LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Bellarmine University's rolling out four new certification courses ahead of Kentucky's medical cannabis legalization in 2025.
Abigail Walsh oversees professional education at Bellarmine. She said the program is "the future," adding, "we're just doing what we can to help educate the community in advance of this."
Each online course begins with Cannabis 101 then moves on to one of four specializations—business, agriculture, compliance or healthcare.
"I hope it's gonna be super popular up front. We can get individuals who are just interested who are kind of out on their own right now and then we can start partnering with our healthcare systems, with some of our larger companies in the city, and things like that," Walsh said.
The course is offered through a partnership with a corporate cannabis educator, Green Flower. Industry experts instruct the classes on a week-by-week basis over the six-month certification process.
Daniel Kalef, a Louisville native who works for the company, said people in their late-20s to mid-30s usually enroll.
"They're a doctor or a lawyer or a nurse or a therapist who are now about to be confronted with clients and patients who need their help and they don't know anything about it. And so these are really great kind of workforce and professional development programs," he said.
A couple miles away at Sullivan University, they also offer a business certificate for cannabis studies.
Tonnie Renfro started the program back in 2021. A photo from back then on the wall of her office shows her students cultivating hemp in a nearby county.
Field trips and hands-on activities supplement Sullivan's online Cannabusiness certification.
"We touch on just about all the different social aspects and then toward the middle of the course we start getting into, 'if you go into this industry, here are some of the things business-wise you need to know' and pointing them into a career path," she said.
Some of her students have already gone on to do business in Kentucky, like one who grows hemp in Campbellsville.
Regardless of when they began, both universities are at work preparing for Kentucky's new future.
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