On October 19, the new James E. Oldfield Animal Teaching Facility will be dedicated in a celebration open to all OSU students, faculty, and the public. The new facility is one of many changes within the animal sciences department, beginning with its merger with rangeland ecology and management to form OSU’s new Department of Animal and Rangeland Sciences.
Groundbreaking will begin this fall for three additional buildings associated with the Oldfield Teaching Facility, which will include facilities for metabolism research, agricultural education, agricultural laboratories support technology, and the university data center. This new complex will be the headquarters for managing OSU’s animal sciences research farms as living laboratories for state-of-the-science research and teaching.
These new facilities, along with changes being made at the research farms, support the department’s new areas of research. For example, the OSU Dairy is undergoing upgrades to facilities and pastures to focus on a new grazing/high forage dairy management system using Jerseys only. We have sold the mature milking cows and curtailed milking at the dairy during this period of construction. We have retained replacement Jersey heifers and plan to resume milking in mid 2013.
We have reduced the number of ewes at the OSU Sheep Center to match our current teaching and research needs. We will have fewer horses and are concentrating activities at the OSU Horse Center on the academic areas of equine science and management. In addition, we are improving infrastructure at the beef research ranches to allow greater opportunity for teaching and research as well as stakeholder involvement.
These changes reflect the rapid growth of our department. Our undergraduate student enrollments are at an all-time high of more than 500 students, nearly four times the enrollment of the 1990s. To maintain excellence in teaching, research, and outreach, we are hiring six new tenure-track faculty in the areas of:
- Dairy Production and Management
- Human-Animal Bond
- Range/Riparian Ecology
- Meat Science/Muscle Biology
- Forage Livestock Production
- Reproductive Physiology
WELCOME BACK!! Have a great academic year. GO BEAVS!!!
