Dairy Science Program at University of Wisconsin-Platteville finally becomes a reality. After three years of talking, two years of planning and one year of waiting, UW-Platteville is now the third UW School that offers a dairy science major. Tera Montgomery, associate professor and coordinator of animal science program, saw the need for this addition since enrollment in the dairy science emphasis has grown 50 percent in the last 10 years.

“Platteville had such a large need for this program, it was just a matter of time,” Montgomery said.

Many people are not familiar with the process that goes into starting a new program on campus, and it is not an easy one, especially within the School of Agriculture. For Platteville, where there is such a large economic interest in dairy science, there was an obvious need for expansion.

Even though Platteville already offers animal science with an emphasis in dairy science as a major, Montgomery felt breaking it down would be more beneficial. Basically, they took a class already being taught to animal science students and made it into multiple classes.

Molly Edwards, senior agriculture business major commented on how complex some of the topics they discuss can be.

“Sometimes it took us three days to cover a topic and that’s without diving deep into it,” Edwards said.

In addition to being able to have deeper discussion, this program created a new community. Since there are only 51 dairy science majors this year, they are able to create a community feeling to the program inside and outside the classroom.

“I feel as I’m apart of something bigger than just an academic major,” Justin Lott, junior, dairy science major said.