Starting in the fall, a master of science will be offered by the agriculture department as part of a plan to significantly increase the size of the department and its impact on the community. “We live here in an agricultural community, and our mission in our catalog is to serve the agricultural community. It is a shame on us to have a small agricultural department in a community that needs a huge number of faculty and students,” Dr. Mohammed Ebeid, department head of agriculture, said.

The degree will be awarded from Louisiana State University, but all classes will be taken at Nicholls.

“The student will take all the classes here. They only go over there for the graduation day,” Ebeid said.

Ebeid, who has been at the University since August, said there is a need for a master’s program in the area, and he intends to make his vision become a reality.

“I get a lot of requests from people who graduated from Nicholls and other universities. They live in south Louisiana and cannot afford to go every day to Baton Rouge for classes,” Ebeid said.

A thesis and a non-thesis option will be offered.

Ebeid said the research component for Nicholls’ master’s curriculum will focus on local issues, whereas LSU’s program is geared toward general issues.

“Your thesis project over here would be more applicable, more practical than a student at LSU,” he said.

Nicholls has 55 agricultural business majors and LSU has 107, thus Nicholls, with an enrollment of 6687, has more agriculture students per capita than LSU, with an enrollment of over 30,000.

“I have a five-year plan that I put in the form of a theoretical model. Hopefully, by the end of these five years we will have 500 students in the department,” Ebeid said.

The agriculture department has three full time faculty and one part-time. Ebeid envisions that number to increase to 15.

“We have a lot of activity going on. We just need the support of the media and the administration. We are going very fast,” he said.