ADSA is attempting to add value to potential new members through an emphasis on "integration of dairy disciplines from the farm to the table.
Professor Wilber J. Fraser of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign suggested a permanent "Dairy Instructors and Investigators Association".
Although 19 persons appear on the photograph of that first meeting, records indicate only 17 or 18 charter members joined what was then called "National Association of Dairy Instructors and Investigators".
[6] By this time, the committees had become cohesive engines of change, developing score cards for consistently evaluating dairies and rules for judging contests.
At the 10th annual joint meeting in Amherst and Springfield, Massachusetts, on October 17, 1916, the organization voted to change its name to its current name.