Progress 09/01/08 to 02/29/12
Outputs
OUTPUTS: Exceeding our target of 25 students, 42 Cornell students have participated in the program over the 3-year project period. The number of applications for the course has grown every year, from 14 applications in the first year (in which we admitted all but one) to more than 30 applications in year 3. The internships have varied from community-based agricultural projects, to developing school curricula on nutrition, to working with a women's economic empowerment project, to working on health and nutrition issues in a residential facility for street children. The collaborative course has enrolled the 42 Cornell students above, along with 40 Tanzanian medical students. In the collaborative course, teams of two KCMC students plus two Cornell students produce a policy case study on a topic of their choosing, with faculty advising. This task-oriented format is highly challenging, especially in a cross-cultural team. However it has been very instrumental to student learning. The format of the case studies was adopted from a text book edited by Professor Per Pinstrup-Andersen and available at this website: http://cip.cornell.edu/gfs. With partial support from the ISE grant Dr. Kate Dickin (Sr. Research Associate, Division of Nutritional Sciences) is completing an evaluation of the program, using both in-depth interviews and surveys. Dr. Dickin has conducted interviews with more than half of the participants in the first 2 years (post-course data, only) as well as pre and post interviews with about half of the 3rd year cohort. Many aspects of the program were affirmed by this evaluation. Areas for improvement include more careful selection of homestay placements to ensure that some English is spoken in the household, and to avoid when possible homestays that do not have children in the family. In addition, it is important to prepare the Cornell students even more strongly to participate in the cross-cultural team project. We developed a sustainable financial model which allows the course to continue to be offered beyond the life of the grant. The key to model was shifting to a credit-bearing model that allows us to collect tuition revenues that can be invested in the program. Having gained our financial footing, we have also been able to bring two of the Tanzania alums of the program to Cornell in the subsequent academic year as visiting scholars. This reciprocity has strengthened the trust and collaboration between Kilimanjaro Christian Medical College and Cornell. The collaborative course initiated through our ISE grant has become a model for Cornell. We developed a 1-credit pre-departure seminar course in the spring semester that has evolved into a permanent course that is now expanded to include groups traveling to India and Zambia. Cornell is strengthening its focus on experiential learning, both domestic and international, and this pre-departure course syllabus is being examined as a model for dissemination to other programs and colleges within Cornell. PARTICIPANTS: We partnered with Kilimanjaro Christian Medical College, Department of Community Health. Our principal collaborator was Dr. Rachel Manongi, Head of Department. Her email is: rmanongi@yahoo.co.uk. TARGET AUDIENCES: Not relevant to this project. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: Not relevant to this project.
Impacts
Three of the student-authored case studies written by teams of KCMC and Cornell students have undergone peer review, revisions, and were accepted for publication on the web-based textbook edited by Prof. Pinstrup-Andersen (http://cip.cornell.edu/gfs) . One is already available, while the other two are still in the copy-editing process. Another outcome of the project is enduring collaborations between KCMC and Cornell faculty. One of the participating Cornell faculty is planning her next sabbatical leave at KCMC (Stacy Langwick Anthropology), and another faculty member has obtained seed funding for pilot research in northern Tanzania (Stephan Schmidt, City and Regional Planning). The collaborative course initiated through our ISE grant has become a model for Cornell. We developed a 1-credit pre-departure seminar course in the spring semester that has evolved into a permanent course that is now expanded to include groups traveling to India and Zambia. Cornell is strengthening its focus on experiential learning, both domestic and international, and this pre-departure course syllabus is being examined as a model for dissemination to other programs and colleges within Cornell.
Publications
- Vicky Castens, Felix Luginga, Benjamin Shayo, and Christine Tolias. 2012 Alcohol Abuse in Urban Moshi, Tanzania. Food Policy For Developing Countries, Pinstrup-Andersen P, Ed. 15 pp.
