Purdue Ag Week: See What Ag Gives!

By Purdue Ag Communications


Last spring, Joe Harmeyer, a College of Agriculture Senator for Purdue’s Student Government (PSG) held a meeting in which he invited other student leaders throughout the college. The goal of the meeting was to decide how to better promote and educate others on Purdue’s campus about agriculture.

When school started in the fall, the group, at this point an agriculture task force, met every week to discuss how to brand their message, events that could get students motivated to attend and to decide how exactly they were going to promote agriculture on campus.

As the fall semester started to come to an end, the task force decided to focus all of their time and attention on planning an “Ag Week,” a week dedicated to promoting agriculture across campus. They scheduled the Ag Week for April, so that they would have as much time as they could to plan this week from the bottom up.

To get the entire College of Agriculture involved in making this Ag Week happen, the task force promoted and encouraged the week to the student organizations within the college. They coached and helped their peers so that the student groups would plan individual events on their own, with help from the task force.

To get these students organizations motivated, the task force held two workshops for the student organizations, not only to get them excited about Ag Week, but also to help them discuss controversial agriculture topics in case they were confronted with them during Ag Week.

The task force started a Twitter account to promote Ag Week and other agriculture issues, and a Facebook for an outlet to post pictures, vides and other promotional items for the week.

The first annual Purdue Ag Week is planned for April 2-6 on Purdue’s campus. The task force and others involved hope to promote agriculture in a positive light and educate their fellow students and future leaders to See What Ag Gives or SWAG.  

Some of the week’s events include:

·       “Milk Monday” by Purdue Dairy Club

·       “Spices From Around The World” by Purdue Horticulture Club

·       “Rodeo and Roping” by Purdue Rodeo Club

·       “Bull Riding” with Purdue

·       “Barn Dance: Learn to line dance” by Purdue Heifer International and Collegiate 4-H

·       “Ag Facts” by Purdue MANRRS, Ag Ambassadors, Collegiate Farm Bureau, Indiana Association of Agriculture Educators, and Collegiate FFA.

·       “Show-n-Shine” by Purdue Diesel Club