Academic and Cooperative Extension Programs at Botanic Gardens and Arboreta: Current Status and Recommendations

Botanical gardens, arboreta, academic institutions, and Cooperative Extension all propose a similar mission of horticultural education.  Collaboration between these institutions, even those with formal affiliations or close geographic location is highly variable.  In order to measure the level of sympatric work  and develop a list of recommendations for more efficient and effective educational programs, an online survey of  173 members of the university section of American Public Gardens Association was conducted in the fall of 2010. Fifty-three responses from  41 botanical gardens in 27 states revealed that 34 or 65% offered some portion of an academic class at their gardens. Classes offered included Botany; Core Leadership Training; Public Garden Management; Continuing Lecture Series; Food, Fiber and Fulfillment; Horticulture Landscape Plants; Issues in Economic Botany; Woody and Herbaceous Plants; Fine Arts; Horticultural Therapy; and Landscape Architecture. Only 16 or 31% of the botanic gardens were offering academic internships for college credit.  Most of these internships included special activities and educational sessions, often involving rotations with various supervisors and special projects and reports.  The most limiting factors cited in offering more academic classes were a lack of faculty (40%), distance from campus (17%), and lack of space (12%). Sixty-five percent of the botanical garden participants rated their interaction with Cooperative Extension as minimal or fair; 21% said their interaction was good: (4-6 programs/year), or excellent: (work together on a daily or weekly basis).  Five gardens, (10%), reported that staff was funded by Cooperative Extension, from a high of eight employees to a low of one partial appointment.  There appear to be considerable areas for collaboration between Cooperative Extension and the botanical gardens that participated in this survey, as well as further development of academic programs. Recommendations and examples of new programs will be presented including:  new interdisciplinary work with arts and humanities;  understanding and meeting faculty needs in order to engage their participation at botanic gardens;  forming joint committees between institutions to develop new programs; and website development to showcase and attract student internship projects and directed studies.