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Progress 09/01/10 to 08/31/11
Outputs
OUTPUTS: Our course was offered a third time, the last offering within the time frame of the grant. The reputation of the course is has clearly grown. We received 26 applications compared to 15 in year 2 and 1 in year 1. We initially accepted 15 students into the program, anticipating that 1-2 students might back out. However, we had no drop-outs and all 15 students successfully completed the summer course. We continued to work with the syllabus of the spring 1-credit pre-departure seminar to focus even more on experiential learning skills such as self-reflective writing, teamwork, and cross-cultural communication. We remained with the 1-hour-weekly format, but deepened the content and readings on Tanzanian society and culture, and also required more of the students in terms of their writing assignments. We engaged the same local consultant to the program as in previous years, Mr. Vincent Chuwa, who took on the responsibilities of arranging home stays for the students and also dealing with immigration issues. Sending 15 students rather than 12 students was more demanding in terms of identifying excellent homestays. We used several three new home stays, two of which were good fits for the program, but one was not. The lead faculty instructor for the course this year was Dr. Rebecca Heidkamp, a nutritionist with research experience in Kenya and Haiti dealing with issues of nutrition and HIV infection. The students gave excellent reviews of the program and her leadership. Our financial plan for course continues to be viable. The flow of tuition revenue was sufficient to pay for the costs of conducting the course at KCMC, paying the summer salary of the faculty member, and offering travel grants to our students. By enrolling 15 students, the tuition revenue was slightly higher this year. We have initiated two innovations in our activities this year. First, we used some of the extra tuition revenue to invite two of our the Tanzania students in our first-year cohort to come as visiting scholars to Cornell for the month of April 2011. While on campus, they sat in on classes, did library research, and gave guest lectures in our Intro to Global Health course, as well as our pre-departure seminar for the Tanzania 2011 course. We have already extended this exchange program to 2012, and have selected two students from our 2010 cohort from KCMC. Secondly, we have engaged an independent researcher, Dr. Kate Dickin (Sr. Research Associate, Division of Nutritional Sciences) to conduct an evaluation of the program, using both in-depth interviews and surveys. Dr. Dickin has thus far conducted interviews with more than half of the participants in the first 2 years (post-course data, only) as well as pre and post interviews with about half of the 3rd year cohort. Her sampling strategy is designed to capture both students who fit easily into the program, and those who struggled more, based on faculty assessment, so as not to get a positively biased outcome. The evaluation will be completed in the time frame of our 6-month no-cost extension. PARTICIPANTS: 15 Cornell students and 12 KCMC student participated in the summer course. 2 KCMC students who participated in the course in 2009 were invited to spend 1 month at Cornell as visiting scholars, to strengthen our collaboration with KCMC. TARGET AUDIENCES: Not relevant to this project. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: Nothing significant to report during this reporting period.
Impacts
In 2011, 12 KCMC students and 15 Cornell students participated in the course. To date, 39 Cornell students and 34 Tanzanian medical students have had classroom and experiential learning in international health, nutrition and agriculture in Tanzania. A sustainable funding model has been initiated. Both the Tanzania-based summer course and the Ithaca-based pre-departure seminar have been approved as permanent courses at Cornell University.
