For over 60 years, the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics has conducted graduate education, awarding its first M.S. degree in 1935 and its first Ph.D. in 1949. By fall 2002, the graduate program had bestowed 200 Ph.D., 378 M.S., 22 Master of Agriculture (M.Agr.), and 10 Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies (MAIS) degrees.

Oregon State University graduates have been well received in the agricultural economics profession. Nearly 60 percemt of our Ph.D. graduates have become faculty members in universities and colleges all over the world. The Department has a strong research tradition ranking in the top five nationally in research productivity. More than 20 OSU graduates have risen to fill department head or other administrative positions. Many more have gone on to provide distinguished service in federal agencies, international research centers, and in other agriculture-related fields. Several former students and faculty members have been elected to leadership positions in the American Agricultural Economics Association over the past two decades. Professors Bruce Weber and Steven Buccola are Fellows of the American Agricultural Economics Association. Emery Castle and Richard Adams are also Fellows and serve as emeritus faculty.

Besides educating students in traditional agricultural economics fields, the Department was a leader in developing the resource economics field. Contemporary resource and environmental problems in and around Oregon have made natural resource management a top graduate education priority in the 1990s. The recent development of graduate work in development, along with continued emphasis on its nationally known fields in resource and environmental economics, as well as international trade, will enable the department to continue to provide leadership in the applied economics area for many years to come.