Farm and Industry Short Course returns, sowing seeds for new opportunities

The Farm and Industry Short Course (FISC) has returned to the UW System, now hosted at UW–River Falls. The program, which began at UW–Madison in the late 1800s, was designed to provide agricultural education for those unable or uninterested in pursuing a four-year degree.

Declining enrollment led UW–Madison to suspend FISC in March 2022. Through the efforts of the College of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Sciences (CAFES) and Dairy Science professor Steven Kelm, who now directs the program, UWRF became its new home.

“FISC is a program that has been pretty valued to the dairy industry,” Kelm said. “Our campus had not hosted it before, and we said it would be a logical next destination for these classes.”

The course runs Oct. 26, 2025, through March 13, 2026, with eight weeks of classes in the fall and another eight weeks in the spring. Courses are offered for one or two credits. Compared to its Madison predecessor, the UWRF program places greater emphasis on dairy herd management, utilizing the university’s state-of-the-art facilities.

Students live in campus residence halls alongside traditional undergraduates. While full-time students cannot enroll in FISC courses, participants who later pursue a four-year degree at UWRF or another university can transfer credits earned in the program.

With FISC now established at UWRF for three years, students and faculty have begun discussing opportunities to expand collaboration with other agricultural organizations. Plans include potential partnerships with UWRF’s Farm Bureau.

The Farm Bureau, Wisconsin’s largest general commodity organization, plays a significant role in agricultural employment and advocacy. A partnership could extend FISC’s philosophy of providing practical education to those outside traditional college pathways.

UWRF Farm Bureau President Dafney Yates expressed interest in future collaboration. “It’s a beginning program; they just got back here,” Yates said. “I think it needs more marketing that it is here, because it’s a great program and we can do great things.”