In January, Allen Community College’s board of trustees voted 5-1 to sell the college farm. In February, dozens turned out to protest that decision. The months-long tussle between the two sides continued Tuesday night, culminating in a motion by trustee Jenny Spillman to rescind the decision to sell Allen Farm.
A crowd of nearly 30 proponents of the farm — students, parents and community members — wedged themselves into a corner of the small boardroom to await the fateful tally.
Spillman, the lone no vote from the January encounter, was again met with resistance, and silence. Without an immediate “second” to support her motion, it appeared Spillman’s motion would miscarry.
“I think I’ll second it,” said trustee Mary Kay Heard, rescuing the action. “I would like to hear a vote from the board.”
A burst of spontaneous applause leapt from the group in the corner.
Ultimately, though, final efforts to preserve the farm failed to compel the board, and the vote to reverse course fell 4-2, with Spillman and Heard in the minority.
And so it stands: The farm will be placed on the market, probably soon after this school year ends.
PRIOR TO the vote, advocates of the farm were provided a chance to air their eleventh-hour appeals before the board.
Throughout the evening, trustees president Ken McGuffin attempted, with mixed success, to calm any distemper roiling the overwhelmingly pro-farm crowd and to assure attendees that — despite the loss of the farm — the board is more committed than ever to its ag program.
“The message that has gotten out…is that we’re destroying the ag program. But that’s the last thing we wanted to do when we decided to get rid of the farm. …The board really wants to strengthen the agricultural program. But, right now, we would need to put hundreds of thousands of dollars into [Allen Farm] to keep it viable,” McGuffin said.
But if the farm is in fact inviable, argued those who spoke out against selling the operation, it is largely a function of the school’s lukewarm commitment to the project.
Allen’s president, John Masterson, was eager to correct this impression, arguing that the sale of the farm was in no way a flight from the college’s commitment to its ag students, insisting instead that by maintaining the livestock judging program and investing in a series of internships in conjunction with local, modern-scale farms on the order that could never be duplicated at the college farm, the ag program will in fact be strengthened.
One young ag student in the crowd, however — sophomore Quentin Haas — remained unconvinced that an internship program would provide a fit substitute for the degree of autonomy granted students who live on the college farm. “You keep talking about the advantages of going to work for somebody else. All of us have already worked for other people. What we want to gain from the farm is new ideas that we can bring back to our own farms — ideas we can only get from stepping into that management role. When we step into those management roles [at Allen Farm], we’re learning a vast majority of things we’ve never even touched on.”
For local farmer David Kramer, the very decision to subtract the farm from the college would poison whatever good intentions the board harbors for the future of the agriculture program and send a message that would deter future ag students from choosing ACC — a point echoed repeatedly during the nearly 40 minutes of open discussion.
“What I think the kids are trying to tell you,” stressed Kramer, “is that you’ve got a viable agricultural sector in this college, but when you divest yourself from that farm, that level [of student interest] is going to shrink. … These people aren’t going to come if you don’t have a farm. Enrollment is going to shrink, I guarantee you. …I think what you still fail to realize is that the students aren’t going to be coming here to go to your internships.”
The board reminded those in attendance of the perennial financial losses the farm incurs and the repeated safety concerns that have dogged the operation in recent years, but mostly it was at pains to see that the rift between the two sides not become a chasm.
