Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College - University System of Georgia

thus, specialized skills may be of limited value in the long run, The depth and breadth of liberal-arts skills
remain constant and train students to see the big picture. Additionally, language skills and sensitivity to
multicultural issues are highly marketable skills in the current employment picture
http://www.quintcareers.com/marketingliberal-artsdegrees.html.
Internships: To meet the needs of the workforce, students in the History/Political Science program will
have an option, and be strongly encouraged to pursue, internships that advance career goals.
Internships blend theoretical and practical knowledge and provide students with the opportunity to
make contacts as they focus on employment. They can gain actual work experience in business,
industry, government agencies, NGOs, non-profits, and service organizations directly related to their
studies. Through the Rural Studies Program, ABAC has a strong and established reputation for placing
student interns. In the two years since inception of the Rural Studies program, interns have served in US
Senator Saxby Chambless' office in Washington, DC; a city development authority, the Georgia Museum
of Agriculture, a regional land development company, city historical society office, the Department of
Defense, Air Force, and a regional medical center. This summer interns will serve with Representative
Austin Scott, regional non-profit agencies, and a state cultural and historical magazine, Georgia
Backroads. The success of current students in the workforce has manifested in employers seeking out
ABAC interns. This trend renders the internship option for History/Political Science majors highly
attractive. See Appendix B for internship documents.
4. Brief description of institutional resources that will be used specifically for the program (e.g.,
personnel, library, equipment, laboratories, supplies & expenses, capital expenditures at program
start-up and when the program undergoes its first comprehensive program review.
Institutional resources for the program are adequate to begin the degree program, requiring minimal
capital expenditures. Members of the Department of History and Political Science in the School of
Liberal Arts will provide instruction in the upper-division courses. Faculty are sufficient to inaugurate
the program. Their usual teaching load is 24-30 hours per year; faculty with upper division courses
teach 12 hours per semester. Because a number of the courses in the proposed curriculum are also part
of the Rural Studies curriculum, those section sizes will increase without increasing faculty load in every
instance.
To meet load requirements to teach new courses, hiring more faculty to cover some of the lowerdivision
core will be necessary in future. The new degrees will require hiring a non-western specialist
historian in FY 2012. Beginning Fall 2011, we will share a faculty member with the Museum of
Agriculture to augment offerings in public history and archival work, with a goal of growing this portion
of the program over time. This faculty member will be assigned half time to archival and curatorial work
at the Museum and halftime as a faculty member in the BA/BS degree programs.
Library resources are sufficient, except in some areas of modern Europe and in volumes and journals
related to Public History, through actual volumes and journals housed in Baldwin library and available
through all electronic media. The Baldwin Library's Director conducted a study on the availability of
library resources for the proposed courses in the program, concluding that current holdings can support
the proposed new degrees (with the' exception of modern Europe and public history, as noted). The
collections of Baldwin Library will provide local access to substantial print resources for students seeking
a BA/BS in History and Political Science. In addition to print, numerous electronic resources are
available to ABAC students; all of these resources are available on campus and many are available offcampus
as well. The library has electronic access to Academic Search Premiers journals
http://www.abac.edu/librarY/ .
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