Progress 09/01/23 to 08/31/24
Outputs
Target Audience:The target audience of the project is comprised of place-bound college students in Yuma, AZ. Students from the Mexicali Valley in Mexico and from Imperial Valley Community College can attend Arizona Western College (AWC) in Yuma at the same tuition rate as Arizona residents. Thus, the target audience includes college age students from the three areas indicated. Most students attending AWC are place bound and cannot afford to move to Tucson, over a 3-hour drive one way, because they lack sufficient money and because many are employed full time in Yuma and have family obligations there. By developing a minor in Agribusiness Analytics, we are targeting those students who seek the skills afforded by a college degree focusing on agribusiness. By extension, another target group consists of agribusiness employers in Yuma, the Imperial and Mexicali Valleys who are seeking employees with data analytic skills. Changes/Problems:Enrollments have been lower than expected for AREC315,Agribusiness Economics and Management. Offering stipends to defray the costs of study have helped enrollments but more modestly than hoped. On the other hand, enrollments in AREC339, Economic Statistics, far exceed expections because an instructor in Yuma who used to teach statistics was out on family leave. As a result, enrollments in AREC339 have exceeded 30 students in to separate offerings. With a no-cost extension, we intend to travel to Yuma with greater frequency to promote classes and engage with former students to elicit feedback on the content of our courses, teaching methods, and how they can be improved. We also intend to seek student input on how to promote the classes more effectively. Som of the low enrollment is due to the fact that existing majors in Yuma do not require AREC403 or 450. Also, students seeking to graduate as quickly as possible focus on taking the required courses for their major and do not have the luxury of taking additional classes for a minor degree. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Completion of the two asynchronous onlinecourses, AREC 403 and 450, required close collaboration with specialist in course design at the University of Arizona. Both Drs. Zuo and Thompson acquired substantial skills in course design while receiving training and assistance from the specialists. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Availability of the courses required for the minor in Agribusiness Analytics has been advertised widely at Arizona Western College and University of Arizona Yuma. In addition to flyers posted widely and emails on list serves, the classes have been promoted by word of mouth by advisors and students who have taken the classes. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?If we are granted a no-cost extension, we have specifice plans to spend the remaining funds. Specifically, the plans are as follows: Student Stipends. To date, students who successfully complete one of the four required courses for the minor degree have been awarded $500 stipends. Place-bound students in Yuma often seek Pell Grants and other need-based financial aid in order to continue their studies. Stipends are positive rewards for continuing their studies as part of this minor degree. For fall semester 2024, four students are currently enrolled in agribusiness classes and will be eligible for stipends. Though we do not know exact enrollments for spring 2025 courses, we project six students will be eligible for stipends. Total stipend expenditures through this academic year will be $5,000. Teaching Assistant/Grader Services. This fall semester Professor Aradhyula is teaching on an overload basis a distance class with 36 students. He needs assistance in holding office hours at time outside of the typical 8:00 am - 5:00 pm window because Yuma students often have work and family obligations that preclude them from being available during regular business hours. A 0.25 FTE teaching assistant for his class would cost $ $9,829. Professor Na Zuo is also offering a distance section of her AREC 315 class, Agribusiness Economics and Management, to Yuma students. She has a similar need for a teaching assistant or grader to provide adequate time and attention to Yuma students outside of regular school hours. Travel Expenditures. As part of his distance class offering, Professor Aradhyula travels to Yuma at least twice during the semester to meet in person with Yuma students. Because Yuma students are typically only available to meet in person between 4:00 and 10:pm on Wednesdays, Professor Aradhyula spends the night in Yuma. Travel and lodging costs for two trips amounts to $650. Summary of Proposed Expenditures Student Stipends $5,000 Teaching Assistant (0.50 FTE) $19,658 Travel $650 Grand Total $25,308 Please note that Teaching Assistant expenditures are itemized as follows: Salary $10,875 ERE $1,414 Tutition Remission $7,369 Total $19,658
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
1. In fall semester 2023, Drs. Aradhyula and Zuo offered AREC315 and AREC339, respectively, to two students each from Yuma. 2. As of the end of spring semester2024, all four classes have been delivered by distance to Yuma students. Students who completed the pre-requisite courses--ARC315,Agribusiness Economics and Management and AREC 339, Economic Statistics--were eligible for the remaining two capstone courses, AREC 403, Analysis of Economic Data, and AREC450,Financial Management for Agribusiness. Seven students completed AREC450. Each of those seven were awarded stipends of $500 as an incentive to finish the minor in Agricultural Analytics and to ease the financial burden many of those students face. One student also completed AREC403 and earned the minor. 3. In summer 2024, Dr. Zuo successfully offered AREC315, which one Yuma student completed.
