Youth News
Judging from His Interaction with OYE Exhibitors, OSU's Clint Rusk Believes Industry's Future is Bright
Wed, 14 Mar 2018 11:51:20 CDT
Dr. Clint Rusk, head of the Animal Science department at Oklahoma State University, has been a part of the Oklahoma Youth Expo for a long time, enjoying the chance to interact with parents and exhibitors who he views as future students. He told Radio Oklahoma Ag Network Farm Director Ron Hays this week, that the skills students develop while participating at OYE and other events like it will help them later in life to be successful. He says he has seen those traits, such as responsibility and work ethic, in the students he recruits. He offered Hays a few comments during their interview addressing the state of the department right now and what it is doing to ultimately serve Oklahoma's ag industry. You can listen to his complete interview with Hays by clicking or tapping the LISTEN BAR below at the bottom of the page.
"I think the state of the department is really good. I'm always a person who tends to see the glass half full," Rusk said. "We've been through some challenges with budget cuts like any state agency the last few years but we're going to weather the storm."
If an entity can manage to survive budget cuts and do so in a correct fashion, if there is one, Rusk believes an organization can come out of the situation stronger and believes that to be the path his department is headed down.
"I think we've learned some things. We've had to make some cuts; we've had to change the way we do some things. But, I really believe the future for the department is very bright. Our future is dependent on people and we have great people that work for us and we have great students. As long as that continues I think our future will be really good."
Managing faculty has been one challenge though that Rusk admits having to tackle in recent years, contending that turn over seems is a fact of life and seems to happen now more than it used to. He believes the days of people spending their entire careers on staff is over, and terms of five to seven years then moving on to the next opportunity is becoming the new norm. However, he sees that as somewhat of a testament to Oklahoma State University's ability to attract talented faculty whose skills can be developed at OSU and that ability later be recognized by other organizations that can offer more to the individual. He says it is another way in which the University can spread its influence.
At the end of the day, though, Rusk says the mission is ultimately to help sustain the ag industry with trained graduates readily available to fill the jobs that require skilled and capable candidates.
"The vision is making sure we're producing students are well prepared to go into the jobs that are going to be available," he said, mentioning food science as one area where there is a growing need for professionals. "We want to prepare more students in that area to be available and ready for those jobs in addition to the students with an opportunity to go back home and be in production agriculture - we need them as well."
Our Coverage of the 2018 Oklahoma Youth Expo is once again a service of ITC Great Plains, Your Energy Superhighway- learn more about this high voltage, transmission only utility and their commitment to the communities they serve which is the cornerstone of their business-click here for their website.
Reports will be heard daily on great radio stations that cover Oklahoma and that are a part of the Radio Oklahoma Ag Network- on the internet- our reports of the 2018 OYE can be found on the Blue Green Gazette page- available here. We will be adding pictures daily to our official 2018 OYE Album of Photos on FLICKR, found here.
For more information about the Oklahoma Youth Expo, click here for the home page of the OYE website.
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