Two of UW-Madison's oldest, most heralded departments look to merge

Faculty in the University of Wisconsin-Madison's departments of dairy science and animal sciences are preparing a proposal to merge, a move that aims to reorganize and revitalize the university's historic and internationally known research divisions.

The merger, one part of an "organizational redesign" of UW-Madison's College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, would combine the departments to make them "more robust" and "resilient over time," according to college planning documents. 

The change would carry little, if any, academic significance: majors in dairy science and animal sciences, as well as the other majors those departments' faculty help teach, will continue to exist in some form.

But the merger symbolizes the challenges universities face in preparing for the future, as two departments with roots as deep as the university itself seek to modernize and adjust to growing budgetary constraints. 

"Our faculty numbers are significantly lower than they were 30 years ago and the role of academic departments stayed the same, so in many cases we have departments that have fewer faculty still trying to do the same amount of work," Heidi Zoerb, the college's associate dean for external relations and advancement, told the Journal Sentinel.

As a whole, the number of full-time equivalent faculty positions in the college have declined from 361 in 1980 to 225 in 2019. Zoerb attributed that shrinkage to declining state funding, which has lowered the ability to invest in new professors.

Department of Dairy Science Chair Kent Weigel was not immediately available for an interview with the Journal Sentinel on Friday.

However, he said in an email statement that the merged department would be "larger and, in our opinion, more effective" at answering the questions of modern-day animal biology and agriculture.

"We plan to continue with two majors, with details not yet finalized, but one will be tailored for students who want to pursue vet school, grad school, and related scientific or technical careers, and one that focuses heavily on dairy business management and related animal agriculture fields such as precision livestock farming and meat industry careers," Weigel said.

Further details of the proposal, which is still in development, were not immediately available.

In a Q&A with the Wisconsin Agricultural and Life Sciences Alumni Association's newsletter, Weigel described the merger as one that is necessary to meet the future needs of students and the dairy industry.

"If we decide not to merge, we take a huge risk in spreading ourselves too thin by trying to cover all disciplines and all species; neither UW-Madison nor any other land-grant university can do this successfully," Weigel said. 

Weigel also noted most of the dairy science faculty were hired in the 1980s, so the department is on the verge of major turnover. The already small team has areas of "one-deep" expertise that has hurt the department's prestige in the past, he said.

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"A perfect example is the area of milk quality, where dairy science literally went from an internationally recognized program to nothing overnight when Pamela Ruegg left to become department chair at Michigan State University," Weigel said.

Faculty could end up voting on the merger as early as the coming fall semester, Zoerb said.

If passed, the merger would solidify long-standing collaborations between two already closely-linked academic divisions, Zoerb said.

"Both programs have really strong visibility within the state among their alumni and, really, around the world as well," Zoerb said. "There's amazing research that comes out of the labs in these two departments."

But Zoerb also acknowledged that around the world, there are few "stand-alone" dairy science departments. UW-Madison's is strengthened in prestige given the prowess of Wisconsin's $43 billion dairy industry.

Though not always under the "Department of Dairy Science" moniker, the history of groundbreaking dairy research can be traced as far back as the 1890s, when agricultural chemist Stephen Babcock developed a test to measure the fat content of milk.

The Dairy Husbandry Department was first established in 1938, when it broke off from animal sciences. Another version of the dairy husbandry department — which is now the food science department — was established even earlier, in 1908.

UW-Madison, then the University of Wisconsin, was established in 1848. The university received federal "land-grant" funds in 1862, solidifying the school's investment in agriculture research.

Today, student enrollment in the dairy science major remains steady, Zoerb said, and the numbers are growing slightly in the animal sciences major. The fall 2018 class in animal sciences had 163 students and dairy science had 73, according to college data.

But the college's budget continues to dwindle. According to college data, the largest hit came in the 2019 fiscal year, when the budget shrank by $388,470. It was the third year of decline in a row.

The college's dean, Kate VandenBosch, recommended department chairs explore opportunities to merge or collaborate more closely with others in April 2018, to make sure the departments are "positioned for future success."

Contact Devi Shastri at 414-224-2193 or DAShastri@jrn.com. Follow her on Twitter at @DeviShastri.