Progress 09/15/23 to 09/14/24

Outputs
Target Audience: The target audience for the FOOD FST project is underrepresented high school and college students in the Los Angeles area, with a particular emphasis on Hispanic/Latinx and low-income students. LACC's student population is 55 percent Hispanic/Latinx. In Fall 2021, more than 50 percent of LACC students received Pell and/or California College Promise Grants on the basis of low household-level income, and nearly 45 percent were first generation college students. Similarly, Cal Poly Pomona serves a student body that is 53 percent Hispanic/Latinx. In Fall 2021, approximately 57 percent of CPP students were first generation college students, and 43 percent of students received Pell grants. Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), with whom the colleges will partner to offer concurrent enrollment courses, serves a student population that is 74 percent Hispanic/Latinx. Eighty percent of LAUSD students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch on the basis of low household-level income. Changes/Problems:Coordination between the college and USDA to solidify grant details prolonged the award of funds to LACC, as such, there were delays in accessing the funds in an expeditious matter. USDA requested more information about the project before awarding funds and funds were set up in August 2024.No drawdowns were made during the 1st grant year; however, we will be on track with fund expenditures to comply with the grant schedule.We are working diligently on ensuring fulfillment of grant deliverables and are in continuous communication with sub-awardee on this project. We anticipate making additional advancements in completing the FST pathway and enrolling students in the 1st cohort. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?LACC and Cal Poly Pomona (CPP) are working collaboratively to develop and implement a comprehensive outreach, transition, and career pathway to attract, support, retain, and graduate students in food science and technology disciplines, and to connect them to related careers. The prescribed pathway will include multiple entry and exit points to offer maximum flexibility for students. We are working in partnership with CPP to attract and support students starting in high school, and continuing through community college, baccalaureate, and graduate study. The team is working on building and strengthening relationships with public, private, and non-profit food science employers to provide guest speakers, facilities tours, internships, and other experiential learning opportunities. The integrated system of outreach, support, and career connection will include hands-on experiential learning activities to expose students to food science concepts; concurrent enrollment courses for high school students; on-campus summer bridge programs at both LACC and CPP; proactive advising, and faculty mentoring; supplemental instruction; and on-campus and industry summer internship and research opportunities. The ability to gain valuable, tangible and palpable experience in Food Science will be transformational in the sense that our students will attain relevant and real-world applicable experiences that will prepare them for the workforce. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?As we make progress in completing the FST pathway for the grant, we will work with our local partners and stakeholders to promote our Program. Establishing the pathway is pivotal for institutionalization as we work diligently in developing a clear-cut educational roadmap that students can follow and adhere to. Our USDA Advisory Board is an excellent resource and will provide great opportunities for our Program to get exposure within the communities that they serve and work in. As we begin to build our student cohort, increase student awareness and increase enrollment in the FST pathway, we will work with our LACC community stakeholders, leadership and partners to disseminate program information, highlights and events. From website updates, informational pamphlets and other distributional material, we will ensure that we work collaboratively with our internal and external partners to share our Program achievements and keep communities of interest apprised on the project's progress. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?LACC plans to fully finalize and complete the Food, Science and Technology pathway by the next reporting period. We plan to place Chem 072 on the curriculum calendar very soon. This course will articulate with Cal Poly Pomona's FST 1250 course. The grant's PIs and Co-PI's have been instrumental in moving the process forward. The LACC and CPP TEAM have carefully reviewed the FST articulation agreement to ensure that we are on track with creating a seamless pathway at City and a transfer pipeline to CPP for our students. Beginning Winter 2025, we will bolster recruitment efforts to start our first cohort now that we've made significant progress in the articulation process. We will work on developing an LACC Summer Academy for incoming students. Additionally, we will also coordinate with the Dual Enrollment TEAM to garner interest from our local High Schools and matriculate students in the FST courses. We will continue to host informational sessions on campus to promote our Program and work towards increasing awareness and interest in the FST pathway.?

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? It is Los Angeles Community College's commitment to ensure that we are meeting project objectives as outlined in the grant.Los Angeles City College has made significant progress in developing curriculum for the FST Program. LACC Faculty have worked on course sequencing for the FST pathway. Course outlines were developed for Chemistry 071, Chemistry 072 and Chemistry 073 and will go through the proper channels for articulation. LACC and sub-awardee Cal Poly Pomona have met to review courses. This process is critical as ensuring LACC courses are articulatable with CPP will help with clearly defining and establishing the pathway for our students. The meetings between LACC and CPP have resulted in important conversations about the need to establish a robust educational pathway in FST and creating the proper infrastructure for the Program to be successful. The planning and development stages are key to a successful implementation of the grant. A schedule has been established for recurring meetings between LACC and CPP for the remainder of the grant term. The Advisory Board met in Spring 2023 (March 10th, 2023) and Spring 2024 (April 19th, 2024). Per the USDA grant, the Advisory Board has met twice annually to review curriculum, project evaluation documents and revise curriculum or project activities as needed. Topics of discussion at the Advisory Board meetings included: Certificate of Achievement in Food Chemistry and Technology as well as job engagement ideas for experiential learning for students. We recently held our Advisory Board meeting for the Fall semester on Friday, November 22nd, 2024. LACC provided an update on the status of articulation and we discussed apprenticeship opportunities for our students with Food SMART Strategies. They help small businesses in the food industry understand the importance of a culture for food safety training and career pathways. We will be holding individual meetings with the Advisory Board Members in the next 2-3 months to discuss partnership strategies and brainstorm ways that we can work together to provide our students with experiential learning opportunities. On Monday, November 25th, 2024, we held an informational presentation: "Nutrition, Myth & Facts: A Chemical Perspective" led by our LACC Co-PI, Glen Baghdasarian, from our Chemistry Department. The purpose of this informational session was to introduce our Program to students and provide an overview of Food, Science and Technology to create awareness of the existence of this Program and garner interest from our campus community. We had 49 students and faculty RSVP for this event and more than eighty (80) participants attended. Website development for the FST program to create awareness about food science and technology andpromote the FST pathway is in progress. This will greatly assist in outreach efforts.Furthermore, we've secured personnel to assist with grant coordination efforts to ensure we're on schedule with the project.

Publications