Women in Ag: Dr. Penny Haase-Wittler

“Nearly everything we do in life is impacted by agriculture,” says Dr. Penny Haase-Wittler. “We have to keep educating others about agriculture to expose them to how important it is and how it affects their lives each day.”

Dr. Penny Haase-Wittler has become a passionate agriculture literacy advocate throughout her years working as an educator and her time spent in the ag industry, however, her story did not begin on a farm. 

Penny grew up in Paris, Illinois and was always intrigued by plants and animals and loved gardening with her grandma. However, she had no background in agriculture and had not been fully introduced to farming until she visited her friend Karla’s farm when she was 11 years old. This sparked a passion in her as she began helping her friend raise and show her Chianina steer, along with doing other chores around the farm. “I fell in love with her life,” says Penny. “She is one of the major reasons why I continued down this path.”

She decided to join Karla’s 4-H club when she was in sixth grade. Penny got involved in sewing, helped her friends show their livestock, and learned more about the ag industry. “Because of 4-H, I knew that I wanted to be in this field from a very young age,” says Penny. 

When high school came around, she wanted to take ag classes, but Penny remembers her counselor discouraging the idea and suggesting she take classes to prepare her for college instead. She did that for two years, but by her junior year, she and Karla decided to take ag and join FFA. They were hesitant at first because there were not many female FFA members at the time. 

That year, Penny and her friend took their first ag class with 26 freshman boys and worked hard each day to prove themselves. One of her favorite memories as a member was delivering the FFA creed perfectly to her advisor, which earned her a free FFA jacket that she still has today. Since she joined FFA later than other members, she couldn’t be as involved as she would have liked, but being a member alone meant a lot to her.

After high school, Penny found a love for college and educating others. She obtained a two-year degree in Ag Business from Parkland College before transferring to the University of Illinois where she received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Ag Science. She then began teaching at colleges in the area, including Parkland, Blackhawk, and the University of Illinois, until she decided to go back to school for her PhD in Ag Education. In the meantime, she had married her husband, Kyle, and had three children, Samantha, Catherine, and Caleb. 

After graduating with her PhD in 2002, she continued teaching as her and her family moved from New York, to Arkansas, before coming back home to Illinois. She began working at the Illinois FFA Center for three years, until she decided to go back to where her love for agriculture began and try something she had not done before: teaching high school agriculture. 

Penny accepted a job at Lincoln Community High School, which she says was her most challenging, but also her most rewarding job yet. “Everyone who wants to teach ag should teach high school ag first,” says Penny. “It has been the greatest experience in teaching that I have had.” 

At Lincoln, Penny taught a variety of classes including Ag Science, Ag Management and Production, Veterinary Science, Equine Science, Food Science, and Soil Conservation. She also focused on her students developing their own Supervised Agricultural Experience (SAE) project in each of her classes. Penny began building up her hobby farm during this time, as many of her students used her rabbits, chickens, and more to study and take care of for their SAEs. 

Some of her favorite memories from teaching high school were taking her students to FFA Conventions and contests all over the state. “We had a lot of fun,” she says. “It got them into a different academic environment, and I always wanted them to enjoy themselves so that they would remember these times for the rest of their lives.”

Over the years, Penny developed a strong bond with her students and always wanted to do more for them on top of teaching. “Every day when they would walk out of my classroom, I would yell out the door ‘make good choices!’,” she says. A colleague once warned her not to get too close or care too much about her students, but that is not what Penny believed. “The biggest thing I did as a teacher was care for my students; I did that before I even taught them,” she says.

After spending seven years at Lincoln, Penny’s husband’s health began to worsen. They decided that it was best if she took a job offer at Illinois College so that Penny could be home more often to care for him. She began her job there in 2019 as the director of the agriculture program, but just as she was getting started, Kyle passed away. “When I look back on it, everything happened the way it was supposed to,” she says. Even though it has been challenging, Penny’s faith is what has gotten her through the bad times. 

Today, Penny is continuing to develop the agriculture program at Illinois College. She has taught ag for over 27 years now. Additionally, she is passionate about her own farm, where she raises a variety of animals and enjoys studying their behavior and breed characteristics. “I’m not done with my career; I’ll work until the day I die,” says Penny. “My passion for teaching and my faith keeps me going.”  

Being a woman in the ag industry has not always been easy for Penny, however. “When I first started out, I was so young and I felt like I had to prove something,” she says. “It took years to build up my confidence.” The advice Penny would give to young girls interested in a career in the ag industry is to persevere. “I went through a lot of challenges to get to where I am today,” she says. “You must persevere and stay at the core of what you want to do and don’t give up on it. Don’t think your dreams are impossible.”