Publications
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Progress 09/01/20 to 08/31/24
Outputs
Target Audience:The target audience of the project is comprised of place-bound college students in Yuma, AZ. Students from the Mexicali Valley in Mexico and from Imperial Valley Community College can attend Arizona Western College (AWC) in Yuma at the same tuition rate as Arizona residents. Thus, the target audience includes college age students from the three areas indicated. Most students attending AWC are place bound and cannot afford to move to Tucson, over a 3-hour drive one way, because they lack sufficient money and because many are employed full time in Yuma and have family obligations there. By developing a minor in Agribusiness Analytics, we are targeting those students who seek the skills afforded by a college degree focusing on agribusiness. By extension, another target group consists of agribusiness employers in Yuma, the Imperial and Mexicali Valleys who are seeking employees with data analytic skills. Changes/Problems:1. Supporting more M.S. Teaching Assistants. Our original grant proposal called for recruiting and supporting two M.S. students to assist in course development and delivery. After receiving approval to shift funds across categories, we were able to recruit three, rather than two, graduate students from under-represented groups--Hispanic students and women. 2. Lower Enrollments than Expected. After having relatively low enrollments in the debut in a couple of the four courses, in consultation with our counterparts at UA-Yuma, we landed on the idea of competitively awarding $500 stipends for students to enroll in the courses. In addition to helping defray the cost of a college degree for financially challenged students, the named stipend also afforded the students the opportunity to highlight the award on their resumes. 3. Sabbatical Leaves. Both Drs. Aradhyula and Thompson had university-approved sabbatical leaves for spring semester of 2024.Both professors were engaged in professional activities outside of the United States as part of their sabbatical leaves. Accordingly, they could not allocate the necessary time to continue offering distance courses while outside the country. Unfortunately, their absence slowed the offering of courses. In Dr. Thompson's absence, a colleague of his, Dr. April Athnos, supervised the online offering of AREC403 so that the first student to complete all four courses and earn a minor in Agribusiness Analytics, Omar Felix, could finish the course in spring semester of 2024. Having built an asynchronous online course permitted Dr. Athnos to oversee the distance offering of the course while she taught the in-person version on campus. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?There are two main areas of training and professional development: 1. Instructors. All three instructors--Drs. Aradhyula, Thompson, and Zuo--invested heavily in learning how to build effective asynchronous online versions of the four classes they have taught on campus. Each instructor worked in close contact with specialists in online classes. Each instructor also collaborated closely with their teaching assistants in developing pedagogical materials andteachingstrategies. 2. Teaching Assistants. Just as the instructors received training and the opportunity to develop their professional skills in asynchronous online classes, so, too, did TA's. Each teaching assistant also provided her/his unique perspectives on how students seeing the material for the first time could learn effectively. 3. Professional Meetings. Ms. Jungbluth had the opportunity to attend and participate in the annual meeting of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association. She participated in the awards ceremony forher Excellence in Teaching Assistance award. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Availability of four new upper-division college courses resulting in a minor degree in Agricultural Analytics has been advertised widely through formal communication networks at Arizona Western College, Imperial Community Colelge (El Centro, CA), and UA-Yuma. The availability of competitively awarded stipends for selected classes has also been advertised. Word of mouth from academic advisors and former students has also disseminated the availability of these courses. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?