Publications
- No publications reported this period
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Progress 01/01/10 to 08/31/10
Outputs
Our focus in year 2 was to work toward sustainability of the program at KCMC. The course was offered a second time, with a great deal of success. We had 15 Cornell applicants for 12 positions in the program. Applications were accepted in the fall of 2009, and we held interviews and selected the students for the program in November and December. We initially accepted 13 students into the program, anticipating that 1-2 students might back out. Indeed, one student changed her mind, leaving us with our desired number of 12 students. We offered the spring 1-credit pre-departure seminar for the 2nd time, and substantially revised the curriculum to focus more on experiential learning skills such as self-reflective writing, teamwork, and cross-cultural communication. We are discovering that there is a tension in this course between the students' desire for nuts and bolts information on what to pack, how to communicate with parents, what vaccinations to get, etc., and faculty desire for greater focus on topics that will prepare them for experiential and cross-cultural learning. We engaged the same local consultant to the program as in year 1, Mr. Vincent Chuwa, who very ably took on the responsibilities of arranging home stays for the students and also dealing with immigration issues. Whereas last year our students entered on tourist visas, this year we obtained Resident Permits for the students. Mr. Chuwa was instrumental in this process, which minimized risk of any conflicts with immigration officials during their stay. The lead faculty instructor for the course this year was Prof. Stacey Langwick, a medical anthropologist with extensive research experience in Tanzania dealing with indigenous plants and their uses in human health. Her experience with Tanzanian culture and facility with Swahili language were great assets to the program and to our students. Our colleagues at KCMC were much more actively engaged in the program's development and implementation this year. Eleven KCMC students participated in the collaborative course, the same number as in year 1. Our KCMC colleagues were well prepared for the arrival of our students, having prepared classroom space, computer and printer, and wireless internet connection for the classroom. KCMC worked closely with Dr. Langwick to arrange the internship placements for the Cornell students. This was an enormous help and a big step toward sustaining the collaboration. We are also very pleased that our financial plan for course seems to be sustainable. By offering the course to Cornell students for credit, we have a flow of tuition revenue that is sufficient to pay for the costs of conducting the course at KCMC, paying the summer salary of the faculty member, and offering travel grants to our students. We are gaining confidence that the program can be sustained beyond the period of the USDA grant. PRODUCTS: We adapted and revised the curriculum developed in year 1 to teach the Cornell students (12 of them) in the pre-departure seminar, and the 23 Cornell + KCMC students in the collaborative course in Tanzania. We created 12 internships in agriculture and health for the Cornell students in Tanzania. OUTCOMES: Twenty-three students from Cornell and KCMC produced 6 case studies on global health and development in Tanzania. Twelve Cornell students gained experience as interns in agriculture and health projects in Tanzania. DISSEMINATION ACTIVITIES: The additional experiences and internships of the students have been added to our course website. We held three information sessions involving faculty and students who have participated in the program to disseminate the opportunity to potential student applicants. FUTURE INITIATIVES: We plan to offer the course again, with only minor adjustments based on our experiences in years 1 and 2. Dr. Rebecca Heidkamp, a recent PhD graduate in international nutrition will be the lead faculty member for the course. We plan to recruit the same number of Cornell students again, i.e. 12. An additional focus in year 3 is to conduct an evaluation of the program. We have tentatively engaged Dr. Kate Dickin, an experienced program evaluator, to use a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods to evaluate learning outcomes and perspective transformation in the three cohorts of students from years 1-3. The USDA grant funds will be used to support this work. We also plan to bring to Cornell two of the KCMC student alumni of the program from our year 1 cohort. This is outside the scope of the USDA grant, but it is a logical next step in building the collaboration between our institutions. We are in the midst of raising funds for this activity, and have received three applications from KCMC alumni to participate in this visiting scholar program. We hope that this will further encourage collaborative research and training between our institutions. Lastly, the success of this model has emboldened us to reach out to two universities in Zambia to explore a similar model. This fall, we hosted a visit from two faculty from Copperbelt University in Kitwe, Zambia who are keen to develop a collaboration using the KCMC model. We are also considering pursuing the model with Gulu University in Uganda.
Impacts
The educational impacts of the program will be documented through the evaluation initiative described above. The success of the program has created a demand for similar international experiential learning courses that this course alone cannot meet. Thus one impact is to cause the Division of Nutritional Sciences to consider scaling up and exanding international education experiences for undergraduate students.
