ARME changed to Applied Econ and Management

By Blaine P. Friedlander Jr.

The Cornell department historically devoted to agricultural economics, home of the largest number of undergraduate majors in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, has a new name: the Department of Applied Economics and Management (AEM).

For the past seven years the department was known as Agricultural, Resource and Managerial Economics, but a few months ago it began using the new name on a trial basis. Now the name is official. "As we found when we tried out this name among the department faculty, our new name is one that fits all of us quite well," said Andrew M. Novakovic, the E.V. Baker Professor of Agricultural Economics and chair of the department.

"As much as I personally cherish and value the historic traditions of departments of agricultural economics, I am enthusiastic about our new name," Novakovic said. "It is an inclusive name for all the varied things we do and the different things that we are."

AEM is home to 40 active faculty members, over 20 emeritus faculty, more than 60 graduate students and 750 undergraduate students. The department's faculty chose the new name to reflect the diverse teaching, research and outreach programs in agricultural economics and management, business, environmental and resource economics, international development and trade, and community economic development.

The department began taking shape in 1903 when George F. Warren came to Cornell as a graduate student to study horticulture but soon became intrigued with understanding factors that influenced the success of farm businesses. In 1905, Liberty Hyde Bailey, renowned dean of the College of Agriculture at Cornell, named Warren a professor of farm management. In that same year, Bailey also created a new department called Rural Economy, under the leadership of George Lauman. In 1909, Warren's Department of Farm Management and Field Crops was merged with Lauman's department, with Warren as head and with the new name of Agricultural Economics and Farm Management. Under Warren, the department became a pioneer in studying farm businesses and agricultural markets.

Reflecting national trends in the discipline, in 1942, under the new department head and future dean William I. Myers, the department's name was shortened to Agricultural Economics. After World War II, the department broadened its programs and thrust. Agricultural and food businesses became increasingly more sophisticated, and students found that the agricultural economics department courses allowed them to train for business careers. During the 1960s the department broadened the scope of its undergraduate program and began to focus on general business management, in addition to its traditional focus on farm and agribusiness management.