Nothing Reported
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
The overarching goal was to provide four courses resulting in a minor degree for place-bound college students at UA-Yuma. Yuma's economy is driven in large measure by agriculture, and agricultural employers increasingly seeksophisticated workers who have mastery of data analytics in order to produce, process, and deliver safe, nutritious food. As a first step toward distance delivery, the four courses required for the minor in Agricultural Analytics were built for asynchronous online delivery. In order to engage UA-Yuma students in real time, instructors based in Tucson met weekly on Zoom with students to answer questions and provide live interaction encourage students. Midway through the grant period, Drs. Aradhyula, Thompson, and Zuo conferred with their counterparts in Yuma, Dr. Belashka Brenes Mayorga and Dr. Tanya Hodges to mount an effort to promote the classes. Jointly, we agree that providing students $500 stipends as partical financial support for taking one of the required courses in the minor would help stimulate enrollment and provide students the opportunity to showcase their named stipends on their resumes. A second major goal was to train and provide professional development for M.S. students assisting in the teaching of the four courses and developing pedagogical materials. Although we originally budgeted for two graduate students, we were able to shift funds across categories to recruit and matriculate three M.S. students. Two of the students--Laura Hernandez and Jesus Felix de los Reyes--were Hispanic students. Two of the three were females--Laura Hernandez and Angela Junbluth--who are under-represented in agricutlural economics. As teaching assistants (TAs) for the four classes were intionally assigned to assist with the on-campus version of the four classes for several purposes. First, the TAs familiarized themselves and deepended their understanding of economic topicsand statistical methods embodied in the class. Second, they were trained in pedagogical methods and had the opportunity to hone their skills in presenting material, answering students' questions, and bolstering students' confidence in their ability to learn and master material. Third, as students themselves seeing some of the material for the first time, they were able to identify potential difficulties for other students in learning new material and skills. The effectiveness of our training and professional development is evidenced by two national awards made to those students. The national association of agricultural ecoomists, the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association (AAEA), conferred itsExcellence in Teaching Assistance Award to Ms. Angela Jungbluth. The following year, Mr. Felix de los Reyes, was awarded an Honorable Mention for the sameExcellence in Teaching Assistance Award. Another aspect of professional development relates to the research and writing skills the TA's learned in the process of writing their M.S. theses. Two of the three who wrote M.S. theses, Ms. Jungbluth and Mr. de los Reyes, are now continuing their training and professional development as Ph.D. candidates at Oklahoma State University, and Utah State University, respectively. The third candidate, Ms. Hernandez entered the job m
Publications
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Progress 09/01/22 to 08/31/23
Outputs
Target Audience:The target audience of the project is comprised of place-bound college students in Yuma, AZ. Students from the Mexicali Valley in Mexico and from Imperial Valley Community College can attend Arizona Western College (AWC) in Yuma at the same tuition rate as Arizona residents. Thus, the target audience includes college age students from the three areas indicated. Most students attending AWC are place bound and cannot afford to move to Tucson, over a 3-hour drive one way, because they lack sufficient money and because many are employed full time in Yuma and have family obligations there. By developing a minor in Agribusiness Analytics, we are targeting those students who seek the skills afforded by a college degree focusing on agribusiness. By extension, another target group consists of agribusiness employers in Yuma, the Imperial and Mexicali Valleys who are seeking employees with data analytic skills. Changes/Problems:Enrollments in some of the classes have been lower than we expected despite strong efforts by our counterparts in Yuma, Dr. Baleshka Mayorga and Dr. Tanya Hodges. After considering various incentives to spur enrollment, we arrived at the idea of offering selected students stipends of $500 to cover most of the cost of taking one of the courses. Though we originally thought of delivering an example of statisitics in action by choosing a maximum of three students in each class with random numbers, Drs. Mayorga and Hodges suggested that having a named stipend would not only ease the fnancial burdenof pursuing the minor degree, but would also allow students to mention in their resumes that they earned the award. When the availability of stipends was announced, it created lots of enthusiastic reactions by students. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?As a result of Dr. Zuo's supervision and mentoring,Angela Jungbluth was nominated for and won theExcellence in Teaching Assistance Award of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association (AAEA) inAugust 2022. Ms. Jungbluth'steaching assistantship was sponsored by this HSI grant. In spring 2023,Dr. Zuo nominated Jesus Felix de los Reyes for the Excellence in Teaching Assistance Award. Mr de los Reyes won anHonorable mention for that award. Both of the foregoing national award are testments to the excellent professional development opportunities offered by Dr. Zuo with the support of this grant. Ms. Jungbluth attended and participated in the annua meetings of AAEA by vitrtue of having been selected as an award winner. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Dr. Zuo and Angela Jungbluth engaged in a campus-wide survey of students on the topic of cultural foods consumed. While the topic of the project was much larger than the HSI project detailed here, the survey provided Ms. Jungbluth the opportunity to engage in research relating to food security, an issue as relevant to students in Yuma as on campus in Tucson. Dr. Zuo and Ms. Jungbluth wrote a detailed report based on the results of the survey, which was circulated widely on campus. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?We plan to offer the two capstone courses--AREC403, Analysis of Economic Data and AREC 450,Financial Management for Agribusiness--by distance in the 2023/24 academic year to students in Yuma who have completed the pre-requisite classes. Having completed those classes, students will have earned their minor in Agribusiness Analytics.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
1. Both AREC 315 and 339, pre-requisite classes for the other two classes AREC403 and 450 were taught successfully to Yuma students using hybrid distance techniques which include asynchronous online classes with weekly live Zoom meetings in the evenint at times when students in Yuma are not working or caring for their family members. Dr. Aradhyula delivered AREC 339 to 32 students live online via Zoom. 2. Asynchronous online versions ofAREC403 and 450 to be offered on D2L, the online platform used by the University of Arizona, were successfully built and readied for offering the following academic year after Yuma students had completed successfully the pre-requisite classes. 3. All three M.S. students graduated successfully. Angela Jungbluth and Jesus Felix de los Reyes both wrote M.S. theses while Laura Hernandez opted for our non-thesis option. Ms. Hernandez entered the job market while Ms. Jungbluth and Mr. de los Reyes are pursuing Ph.D.'s in agricultural economics at Oklahoma State University and Utah State University. 4. Ms. Jungbluth received theExcellence in Teaching Assistance Award from our national association, the Agricultural and Applied Economics Associaiton while Mr. de los Reyes was awarded honorary mention for the same award the following year.
