Graduate students can now combine advanced agricultural studies at the University of California, Davis, and California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, through a new joint graduate-education program.

The McOmie Graduate Education Program, made possible by a private gift to the two universities, will give students the opportunity to start their master's degree studies in Cal Poly's College of Agriculture and continue their doctoral studies through graduate programs administered by UC Davis' College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.

This agreement will help strengthen the research connection between the UC and CSU systems and provide highly qualified students for doctoral studies at UC Davis.

"We're excited about the McOmie Graduate Education Program and the spirit of cooperation it demonstrates between two excellent institutions," said Neal Van Alfen, dean of the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences at UC Davis. "This new program, made possible by the generosity of Lorenzo and Judith McOmie, will foster educational collaboration between the two universities and provide easy access to UC Davis for agricultural students at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. This will prove valuable as California continues its worldwide leadership in the agricultural industry."

The new graduate program expands on the original vision behind the McOmie trust fund to include a broad array of graduate programs administered by the UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. The program, launched in September with each institution contributing $35,000 for the first year, is subject to review every five years.

"We are very excited to enter into an agreement to cooperate with the scientists at UC Davis in developing joint graduate programs in agriculture that will benefit our students," said Dave Wehner, interim dean of the College of Agriculture at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. "This program will allow our faculty and students access to some advanced technologies and programs at Davis that we cannot provide at Cal Poly and will help develop relationships between the scientists at both institutions that will benefit the state of California."

The new program affirms the informal relationship between the two universities in the agricultural sciences that has been established over the years as Cal Poly graduates have gone on to pursue advanced degrees at UC Davis.

"The range of expertise, experience and talent assembled at both UC Davis and Cal Poly offers doctoral students in the agricultural sciences a unique opportunity to seek knowledge at both institutions," said Gary Anderson, chair of the UC Davis animal science department. "Our focus will be on allowing the faculty and students to respond to a broad range of contemporary issues related to the growth and development of the animal and agricultural sciences."

Anderson noted that several of his students who earned their bachelors' degrees at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, have gone on to distinguish themselves in their graduate studies at UC Davis. Among these were Stefanie Oppenheim, who received the 1999 John Kinsella Award for the top doctoral thesis in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences and Shelley Cargill, who was the 1998 recipient of the Physiology Graduate Group's Hertzendorf Award for graduate research and good citizenship.

The McOmie Graduate Education Program is funded by a charitable remainder trust now valued at $20 million. The trust was established in 1975 by Lorenzo and Judith McOmie as a $5 million fund at UC Davis and Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. It was dedicated to the support of agricultural research programs at both universities, especially in the areas of animal husbandry and field crops. UC Davis' $10 million share is the second largest gift ever to the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.

Lorenzo McOmie was raised on farms from Idaho to California. He graduated from Stanford University in 1930 and began a career as a farmer and rancher, owning numerous properties throughout California's Central Valley. He died in 2001, preceded by Judith in 1984.