Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting

SAC7 Report from Annual Meeting February 2022.  Submitted by Josh Duke, Auburn, March 21, 2022

The 2022 annual meeting was held February 13, 2022, at the Southern Agricultural Economics Association Meeting in New Orleans, and it was attended by Dept Chairs/Heads or representatives from most of the region’s ag econ programs: Auburn, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Tennessee-Knoxville, LSU, Florida, Clemson, Kentucky, Georgia, Texas A&M.  Also, attending were a few other university and USDA administrators as guests.  SAC7 Administrative Advisor Michael Salassi also attended.  The meeting was chaired by Josh Duke.

A pre-meeting survey of SAC7 members identified priority items for discussion:

• Opportunities to work together to enhance ag econ in the South
• Experiences as administrators interacting with external stakeholder groups
• Evolving needs of assistant professors: How best to mentor them?
• Observed changes in graduate student recruitment
• 2021-22 hiring challenges/successes

Discussion at the meeting also included topics such as:

• Trends in PhD graduate stipends. Reported range from $16,000 to $30,000+, but some universities require students to pay tuition and some colleges have fees.  So, the variation in net stipends may not be as large as the stipend range implies.
• Starting assistant professor salaries. Reported within $10,000 of SREB average.
• Preparation within undergraduate agribusiness programs for graduate studies in agricultural economics.

State reports were submitted on undergraduate and graduate student enrollment, faculty numbers.

• Clemson     123 Undergraduates       11 Graduates          10 Faculty (including current hiring)
• Georgia      350 Undergraduates       110 Graduates          34 Faculty (including current hiring)
• Texas A&M  1,135 Undergraduates   135 Graduates          73 Faculty (including current hiring)
• Auburn       182 Undergraduates       31 Graduates          18 Faculty (including current hiring)
• Tennessee   86 Undergraduates         18 Graduates          22 Faculty (including current hiring)
• Kentucky    190 Undergraduates       27 Graduates          20 Faculty (including current hiring)
• Florida        180 Undergraduates       55 Graduates          42 Faculty (including current hiring)
• Arkansas     338 Undergraduates       39 Graduates          23 Faculty (including current hiring)