National Postsecondary Agricultural Student Organization
organization
The National Professional Agricultural Student Organization, regularly referred to as PAS, is a national organization associated with postsecondary institutions offering baccalaureate degrees, associate degrees, diplomas and/or certificates in agriculture/agribusiness and natural resources. PAS is one of the ten career and technical student organizations that has been approved by the United States Department of Education as an integral part of career and technical education also referred to as vocational education. PAS is a member of the Consortium of Collegiate Agricultural Organizations.
PAS was originally organized for postsecondary programs awarding associate degrees or certificates and has since expanded to include baccalaureate degree programs. The Illinois PAS has all four of that state's agricultural universities involved in PAS and Iowa PAS has their state land grant of Iowa State University in PAS. This shift allows students who then transfer to a 4-year university to continue their direct involvement in PAS, provides the opportunities of PAS to university students and further deepens connections between 2 and 4 year agricultural institutions.
The national organization was organized in March 1979 under Draft Bylaws. PAS was officially founded in March 1980 in Kansas City, Missouri.
History
The history of PAS begins with the expansion of vocational-technical education at the postsecondary level. With state and federal legislation in the 60’s and 70’s, the agricultural education movement expanded greatly with more and more postsecondary agricultural programs. This movement started the creation of many local college student agricultural organizations at the two-year institutions.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “National Postsecondary Agricultural Student Organization” as organization. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the history & society register because the source frames it as organization. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6975015. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1979 and 1980.
Later summaries often reconcile disputed chronology or motive more neatly than the contemporary record permits. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.
- Event chronology
- Institutional context
- Locating named record creators
Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “National Postsecondary Agricultural Student Organization”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow National Postsecondary Agricultural Student Organization primary sources, National Postsecondary Agricultural Student Organization archive and National research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “National Postsecondary Agricultural Student Organization”?
- Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
- Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “National Postsecondary Agricultural Student Organization” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.