SDSU Department of Dairy and Food Science celebrates Dairy Month with new degree program

The South Dakota State University Department of Dairy and Food Science encourages everyone to celebrate Dairy Month by enjoying their favorite dairy foods like milk, cheese, butter and the famous SDSU ice cream. For those who want to turn their love of dairy into a career, the department is adding a new two-year degree program to its offerings.

“Dairy Month celebrates dairy’s important role in our economy and society, and this new degree program can help to strengthen the dairy industry in our state and region,” said Londa Nwadike, David A. Thompson Endowed Department Head of Dairy and Food Science. “The dairy industry continues to grow in South Dakota. There are many rewarding, well-paying careers available in dairy production and dairy products, and getting a degree can help open doors for students to get to those careers.”

The new dairy technology associate degree will have two tracks. Dairy products will focus on manufacturing delicious and nutritious dairy products, and dairy production will focus on dairy cattle and milk production.

Both the products and the production degree tracks will include traditional classroom learning and hands-on opportunities, like working in the Davis Dairy Plant or assisting with research projects at the SDSU Dairy Research and Training Facility, both in Brookings.

The timing of the new degree offerings couldn’t be better. South Dakota’s dairy industry is one of the fastest growing state industries in the country, with more than 8% growth annually over the last four years.

The degrees align with feedback from industry members about what skills they are looking for from graduates and input from current employees in the dairy industry workforce looking to further their education.

“We developed these programs in response to both the dairy production and dairy products industries in South Dakota, indicating to us that they would like to have more graduates from our department to fill jobs in their fields,” said Nwadike.  “We made the two-year degree stackable with our four-year degrees so that students could finish an associate and a bachelor’s degree in a total of four years.”

For students who complete one of the associate degrees and wish to continue to a bachelor’s degree, they can seamlessly transition to a four-year degree in dairy manufacturing (products track) or dairy production (production track). The department also offers a four-year degree in food science for students interested in food products beyond dairy.

“I am excited to offer this new program,” Nwadike said. “It will allow more students the opportunity to obtain a degree and help meet the needs of the dairy and food industry by providing additional qualified graduates.”

The first cohort of students in the two-year degree programs will begin in August. Interested students are encouraged to apply using the standard SDSU undergraduate application or reach out to Cheyenne Edmundson, department recruiter, for more information. Additional information about the two-year programs, the Department of Dairy and Food Science and the College of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Sciences can be found online.