Performing Department
(N/A)
Non Technical Summary
Students often hold preconceptions and/or misconceptions about careers infood and agriculture. For many first-generation Hispanic students, preconceptions rooted inpersonal histories are often reinforced by general sense of unbelonging, as traditional agriculturalprograms remain poorly positioned to recruit, retain, and invest in students with the capacity toaddress an evolving diversity of workforce needs. This project aims to develop an inclusivemodel for investing in students at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, a federallydesignated Hispanic Serving Agricultural College and University. Leveraging UTRGV'sburgeoning reputation for culturally relevant learning and engaged scholarship in food andagriculture, this project aims to foster belonging among Hispanic students through a new focuson training and workforce development in organic agriculture. We aim to do this throughstrategic and targeted approaches, including: (1) targeted scholarships to increase studentrecruitment, retention, and graduation in selected academic majors to prepare them for specificemployment opportunities in organic agriculture. (2) new undergraduate coursework in OrganicAgriculture and Community Engaged Scholarship and Learning that leverages the USDAcertifiedorganic facilities on campus and expertise from industry partners, including biweeklyguest lectures that help integrate content knowledge with the development of and providesstudents of opportunities, and to develop professional competencies aligned with the organicindustry, and (3) partnership with organic industry cooperators to offer summer-long internshipsfor qualified UTRGV students, aimed to improve Hispanic students understanding of the rangeof career opportunities and foster leadership skills and expose to diverse career paths in organicagriculture.
Animal Health Component
(N/A)
Research Effort Categories
Basic
(N/A)
Applied
(N/A)
Developmental
(N/A)
Goals / Objectives
This project aims to develop an inclusivemodel for investing in students at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, a federallydesignated Hispanic Serving Agricultural College and University. Leveraging UTRGV'sburgeoning reputation for culturally relevant learning and engaged scholarship in food andagriculture, this project aims to foster belonging among Hispanic students through a new focuson training and workforce development in organic agriculture. We aim to do this throughstrategic and targeted approaches, including: (1) targeted scholarships to increase studentrecruitment, retention, and graduation in selected academic majors to prepare them for specificemployment opportunities in organic agriculture. (2) new undergraduate coursework in OrganicAgriculture and Community Engaged Scholarship and Learning that leverages the USDAcertifiedorganic facilities on campus and expertise from industry partners, including biweeklyguest lectures that help integrate content knowledge with the development of and providesstudents of opportunities, and to develop professional competencies aligned with the organicindustry, and (3) partnership with organic industry cooperators to offer summer-long internshipsfor qualified UTRGV students, aimed to improve Hispanic students understanding of the rangeof career opportunities and foster leadership skills and expose to diverse career paths in organicagriculture.
Project Methods
Objective 1. Provide scholarships to undergraduate students for the academic year. Scholarshipswill be administrated through the UTRGV Office of Scholarships and EnrollmentCommunications. The Scholarships and Enrollment Communications office will create an onlinescholarship application portal for students to apply. The application will require apersonalstatement highlighting their interest in FANR related careers, transcripts, and a letter ofrecommendation that highlights their skills, interest, and potential to succeed in FANR related fields. The project management team will select qualified applicants using a published rubric that include both cognitive factors (such as high school GPA and SAT/ACT scores) as well as noncognitive factors such as motivation, lived experience, and articulated interests. Students receiving scholarships will be required to register for the Sustainable Agriculture course in Fall Semester and Organic Agriculture course in Spring Semester.Objective 2 -- Develop and offer new undergraduate coursework in Organic Agriculture andCommunity Engaged Scholarship and Learning. During the first year of the project PDswill develop an advanced undergraduate course in organic agriculture with the inputfrom The Organic Center. This proposed 3 credit course will be a blend of traditional in-classlectures, field visits, with bi-weekly presentations from industry experts in organic agriculture.This course will be offered every Fall semester. Initially co-taught by as a Special Topics courseENVR 4370, the PDs at UTRGV can apply for a permanent course status after approval by thecurriculum committee and department director (see letter of support from J. Gonzalez, SEEMSInterim Director). The student learning objectives (SLOs) of this course include:1. Describe the USDA standards/ requirements for organic production and organic certificationand the basic structure of the National Organic Program governance.2. Explain the differences in organic and conventional farming practices and resulting outcomesfor environmental, human, and economic health.3. Describe the basic organic agriculture principles that provide the foundation for the federallyregulated legislation including the requirements to: maintain and improve soil health andbiodiversity, best practices to reduce reliance on inputs for soil fertility management, andcontrol of weeds, insect pests and diseases, and requirements to ensure food safety (related tofood borne pathogens and inadvertent pesticide contamination).4. Apply a systems approach to analyze and interpret the contemporary challenges in organicfarming and sustainable food systems.Objective 3--Support students through experiential learning opportunities. This proposed project leverages strong cooperative linkages between UTRGV, The Organic Center, and organic industry leaders such as the Organic Trade Association representing over 9,500 organic businesses, to offer opportunities for community engagement and experiential learning in a real-world context. The Organic Center will recruit a strong consortium of internship hosts to represent the wide range of professional needs to support the organic industry. For instance, The Organic Center has begun and will continue to recruit willing hosts to mentor students and build their technical skills in areas such as: organic certification (e.g. Oregon Tilth, California Certified Organic Farmers (CCOF), Pennsylvania Certified Organic (PCO)), technical assistance/research and extension (e.g. Rodale Institute, Organic Agronomy Training Service (OATS), Quinn Research Institute), marketing and policy (e.g. Organic Trade Association (OTA), Organic Voices, Merryfield), retail (e.g. National Co-Op grocers, Whole Foods), Grower Group representatives (e.g. Florida Organic Growers, Georgia Organics, Western Growers Association, OTA), food and non-food ingredient sourcing and manufacturing (e.g. Lundberg Family Farms, General Mills), and growers, handlers and processors, (e.g. Organically Grown Company, Taylor Farms). These willing internship hosts will agree to offer mentorship and will disclose the skills they expect the student interns to gain. A list of opportunities will be curated so that meritorious students who participate in this program can match their interests and experience with the internship opportunities- choosing the opportunity that feels like the best fit for them. The Organic Center will facilitate the matching of interns and businesses and work with PDs to coordinate each summer-long internship. Each summer, 3 students will participate in 8 weeks (19 hours/week) paid internships. These students will register for a graded internship course. At the end of the internship period the hosting agency will submit an activity summary and their evaluation which will be used as one of the criteria for formative assessment of the students in their internship course.Student selection for internship: Internship participants will be chosen from a group of students who have completed both the Sustainable Agriculture and Organic Agriculture courses while maintaining a minimum GPA of 3.0. To apply for internship, each student will be asked to submit personal statements highlighting their interest in organic agriculture careers, letter ofrecommendations, and academic transcripts. The PDs in collaboration with The Organic Center will interview and choose the best fitting candidate