Olds College Campus News - Graduation Edition
By Jason Pick
We are very pleased to present graduate parchments to another 25 students from our turfgrass certificate program, 20 turf graduates from the diploma, and 8 Bachelor of Applied Science turfgrass management students into golf course and parks & recreation fields this year!
In May, we also celebrated 14 online student superintendents, assistants, technicians and horticulturalists, from across Canada and the US having successfully achieved the Certified Environmental Professional designation course (CEP). This exclusively online 9 week course, represents a partnership between Olds College and Audubon International providing the only individual, internationally recognized designation for training in Audubon Certification for golf courses available.
For those who attended the Victoria WCTA conference this spring, we took great pride in watching two of our turf diploma students Leandro Avveduti and Braeden Rogers, represent their classmates with an exemplary seminar on Audubon Certification at the show. Braeden and Leandro with a class group of four, assisted Keith Blayney and his turf team at Edmonton’s Petroleum Golf & Country Club to reach ACSP submission stage in just 15 weeks.
Another exciting advancement at the college, the Prairie Turfgrass Research Center is soon to host its inaugural “T.U.R.F. Day” event at Olds College. The complementary event will offer plot tours, tecnology transfer of findings, experimental process, and CEU seminars driven by Olds College’s Lead Scientist Katie Dodson, and Research Program Manager Jim Ross. The informative and educational day will be further guided by our new Research Assistant Dr. Laura Chavez and facility technical staff at no charge, thanks to the 2014 NSERC turfgrass research grant.
We are also happy to announce Olds College turf student participation at GCSAA’s turf bowl event in San Diego next February 2016. As the date approaches, our team of 4+ 1 alternate, is preparing to test their metal among 70+ international turf schools. Making the connections to warm season turf and EPEA (American) products will be a learning curve for some but we’ll be leveraging the combined on-course experience of all five team members (about 25years worth) to represent! The 2016 Turf Bowl team is: Morgan Creighton, Jordy Sautner, Curtis Playfair, Tyler Minogue, and Brian Thomas. We will do our best to represent our school, our recent graduates and Olds College alumni everywhere! Tremendous thanks goes out to Marie Thorne and Syngenta for their sponsorship and support of our team at this exciting educational event.
The Olds College turf club is also hard at work, welcoming its new board of directors this April. President Josh Edgar, VP Alyssa Lake, and past president Braeden Rogers are well positioned to defend their “Club of the Year” title won this March. If you are interested in hearing more about the Olds College turf club, becoming a member or participating in their many activities, visit http://octurf.blogspot.ca/ to learn more.
For more information about the new turf program at Olds College, check out our website and new video: http://www.oldscollege.ca/programs/horticulture/turfgrass/