PROFILE
also have big budgets , providing learning opportunities . We ’ ve done a good job providing information from these projects . I always tell graduate students that the information from high-profile jobs eventually trickles down to everyone . There are a lot of things people use every day today that came from the fact that we were doing the Olympics in Beijing or the Olympics in Greece . We would learn techniques that we would then pass on to everyday field managers .
A typical day for me is never typical . What has kept me the most enthralled about doing my job is that any given day it is going to be different . The only thing I can always count on is that class starts at 9:10 . After that , I don ’ t know what is going to happen .
SFM : What has the last year been like for you and for your students with regard to COVID-related challenges ?
Rogers : I saw one of my students , just by chance , in March . This was a student who had enrolled in the turfgrass program in August of 2020 . His first comment to me was , “ It ’ s nice to finally meet you face to face .” There are 15 students I ’ ve never met face to face . So they have had a very difficult job .
For me it has been pretty easy . I have enjoyed the 31-second commute to teach from my kitchen table . I ’ ve had some extra time to redo every lecture I have ever given – brand new pictures , brand new thoughts – a lot of things I might not have been able to do had I been going to the office . But the students are the ones this has been most difficult for these past months .
Last October , I ’ m sitting there on Zoom , staring at those kids . I had sent every student 16 grasses that we were going to study , the seeds we were going to study , and the soil we were going to use to do an establishment project . But they are in their basements ; they are in their mom and dad ’ s houses ; and they are miserable . This is not what they expected .
I knew we were going to do the same thing [ remote learning ] in January , despite what we were hearing . So I called my department chair , and said , “ Do you trust me ? Because I ’ ve got an idea , and I need to get these kids out of their basements .” I called nine golf courses throughout the United States , and I asked them if they would be willing to take these students and let them work on their golf courses from January through March . I told them ( the superintendents ), “ Before you say yes , I have some rules . First , I need the students to take 12 credits online . It ’ s going to be synchronistic . They are going to meet Tuesday and Thursday mornings ; so they need Tuesday and Thursday mornings off – maybe even the whole day . But the rest of the time they will work , and I ’ m going to expect your technicians to help us teach the labs of the classes of the particular semester sequence that we are in .” And they all said yes .
So the students went to those golf courses January through March ( see article on page 18 ). We had a few bumps in the road , but by all accounts they enjoyed it , and they loved the hands-on experience that they got . We would talk about the theory in the morning , and they would go out that afternoon or the next day and apply it . It ’ s not easy to go to class 12 credits and work 40 hours a week . So that was a big move for us . That was a
14 SportsField Management | June 2021 sportsfieldmanagementonline . com