Publications
- Type:
Theses/Dissertations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Angela Jungbluth, "Commodity Price Effects on Agricultural Land Values in Wisconsin," M.S. Thesis, Agricultural & Resource Economics, University of Arizona, July 2023
Jesus Felix de los Reyes, "Understanding Diverse Stakeholder Preferences for Ecosystem Services in Southern California Montane Forests: Informing Forest Management Practices Via Inclusion" M.S. Thesis, Agricultural & Resource Economics, University of Arizona, July 2023
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Progress 09/01/21 to 08/31/22
Outputs
Target Audience:The target audience of the project is comprised of place-bound college students in Yuma, AZ. Students from the Mexicali Valley in Mexico and from Imperial Valley Community College can attend Arizona Western College (AWC) in Yuma at the same tuition rate as Arizona residents. Thus, the target audience includes college age students from the three areas indicated. Most students attending AWC are place bound and cannot afford to move to Tucson, over a 3-hour drive one way, because they lack sufficient money and because many are employed full time in Yuma and have family obligations there. By developing a minor in Agribusiness Analytics, we are targeting those students who seek the skills afforded by a college degree focusing on agribusiness. By extension, another target group consists of agribusiness employers in Yuma, the Imperial and Mexicali Valleys who are seeking employees with data analytic skills. Changes/Problems:Enrollments in the first two courses for the minor have been quite modest. We are seeking to create incentives to attract more students to these classes and, in turn, to the minor. We are actively interacting with Drs. Mayorga and Hodges to find ways of promoting the classes and minor more effectively. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Working in consultation with recording professionals, Dr. Zuo learned how to record professional quality lectures in a professionally equipped studio for herAgribusiness Economics and Management class. She also supervised teaching assistant Angela Junbluth, who learned firsthand both subject matter material as well as pedagogical methods for effective teaching of agribusiness topics. Dr. Zuo also served as a mentor to Ms. Jungbluth advising her on professional and career options. Co-PI Thompson supervised teaching assistant Laura Hernandez in spring 2022 while he taught AREC403, Analysis of Economic Data, on campus. Ms. Hernandez acquired skills in hold discussion sections and grading class assignments. Similar to Dr. Zuo, Dr. Thompson mentored Ms. Hernandez on summer internship options and possible jobs after graduation. Dr. Aradhyula advised Mr. Felix de los Reyes on his M.S. thesis while providing him professional mentoring. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Drs. Mayorga and Hodges in Yuma assisted in promoting the Agribusiness Analytics minor as well as the individual classes for the minor. They worked in close consultation with academic advisors in Yuma to promote the classes by word of mouth as well as with online messaging via emails and in-person announcement boards across the Yuma campus. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?We plan to continue mentoring the three M.S. teaching assistants and involving them directly in creation of content for online classes as well as in the design of asynchronous online classes. Two of the four courses, AREC 315,Agribusiness Economics and Management, and 339, Economic Statistics, are required for the second two courses, AREC403, Analysis of Economic Data and AREC450. We plan on working closely with Drs. Mayorga and Hodges to ensure that students new to the minor take the first two courses and that continuing students enroll in the second two courses. We also plan to complete development of asynchronous versions of all classes and launch them in the appropriate sequence to make sure they are accessible to Yuma students.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Accomplishments were as follows: 1. Determined the optimal sequence of the four agribusiness-related classes required for the minor along with required courses for other majors at UAYuma. We met on several occasions in 2021 with Dr. Baleshka Brenes Mayorga, Director of Agricultural Programs-UA Yuma, and Dr. Tanya Hodges, Executive Director of the Yuma Center for Excellence in Desert Agriculture, to ensure the new classes would be accessible for students in the appropriate sequence and in semesters when students have time to take an additional course. Drs. Mayorga and Hodges provided enthusiastic promotion of the Agribusiness Analytics minor and the four classes. 2. Co-PI Dr. Na Zuo made the intial offering ofAREC 315, Agribusiness Economics and Management by distance--asynchronously online coupled with weekly live Zoom meetings--to the first student in Yuma while teaching the on-campus version of the course in personto over 75 students. 3. In summer 2021, co-PI Dr. Gary Thompson recorded 24 short lectures--7 minutes maximum--for use in developing an asynchronous version of AREC 403, Analysis of Economic Data. He also worked closely with online specialists in asynchronous classses at the University of Arizona to build the underlying framework for the online version of AREC 403 on the online platform D2L.
