Performing Department
College of Agriculture
Non Technical Summary
Our global population is projected to exceed nine billion by 2050; therefore, we face unprecedented challenges to produce enough food, feed, fiber, and biofuel feedstock. Strengthening the agricultural industry is essential to meeting this challenge. To fulfill such demands, however, agriculturalists will be required to produce more food over the next 40 years than has been produced over the past 10,000 years combined, as well as sufficient biofuel feedstock to ensure a secure and independent energy supply on a land area with fewer inputs (United Nations, 2015). Failure to meet these goals could cause food insecurity in many parts of the world, leading to instability in the global, geopolitical landscape. Coupled with this challenge is the growing demand for sustainable agricultural practices and locally grown food. As a result, agricultural producers will also be required to provide fresh food products for changing dietary and health habits of individuals across the globe. The United Nation's Food and Agricultural Organization (2015) estimated that agriculture collectively accounts for 40% of the current global workforce. However, to meet the aforementioned demands, more skilled leaders and laborers must be recruited into the agricultural sector, which will have to be trained through the nation's land grant and non-land grant colleges of agriculture. With this mind these institutions will have to identify mechanisms and strategies to attract potential students into the academic programs they offer, since direct competition exists from other institutions of higher learning for student clientele.Institutions of higher education are under mounting scrutiny as they face reduced student access, rising costs, and calls to demonstrate more profound outcomes (Beale, 2012; Kretovics, 2011). As a result, trends regarding student entrance, retention, and graduation were used as key indicators of institutional successes and failures. Although existing evidence has revealed that such metrics are affected by a number of contextual factors (Allen, Robbins, Casillas, & Oh, 2008; Shrestha, Suvedi, & Foster, 2011), they remain of central importance to universities because student dropout results in fewer individuals prepared to enter the workforce as well as thousands of dollars in unrealized revenue for institutions (Beale, 2012; Kretovics, 2011). Also, not completing a college degree has been shown to negatively affect leavers' social, physiological, and economic wellbeing (Bruffaerts et al., 2018; Pervin, Reik, & Dalrymple, 2015). For example, previous research has reported statistically significant relationships between individuals who drop out of college and their sense of social isolation and depression as well as a lower career earning potential (Bruffaerts et al., 2018; Pervin et al., 2015). Moreover, with national student loan debt topping $1.5 trillion in 2019, and students graduating in 2017 having an average of $28,650 in loans, the success of universities and students remain deeply entwined (Friedman, 2019).To further complicate this issue, nearly all agricultural, food, and natural resource (AFNR) sectors are experiencing a shortage of qualified workers (Goecker et al., 2015). For instance, it is expected that more than 20,000 AFNR related jobs will go unfilled by an unqualified candidate in 2020 (Goecker et al., 2015). Therefore, it is imperative to improve the recruitment and retention of colleges of agriculture to ensure that qualified leaders supply the AFNR career pipeline in the future (National Research Council, 2009; STEM Food and Agriculture Council, 2014). Previous research on this issue, however, has depicted the rift between the supply and demand of AFNR graduates as an issue of student recruitment (Baker, Settle, Chiarelli, & Irani, 2013; Koon, Frick, Igo, 2009; Rayfield, Murphrey, & Skaggs, 2013; Rocca & Washburn, 2005; Stair, Danjean, Blackburn, & Bunch, 2016). However, less attention is placed on the role that retention plays in solving this problem (Dunn, Haines, & Epps, 2013). In response, Koon et al. (2009) called for colleges of agriculture to consider recruitment and retention as factors of equal value. As an illustration, by placing an improved emphasis on retention efforts, colleges of agriculture could better address the national student loan debt by graduating students promptly while also keeping more individuals in the AFNR career pipeline (Koon et al., 2009).Previous research has demonstrated that targeted university recruitment and retention programming can positively influence individuals' choice to pursue college as well as their decision to persist throughout their degree program (Bobbit, 2006; Rocca, 2013). In particular, the literature on recruitment for colleges of agriculture has reported that communicating and building relationships with parents is critical because they are highly influential in their child's decision to pursue a career in agriculture as well as the particular university they will ultimately choose to attend (Bobbit, 2006; Rayfield et al., 2013; Rocca, 2013). However, variables such as campus visits, cost, communication efforts from colleges and departments, departmental atmosphere, experiential learning opportunities, faculty approachability, and scholarship opportunities have also been reported to influence agriculture students' decisions (Baker et al., 2013; Rayfield et al., 2013; Rocca & Washburn, 2005; Stair et al., 2016).
Animal Health Component
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Research Effort Categories
Basic
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Applied
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Developmental
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Goals / Objectives
Provide full and partial scholarships for in-state students and out-of-state students to pursue and complete food and agriculture majors within the CAES at NC A&T State University.Offer professional development and mentoring in relation to agricultural leadership, employability skills, and other experiential/career learning opportunities (internships, externships, mentored research) to all students enrolled and receiving funding from the 1890 Scholarship Program.
Project Methods
The funding from this proposal will enable to students to pursue a baccalaureate level education in the food, agricultural, and natural sources related fields without the stress of tuition coverage, which is a factor that impacts student retention and overall degree matriculation. The intent of this program is to provide students with a mechanism through wish the pursuit of scholarly study in the food, agricultural, and natural sources can be done a full time basis, without having to obtain outside work commitments, which could impact academic performance. All selected participants will be awarded either a full or partial academic scholarship. The program will specifically provide students with the experiential learning endeavors and exposure to a vast network of governmental and agribusinesses entities who have internship and permanent hire. Through the experiential opportunities that will be provided through this program, in addition to coursework and professional development activities, scholar's intent to cultivate their growth as future leaders in the global food, agricultural, fiber, and natural system will be realized.