Performing Department
Dean - Quinney College of Natu
Non Technical Summary
The Visionary Indigenous Training and Leadership for Natural Resources (VITAL4NR) program will improve graduation rates and career success among Tribal students in Natural Resources fields across the Utah State University system. The VITAL4NR program will support Tribal students entering their Junior and Senior years in well-paid internships with partner organizations that employ Natural Resources graduates (federal and state agencies, municipalities, and nonprofits) and undergraduate research positions with USU faculty. Natural resources majors have some of the highest enrollments among Tribal students at USU, but retaining students through graduation is a challenge, even though job opportunities are growing in these fields. This project builds on a long-running internship program for natural resources students at USU and existing relationships with partner organizations, expanding internship and undergraduate research position availability for Tribal students and providing locally-developed cultural competency training to mentors and intern supervisors. As part of the program, students will join a cohort of other students engaged in internship and research experiences supported by one-on-one mentoring and short courses before, during, and after their internships.
Animal Health Component
(N/A)
Research Effort Categories
Basic
(N/A)
Applied
(N/A)
Developmental
(N/A)
Goals / Objectives
The goal of this project is to improve Tribal student retention and degree completion in Natural Resources, Environment, and Geospatial fields at Utah State University. We use several evidence-based strategies to achieve this goal, including cohort development, cultural relevancy, addressing economic barriers, hands-on experiential learning opportunities, and mentoring within a framework of cultural awareness and competency training that maintains cultural identify while also building indigenous science identity. Our objectives include: 1) offering competitive pay and travel support for hands-on experiential learning internships (including technician positions and undergraduate research positions) to enhance retention and completion of Tribal students, and 2) providing student services including cohort-building hands-on academically centered programs focused on increasing environment and natural resource science identities. While not directly funding recruitment efforts, we anticipate this program will also contribute to recruitment of Tribal students by enhancing community, developing professional and alumni networks, and reducing student financial barriers. These programs will build on an existing successful model for undergraduate student internships coordinated by QCNR with diverse partner organizations, including federal and state agencies, municipalities, and nonprofits.
Project Methods
Project objectives will be accomplished through two primary linked activities, the Indigenous Natural Resources Internships (INRI) and the Internship Course Series (ICS), under the umbrella of the VITAL4NR program.Program recruitment will take place using in-class presentations, outreach by QCNR academic advisors, personalized invitations sent to eligible students who receive the USU Native American Student Scholarship, and existing campus-Tribal partnerships. In-class presentations will take place in QCNR courses on the USU Logan, USU Blanding, USU Uintah Basin, and USU Price campuses. Further, QCNR will focus on actively expanding its existing high school concurrent enrollment courses (ENVS 1350: Introduction to Environmental Science and WILD 2200: Ecology of our Changing World) to Utah high schools with substantial Tribal student enrollment. We will leverage existing partnerships for recruitment with tribal groups between the USU Uintah Basin campus and Ute Indian Tribe, and the USU Blanding campus and the Navajo Nation.Eligibility and selection for the VITAL4NR program will be based on the following criteria: 1) applicants must be a member of an Indian tribe as defined in section 4 of the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act (following the eligibility guidelines for the New Beginning for Tribal Students program); all students receiving the USU Native American Student Scholarship, a tuition-free award for all members of federally recognized tribes in and around Utah, will meet this criterion; 2) applicants must be USU undergraduate students in good standing (a minimum 2.0 overall GPA); 3) applicants must have completed at least 30 credits (including transfer credits); 4) applicants must be enrolled in one of the ten QCNR majors or have taken one of the following major prerequisite courses: a) Biology I & II (BIOL 1610 and 1620), b) Introduction to Environmental Science (ENVS 1350), c) Physical Geography (GEOG 1000), or d) Introduction to Geographic Information Science (GEOG 2800). Students will submit a brief application describing their interest in exploring careers related to natural resources, environmental studies and science, or geospatial science.The student lifecycle in the program will be as follows: students will apply to the VITAL4NR program by late Fall of their sophomore, junior, or senior year. Eligible students who are selected into the program will enroll in one credit of the ICS pre-internship course for the second 7-week session of the