Publications
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Progress 09/01/20 to 08/31/21
Outputs
Target Audience:The target audience of the project is comprised of place-bound college students in Yuma, AZ. Students from the Mexicali Valley in Mexico and from Imperial Valley Community College can attend Arizona Western College (AWC) in Yuma at the same tuition rate as Arizona residents. Thus, the target audience includes college age students from the three areas indicated. Most students attending AWC are place bound and cannot afford to move to Tucson, over a 3-hour drive one way, because they lack sufficient money and because many are employed full time in Yuma and have family obligations there. By developing a minor in Agribusiness Analytics, we are targeting those students who seek the skills afforded by a college degree focusing on agribusiness. The proportion of Hispanic students in this area is among the highest in the Southwest. Those Hispanic students in particular are one of the largest segments of the target audience. By extension, another target group consists of agribusiness employers in Yuma, the Imperial and Mexicali Valleys who are seeking employees with data analytic skills. Changes/Problems:A major change that was accomplished without problems was to adjust the budget so as to be able to support three garduate students instead of the original two that were budgeted. The three students we succeeded in recruiting are from under-represented groups in our profession. Hernandez and del los Reyes are Hispanic. Hernandez and Jungbluth are women, who, unfortunately are under-represented in our profession. Hiring three TA's allowed us to increase the professiona academic training afforded in our M.S. program to an additional student. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?As prospective teaching assistants, the three graduate students engaged in orientations and training provided by our department and separately by our college. During summer of 2021, co-PI Zuo engaged in a univesity-wide colloquia and workshop to develop innovative teaching methods and pedagogy. Co-PI Thompson continued developing an online version of his capstone class in data analytics under the tutelage of Arizona Online design specialists. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Academic year 2020/21 served primarily to lay the groundwork for offering the four courses required for the Agribusiness Analytics minor. Our counterparts at UAYuma began extensive advertising of the availability of the minor. At the same time, academic advisors at UAY informed their students about the new minor. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?With the matriculation of the three M.S. students, we will supervise them as TA's in the four classes and begin developing teaching materials tailored to UAY students. With the initial offerings of two of the four courses in the 2021/22 academic year, we will endeavor to make the learning experiences as good as possible for Yuma students so that they, in turn, serve as ambassadors for the courses and minor. In a relatively small community like Yuma, word of mouth is a powerful advertising tool.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Beginning in fall 2020 we met with key personnel at UA, Yuma and AWC to discuss pre-requisites for the four agribusiness courses to be offered at UAYuma. Students already enrolled UAY have relatively fixed course schedules from semester to semester in order to make adequate progress toward earning their major degrees. Our task was to ensure that the sequence of four agribusiness classes for our minor meshed well with existing course schedules. We also were seeking to ensure that students enrolling our the agribusiness course had adequater background in economics, statistics, and mathematics in order to excell in these minor courses. Also beginning in fall 2020 we sought to recruit M.S. students who would serve as teaching assistants (TAs) in the on-campus offerings of the four agribusiness classes and would simultaneously assist in developing online versions of those classes to offer as part of the distance classes in hybird mode. The PD and co-PIs advertised the avaialbiltity of HSI-sponsored assistantships and worked professional networks to spread the word to prospective graduate students. In spring 2021, the PD and co-PIs screened applicants to our M.S. program, interviewed finalists by Zoom, and made formal offers to three prospective graduate students. Though the original proposal had budgeted for only two students, with prior approval, we shifted funds across categories to hire three excellent graduate students: Laura Hernandez, Jesus Felix de los Reyes, and Angel Jungbluth. Those three student matriculted in our M.S. program in August 2021.
Publications
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