Publications
- No publications reported this period
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Progress 09/01/08 to 08/31/09
Outputs
September-December 2008 were devoted to building the collaborations at Kilmanjaro Christian Medical College (KCMC) and Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA), aiming to launch the collaborative course in Tanzania for the first time in June-July 2009. For Cornell students, we needed to take advantage of the summer session in our academic calendar. Fortunately, at KCMC, the 4th year medical students have a research/elective period that provided a 5-week period of overlap between their availability and Cornell's summer session. The proposed new course was promoted as one option for KCMC students to satisfy this requirement. However, at SUA we discovered that the food science and nutrition department had recently undergone a major curriculum revision process, and that adding a new course would be a major bureaucratic hurdle not possible in time for summer 2009. We therefore decided to launch the course only at KCMC. We did not reduce the total number of students, but rather increased the Cornell and KCMC student enrollments at the KCMC site. For this reason, the subcontract to SUA was much smaller than budgeted. We accepted 12 students into the program, a number substantially greater than the 5 students we proposed to take in year 1. KCMC recruited 12 4th-year medical students into the program. Because the KCMC students needed to move on to their next module after only 5 weeks of overlap with the Cornell students, we redesigned the course to start with 4.5 weeks of classroom based collaborative learning, after which the KCMC students continued their traditional medical training and the Cornell students moved on to full-time 4-week internships. The classroom learning employed a policy case study approach. Students were formed into teams of 4 (2 KCMC + 2 Cornell). In the first week, they studied an existing policy case study in global nutrition, food and agriculture. In the remaining 3.5 weeks, the teams selected a policy problem of their own choosing relevant to Tanzania, and developed a case study based on literature research and primary interviews with local stakeholders. This course was highly challenging to the students, and also successful in meeting the course objectives. Cornell students engaged in a wide variety of full-time internships for the next month. Based on discussions with Cornell students enrolled in the program, we replaced the optional policy project with a post-field experience seminar, designed to facilitate student's critical reflection on their international living and learning experiences. This seminar was offered for no credit but received strongly positive student reviews. Therefore we plan to submit a course proposal to make this a 1-credit course for fall 2010. PRODUCTS: We developed curriculum for three courses. The first was a 1-credit pre-departure seminar for the 12 Cornell students selected into the Tanzania collaborative program. The 2nd was a 4-credit curriculum based on policy case studies related to global nutrition, food and agriculture in Tanzania. This curriculum was designed for a student group of 24, comprised of 12 Cornell plus 12 Tanzanian medical students. The final piece of curriculum was a post-experience fall seminar, designed to help students integrate their learning within the context of Cornell's on-campus curriculum. This was offered for no credit this year, but will be offered for 1 credit in future years because of the positive evaluations received from students. OUTCOMES: We provided problem-based, experiential learning for 12 Cornell students and 12 Tanzanian medical students in the first year. This exceeded our goal (of 5 + 5) by more than 100%. Administrative and financial processes have been put in place to sustain the program in future years. DISSEMINATION ACTIVITIES: We developed a website promiting the program, which can be found at http://www.human.cornell.edu/che/DNS/globalhealth/tanzania/index.cfm FUTURE INITIATIVES: Given the large amount of effort that went into a successful launch of the program at KCMC, and the bureaucratic difficulties of gaining course approval at SUA, we plan to run the program only at KCMC again in year 2. KCMC can easily accommodate 12 students per year, which will yield a total of 36 Cornell student recipients + 36 KCMC students in the life of the grant. This number exceeds our proposed target of 25 + 25. We thus plan to recruit 12 students again from Cornell. This year, Prof Stacey Langick (co-investigator) will be the lead instructor of the course. Dr. Langwick has lived in Tanzania during several past field research projects, and is well suited to the task. Dr. Stoltzfus will travel to Tanzania with Dr. Langwick to start off the course. Key to the success of the collaboration with KCMC is to continue to build relationships amongst the faculty involved. We plan to bring one of the collaborating faculty from KCMC to Cornell in spring 2010 to allow him to understand Cornell's academic environment and to build relationships here.
Impacts
We designed and implemented a novel collaborative internship program in global nutrition, food and agriculture in Tanzania, a collaboration between Cornell University and Kilimanjaro Christian Medical College. We are working toward a sustainable financial plan for the program to extend its life beyond the duration of this USDA ISE grant. We are already in conversation with several universities in Zambia about the possibility of replicating the program.
