In 2017 UConn horticulture professor Gerald Berkowitz and a group of 40 students toured the facilities of Curaleaf, one of Connecticut’s four medical marijuana producers, and picked up an interesting tidbit.
“The CEO of the company was saying that he could never find any [job applicants] that had any knowledge of cannabis horticulture,” Berkowitz said. “In fact, there were no programs or anything in the country to address that.”
About two years later, Berkowitz established UConn’s first cannabis horticulture course through the university’s School of Agriculture and Natural Resources. The course was immediately popular with students, some of whom have parlayed that education into internships and jobs with cannabis companies.
The University of Connecticut is expanding its cannabis education offerings, adding online cannabis horticulture summer courses open to the public as well as UConn students.
UConn instructors will teach an introduction to cannabis horticulture course online from June 1 to July 2, and an advanced cannabis horticulture class focusing on production and industry July 12 to Aug. 15, according to the university. Neither course requires completion of prerequisite courses.
Connecticut s flagship public university began offering the intro course taught by professor Gerald “Gerry” Berkowitz and other professors to students enrolled at UConn two years ago. The advanced course is new, and represents an important step toward a possible degree program for cannabis.
Non-Degree Cannabis Courses Open Doors to Growing Industry
New classes make cannabis education more accessible for UConn students and the general public
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UConn made waves in 2019 when it announced it would begin offering the nation’s first university class on the fundamentals of cannabis horticulture. The state’s flagship university is now expanding its educational opportunities for students and the general public with online courses in basic and advanced cannabis growing that are open to all.
Classes on the emerging industry have been in high demand, a fact that Gerald “Gerry” Berkowitz has been predicting for years.