Community Calendar

Event Details:

Event Description:

The next Bucket Course will provide a unique opportunity to discover the richness and diversity
to be found in the study of agricultural topics, and the crucial connections between agriculture
and social forces.
Professor Jonathan Andelson will present a one-day course designed especially for people who
do not have a background in farming. He will present his course in three short presentations
about three different topics, rather than a longer presentation about a single topic. All three
topics are linked by agriculture and by the ties between agriculture and wider socio-economic
forces.

This Bucket Course, entitled “Three Agricultural Vignettes,” will take place on Wednesday,
March 8 in the Drake Community Library’s Caulkins Community Room from 10 to 11:30 a.m.
The Bucket Courses are free and open to all. No preregistration is required.
Andelson’s presentation will begin with “The Irish Potato Famine” in which he will examine the
causes and consequences of this tragic episode in Irish history. The second topic,
“Agrarianism, Lost and Found,” will consider the meaning of agrarianism, the form it took in the
United States in the early 20th century, its nearly complete replacement by production
agriculture after World War II, and recent efforts to revive a more agrarian relationship with the
land. The final topic, “A Primer on Transgenics and Glyphosate”, will examine the meaning of
genetic engineering, its uses in contemporary production agriculture, and its relationship with
the herbicide glyphosate, one of the most widely used herbicides in the world.
Jon Andelson is Rosenfield Professor of Social Science at Grinnell College, where he has
taught for 48 years. Originally from Chicago, Jon attended Grinnell College, graduating in 1970.
He earned his PhD from the University of Michigan with a dissertation about change and
persistence in the Amana Colonies. He returned to Grinnell to teach in 1974 where he co-
founded the College’s Center for Prairie Studies in 1999 and served as the director of the
Center for 20 years.

Members of the sponsoring Community Education Cooperative include Unity Point Health
Grinnell, Grinnell College, Drake Community Library, Grinnell-Newburg School District, Grinnell
Area Arts Council, Mayflower Community, Grinnell Education Partnership, Read to Lead and
Iowa Valley Community College.
The Bucket Course web page is https://www.grinnellcecbucketcourses.org. Videos of previous
Bucket Courses are available on the YouTube channel, Grinnell Community Education
Cooperative. For more information contact Judy Hunter at judy586@gmail.com.