Wisconsin Ag Connection - Potterton Tapped to Lead UW-Madison's Short Course Program

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Potterton Tapped to Lead UW-Madison's Short Course Program
Wisconsin Ag Connection - 07/28/2014

The interim director of the Farm and Industry Short Course program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison's College of Agricultural and Life Sciences has been chosen to serve as its permanent leader. Jessie Potterton was directing the operations of the short course program since last July when Dick Cates stepped down as interim director to focus on his duties at the School for Beginning Dairy and Livestock Farmers and senior lecturer in the CALS soil science department.

Potterton served as CALS Director of Prospective Student Services for two years, where she was in charge of developing, coordinating and implementing prospective student outreach activities with CALS academic departments. She had also been responsible for supervising the CALS Ambassadors program and providing advising support for current CALS undergraduate students. Before joining CALS, Potterton was the leader of the UW-Extension 4-H program in Lafayette County.

"Being from a rural community, it was really exciting when I was asked to step in last year," Potterton said. "I worked hard to build relationships with students and instructors and alumni and I'm looking forward to continuing that. We also need to seek out representatives from the ag industry and develop an advisory board to help us improve our program. We need to make sure that our curriculum provides students with the right skills, and we need the industry's help to do that."

Jessie earned an M.S. degree in Education-Counselor Education from UW-Platteville, and a B.S. in agricultural journalism from UW-Madison.

She will formally begin her new duties on October 1.

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