Publications
- No publications reported this period
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Progress 01/01/09 to 08/31/09
Outputs
2009 was a very active year. In short, we tested our curriculum design vis a vis the academic realities of the three collaborating institutions [Cornell, Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Center (KCMC) and Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA)], revised the design accordingly, and learned a great deal. Following is a summary of our learning and the resulting revisions. We aimed and succeeded to launch the collaborative course in Tanzania for the first time in June-July 2009. For Cornell students, we needed to take advantage of the summer session in our academic calendar. Fortunately, at KCMC, the 4th year medical students have a research/elective period that provided a 5-week period of overlap between their availability and Cornell's summer session. At SUA, however, we discovered that the food science and nutrition department had recently undergone a major curriculum revision process, and that adding a new curricular offering would be a major bureaucratic hurdle. We therefore decided to launch the course only at KCMC, at least for the first year. We did not reduce the total number of students, but rather increased the Cornell and KCMC student enrollments at the KCMC site. For this reason, the subcontract to SUA was much smaller than budgeted. KCMC recruited 12 4th-year medical students into the program. Because the KCMC students needed to move on to their next module after only 5 weeks of overlap with the Cornell students, we redesigned the course to start with 4.5 weeks of classroom based collaborative learning, after which the KCMC students continued their traditional medical training and the Cornell students moved on to full-time 4-week internships. The classroom learning employed a policy case study approach. Students were formed into teams of 4 (2 KCMC + 2 Cornell). In the first week, they studied an existing policy case study in global nutrition, food and agriculture. In the remaining 3.5 weeks, the teams selected a policy problem of their own choosing relevant to Tanzania, and developed a case study based on literature research and primary interviews with local stakeholders. This course was highly challenging to the students, and also successful in meeting the course objectives. Cornell students engaged in a wide variety of full-time internships for the next month. Based on discussions with Cornell students enrolled in the program, we replaced the optional policy project with a post-field experience seminar, designed to facilitate student's critical reflection on their international living and learning experiences. This seminar was offered for no credit but received strongly positive student reviews. Finally, it became apparent that a sustainable financial plan would require a tuition income mechanism. We sought and gained approval for the classroom based portion of the course to be offered for 4 summer session credits. We also negotiated an agreement for 75% of the summer tuition of the Cornell students to return to a program account to be used to sustain the costs of the program. Thus, the funds from the USDA ISE grant can be devoted to the start-up costs of the program, while we generate revenues to sustain the program. PRODUCTS: Our products in 2009 included two courses: a 1-credit pre-departure seminar course in the spring semester, and a 4-credit collaborative course offered in the summer session in Tanzania. We also piloted a no-credit post-field experience fall seminar. Twelve Cornell students participated in the spring and summer courses, and 11 medical students from Kilimanjaro Christian Medical College participated in the 4-credit summer course. We provided 12 travel stipends to the Cornell students, and provided 12 internship placements for them in and around Moshi Tanzania. The KCMC students received certificates of completion and academic credits from KCMC. The Cornell students received Cornell credits. OUTCOMES: In 2009, 23 students (12 from Cornell and 11 from KCMC) participated in a 4-week, full-time, collaborative course in global health, nutrition and agriculture policy issues, based on team-work and problem-based learning. In addition, 12 Cornell students completed 4-week internship placements in an internship related to health, nutrition, or agriculture in Tanzania. DISSEMINATION ACTIVITIES: The Cornell Global Health Minor website includes several pages devoted to this collaborative international program. FUTURE INITIATIVES: We plan to offer the program again in 2010, building on the successes and lessons learned from this year.
Impacts
To date, 24 Cornell students and 22 Tanzanian medical students have had classroom and experiential learning in international health, nutrition and agriculture in Tanzania. A sustainable funding model has been initiated.
Publications
- No publications reported this period
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