John Renyard
After a lifetime of regret for not being able to finish high school, John Renyard, 52-year-old dairy farmer and director of Warnnambool Cheese and Butter Factory Co Holdings, received his Master of Agribusiness from an innovative and new program offered by the Institute of Land & Food Resources at The University of Melbourne.
John decided to undertake the Master of Agribusiness after completing a farm management course with the Australian Institute of Management. "Both the need and the desire to do a Masters had been awakened by the course and by my work." John continues, "The stimulation from the course and the materials supplied virtually demanded that I log onto the Net up to three times a day to make sure I was up-to-date, but I could do that whenever I had the time. The best time for me was early in the morning before the phone started ringing and the demands of the farm overtook study requirements. Our tutor was in Canada at that time and he was logging on at the same times."
John admits to being a bit confused by the new technology at the start of the course but it didn't take him long to get into the swing of things and after some initial frustrations with the software he soon became proficient at 'logging on' and contributing to online discussions and having daily interaction with other students and lecturers from all over the world. "The group dynamics generated real interest in what was going on," says John, "and even now that the course is over I keep in touch with the people I met on the course and have developed some meaningful friendships and a great business network."
John is one of several in the intake over the past couple of years given recognition of prior learning. Applicants who have not completed a previous degree may, with sufficient experience, be granted entry into the Graduate Certificate of Agribusiness and in some cases, like John's, this can then lead onto the Master of Agribusiness.
Since completing the Master of Agribusiness, John has become more attuned to areas that may be important in the fine-tuning of his dairy company, or in building up its value. He believes that he has a far better understanding of business and the demands and development of companies and relationships in general. On his farm John has found broad application of areas of study from use of capital, to employment of people and a vast improvement in his research skills.
"A friend of mine who is doing a distance education MBA with a different university says that I had a much better interaction with fellow students and lecturers than he does. Friends doing other courses have talked about the out-of-date texts they study, which is not good enough in today's world. We used the latest revisions throughout the course," John said.
"I feel a total sense of satisfaction having obtained my Masters but now that the course is over I also feel that, in some ways, I'm suffering from a form of deprivation because I'm not having my daily 'chat'."
Other students graduating, or currently undertaking the Master of Agribusiness, include people from organizations as diverse as the Department of Natural Resources & Environment, Pivot, Australian Wheat Board, The Weekly Times and of course the dairy industry.
Further information about the Master of Agribusiness can be obtained by emailing Diane Cardinal or phoning (03) 8344 6883 or visiting the website at http://www.agribusiness.unimelb.edu.au