subsequent Spring semester (late February through late April). At the beginning of the Spring semester, students will meet with a faculty or graduate student mentor for an initial orientation, and subsequently work with their mentor to identify QCNR summer internship positions that match their interests. Students will then apply directly to matching positions, with selection coordinated between QCNR and internship host organizations and taking place between February and March. Students will complete their Spring semester by participating in the ICS pre-internship course with other students who will be engaging in summer internships. Next, students will engage in their internships for a 12-week period over the summer while simultaneously being enrolled in the second ICS course during the USU 14-week summer session. Finally, students will enroll in the third ICS course during the first seven-week session of the following Fall semester (late August to mid-October) to debrief and report on their internship experiences. This cycle will be repeatable for a subsequent year for students who will not have graduated by the Spring of the year following their initial year in the program. During interim periods (between courses), some additional cohort programming will occur to maintain community connections.We anticipate program participation to involve an estimated 28 total Tribal students over 36 total internship positions. These participation numbers are based on supporting eight students in Year 1, nine students in Year 2, nine students in Year 3, and ten students in Year 4. We anticipate involving fewer total students than internship positions, because some students will be funded for two positions over two years. Each student will be matched with an individual QCNR faculty or graduate student mentor for the duration of their participation in the program. We anticipate involving 10-15 total QCNR faculty and graduate students as mentors. In addition, each student will have a direct supervisor for their summer internship experience who may be a USU faculty or staff member or a staff member of a partner organization. We anticipate involving 30-34 internship supervisors in the program. All mentors and supervisors will be expected to complete the TEACH cultural competence training course.Cohort building will begin with the Internship Course Series (ICS) which will provide the following a) peer-community building, b) authentic interactions with trusted discipline-specific academic faculty, c) training in workplace communication and project management, and d) an overview of field-specific knowledge and safety protocols relevant to their upcoming internships or research experiences. Courses will be delivered by QCNR faculty in an in-person or virtual (Zoom) delivery mode, as appropriate to the students' needs and locations. Indigenous community members will be invited as classroom guests (either in person or via Zoom) in order to achieve a co-teaching approach. Both the courses and additional programming will provide a place to come together for meals, celebrations, and integrations of learning. This course series will begin with a 1-credit course that will provide pre-internship preparation (NR 2001: Natural Resources Internship Course Series I), followed by a 1-credit online course during the summer internship (NR 2002: Natural Resources Internship Course Series II), followed by a 1-credit post-internship course during the first 7-week fall semester period following the summer internship (NR 2003: Natural Resources Internship Course Series III). The summer course will be available, but not required, over the summer months due to the remote element of some internship locations, including possible difficulty with engaging in online courses from some locations. The courses will be repeatable for credit and be tailored to cohorts' academic schedules, upcoming celebrations, and academic transitions. To promote accessibility to students engaging from multiple campuses, the Fall and Spring courses (NR 2001 and NR 2003) will be available using USU's "connect" course delivery mode, in which courses are held in-person at pre-scheduled meeting times with some students connecting virtually from other locations.The key part of our program is the Indigenous Natural Resources Internships (INRI), which will take place in the summer after students have joined the VITAL4NR program and will be repeatable for a following summer. Internships will provide competitive summer salaries and will include specific community-engaged, hands-on elements providing career skills and networking. Internships will typically be for 12 weeks at 40 hours per week, paid at $18 per hour, although specific scheduling may be flexible depending on partner organization needs and student availability. Although many of the internships will be with QCNR agency community partners, others will be research-based and supervised by QCNR faculty and researchers. For these research-based internship positions, there are a diversity of possible funding sources, including externally-sponsored projects, QCNR donor funds, and departmental funds. Should VITAL4NR receive funding, QCNR commits to fund undergraduate research positions as needed where matching funds are otherwise unavailable from departmental or external sources, or in cases where students do not match into a co-funded position.