In a year of falling state agricultural commodities, CHS is out to gather interest in the field.

The Fortune 100 agricultural business grown out of Cenex and Harvest States awarded North Dakota State a $2.5 million grant Wednesday in a day to draw attention to risk management education. Since 2011, CHS has given $500,000 for campus buildings and more than $80,000 in scholarships to agriculture majors.

The chair in risk management and trading is to be part of the agribusiness and applied economic department, part of the College of Agriculture, Food Systems and Natural Resources. Bill Wilson will be the chair’s first director. Wilson is a distinguished professor within the department of agribusiness and applied economics.

“We want to encourage students on campus to think about CHS as a career choice in terms of jobs,” said Linda Tank, CHS’s senior VP for communications and public affairs.

Wednesday saw a range of activity with CHS on campus, as the group handed out free coffee and did a “classroom takeover” at Barry Hall, doing class exercises in risk analysis.

Brian Schaetz, former defensive line for NDSU Football, was on hand to interact with students via selfies and social media. Schaetz is a CHS employee based out of Kindred, N.D.

“He described himself to us as the ‘selfie king,'” said Annette Degnan, director of CHS’s enterprise marketing communications.

CHS’s endowment to NDSU’s agricultural outlets will not go to naming the STEM building, opened for classes in January and as of yet unnamed.

“This is focused on … risk management and trading,” Tank said, adding the endowment will help students to understand “risk and what that means in agriculture and business is what this will be.”

The millions in endowment money will also go to teaching and training for students entering risk and trading. The grant will also grow NDSU’s producer outreach and extension programs.

CHS has over 12,000 employees, including 1,300 in North Dakota.