Performing Department
College of Agriculture
Non Technical Summary
This USDA 1890 Scholarships project at Tennessee State University will support academically talented, high-achieving students interested in the food and agricultural sciences. Over four years, we seek to increase the enrollment, retention, and completion of baccalaureate degrees for food, agricultural, and natural resource sciences students. In addition to the scholarship, we will support our student scholars through career preparedness workshops, intrusive advising, intentional mentoring, and undergraduate research experiences. This project will combine various high-impact practices to increase the College of Agriculture's capacity to recruit and retain high-quality undergraduates. This project will also increase the opportunities to engage, retain, mentor, train, and graduate scholars with the scientific, technical, and professional competencies in food, agricultural, and natural resources sciences within four years. Lastly, we will measure and evaluate the effectiveness of the project to prepare graduate scholars to readily obtain entrance into either graduate studies or the U.S. agriculture workforce.
Animal Health Component
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Research Effort Categories
Basic
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Applied
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Developmental
(N/A)
Goals / Objectives
To address our commitment to recruit, retain, and produce graduates adequately prepared for the agriculture, food, and natural resources workforce, TSU seeks funding from the USDA/1890 Scholarship Program to "Train and Mentor the Next Generation of Leaders in Food and Agricultural Sciences." By developing a highly skilled workforce, our program will address the USDA's Strategic Goal to facilitate rural prosperity and economic development. This proposal aims to increase the enrollment, retention, and completion of baccalaureate degrees for food, agricultural, and natural resource sciences students. Our proposal promotes the USDA mission of preparing highly qualified graduates to meet the food, agricultural, and natural resource sciences workforce demand. This project will also address a lack of higher education attainment among minorities by extending education and opportunity to students who show exceptional promise but lack financial support to pursue a baccalaureate degree in the food, agricultural, and natural resource sciences. To achieve the aim mentioned above, the following measurable objectives have been established:Increase the capacity of the College of Agriculture to recruit and retain high-quality undergraduates;Increase the number of talented and underrepresented students attending full-time coursework to complete the bachelor's degree in food, agricultural, and natural resource sciences;Increase opportunities to engage, retain, mentor, train, and graduate scholars with scientific, technical, and professional competencies in food, agricultural, and natural resource sciences within four years; and,Measure and evaluate the effectiveness of the project to prepare graduate scholars to obtain entrance readily into either graduate studies or the U.S. agriculture workforce.
Project Methods
To frame our strategy for increasing the number of students pursuing food, agricultural, and natural resource sciences, we will implement Vincent Tinto's student integration model. Each year, the project will recruit a cohort of students to participate in a structured integration model comprising exposure, intentional mentoring, intrusive advising, and experiential learning. The design of this project builds on the established theories of cognition and learning. The benefits of experiential learning through high school and undergraduate research go far beyond developing research methods skills. Structured research with faculty mentors or professionals in the field helps students develop cognitive skills, strengthen personal and professional relationships, improve retention, and enhance graduate school aspirations (Haak et al., 2011; Freeman et al., 2014). The project will be meticulously examined to determine how well each objective was achieved and to gain insight into any issues that may arise while implementing the project. Evaluation of the program will serve several programmatic purposes:To assess and measure the effectiveness of the project to prepare and graduate food, agricultural, and natural resource sciences students for the agricultural workforce,To ensure all students have fulfilled their program requirements,Improve the undergraduate research experiences for undergraduates in the College of Agriculture; and,to disseminate programmatic findings to the agricultural and science education research community.