to look as important as we are.”
The farm, which was first constructed in 1862 under the First Morrill Act — a federal measure that awarded property to states to establish non-elite universities focused on agriculture, science and technology — distinguishes this university’s program from its competitors, Stahl said.
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Yet despite the continued enrollment of students within the college in more recent years, the program “has fought hard to keep the farm on-campus,” Dufour said, adding that the original structure once extended into Lot 9 as a grazing area for sheep before the construction of Xfinity Center.
“We’re the only school where students can walk across the street to the farm after class without having to leave campus at all,” Stahl said.
This feature enables students to work with animals during a number of different classes throughout their time at this university, Dufour said. It also allows several student clubs and organizations to work with the animals as well.
“It sets our program apart, that hands-on experience,” Dufour said, adding that university students applying to medical schools and veterinary schools after graduation typically eclipse other candidates with their degree of prior experience.
Stahl said he considers a revamped facility vital to students’ success in their future endeavors.
“All of these buildings were built before technology was available,” Stahl said. “We can now make management decisions based on [technological] data.”
