UTM will be joining the ranks of Penn State and Virginia Tech this summer when it holds the first Tennessee Governor's School for the Agricultural Sciences, one of three such programs in the nation.

The program will host 32 high-school students as well as eight counselors and faculty from around the state. The Tennessee Depart-ment of Education and the Depart-ment of Agriculture share fiscal responsibility for the Governor's School, with the Department of Agriculture contributing $50,000 from sales of the "Ag Tag," the agricultural license plate.

While formal planning for the program only began last spring, the push for a Governor's School focusing on agriculture began in the early 1990s. "I noticed there was no Governor's School for Ag," said Joe Brasher, a former UTM Agriculture Advisory Committee member, who discovered the need when two of his three children attended Governor's Schools around the state.

Dr. Jerry Gresham, chair of UTM's Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources and the director of the Governor's School for Agricultural Sciences, wants to stress to his Governor's School students that agriculture isn't "plows, cows and sows," but is a mixture of chemistry and biological sciences with wide-ranging applications.

"Most of the students won't have an agricultural background," Gresham said.

The four-week program, in conjunction with time spent in the classroom, will allow for experience in "a living laboratory" through field trips to St. Louis and around Tennessee in addition to partnerships with industry, such as with Tyson Foods. The students will be grouped into teams by area of interest. Students will also interact regularly with students from the Governor's School of the Humanities, which is also hosted annually at UTM.

For more information, contact Dr. Jerry Gresham at extension 7262 or jgresham@utm.edu