Designing Success: Teaching Floral Design Through an Industry Partnership

Abstract

<jats:p>Universities continue to cut budgets and reduce faculty. Such cuts occurred at the Univ. of Nebraska in 1986-87. To ensure that floral design courses would continue to be taught, despite reduction in teaching appointments, an industry-university teaching partnership was proposed. While the teaching relationship started out as a team approach, it successfully evolved into a-strong partnership that permitted growth on the part of the industry instructor, and movement into a strictly supervisory role for the faculty partner. Thus, the overall goal of keeping floral design courses as an integral part of the floriculture curriculum was met without using extensive amounts of faculty time.</jats:p>