Progress 02/01/24 to 01/31/25
Outputs
Target Audience:This fourth year of our program, we did not engage in recruitment or outreach efforts, since we do not have funding to admit a third cohort. However, we still promoted the accomplishments and activities being led by TFS Fellows, primarily among faculty, administrators and students at the University of Michigan (UM), but also via our social media outlets (our Foundations of Sustainable Food Systems (SFSI) UM website, as well as our SFSI Facebook and Twitter accounts). The SFSI social media outlets reach a wide audience of people who follow SFSI news and events from Michigan as well as nationally and internationally, including academics, students at other universities, food systems practitioners, and others interested in food systems. SFSI has nearly 3,000 subscribers to our newsletter, and in the last year, we had over 16,700 unique visitors to our SFSI website, 1,700 followers on Facebook, and nearly 1,000 followers on Twitter/X. Changes/Problems:This past year we haven't had any major changes or challenges - other than the looming reality that our funding will be ending after the second cohort graduates in May, 2025. For USDA staff reading this - please let us know if there's any way to get additional funding or funding opportunities with other organizations you know of that would be interested in funding a program that we believe has been very successful and garnered significant visibility for UM as a top place to study interdisciplinary food systems studies. Tireless efforts that the TFS students themselves have been leading in the "Save the TFS" campaign since January 2024 to keep this program alive have so far resulted in funding commitments for TFS tuition scholarships from our Rackham Graduate School (for cohorts of 6 each year going forward) and our Urban and Regional Planning Program (for 2 of the TFS Fellows each year). Federal funding cuts have created too much uncertainty for the moment for the two other units - the School of Public Health and the School for Environment and Sustainability. While they hope to also be able to continue offering TFS scholarships in the future, it's currently unclear if/when they will be able to. The students are also working with UM's Foundation Relations and requesting meetings with foundations in Michigan and nationally, to explore the possibility of securing funding for fully-paid internships for future TFS Fellows to work alongside and support Michigan-based non-profits and urban farms who are leading work on urban agriculture, school food, food access, emergency food assistance, food hubs, local food retail, and food policy. They have so far secured commitments from 16 organizations across Southern Michigan, primarily in Detroit, who want to partner with the TFS to host future TFS Fellows if/when we can secure funding to support such an internship program. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?For the field component that we encourage with the TFS program, all seven students did at least one internship last summer, and also worked with clients or did other internships during the school year for their Master's exit projects. As noted above, since January of 2024, five TFS Fellows have also been taking a group-based independent study course we call "Turning Theory into Action to Transform Food Systems" where they are leading the "Save the TFS" campaign to try to institutionalize the TFS program, because of the impact the program has had on them. We also organize social events to keep the larger group of 7 TFS Fellows to maintain a strong social support network across their three units. ? How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Describe how the results have been disseminated to communities of interest. Include any outreach activities that have been undertaken to reach members of communities who are not usually aware of these research activities for the purpose of enhancing public understanding and increasing interest in learning and careers in science, technology, and the humanities. Because this is a training fellowship, we do not have traditional research "results" to share. Our TFS webpage showcases profiles of each of the fellows, products from the TFS Seminar, and stories about their summer field experiences (See here: https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/sustainablefoodsystems/transformative-food-systems-fellows/ The TFS Fellows also took the initiative to develop a short promotional video about the TFS program, to help with fundraising efforts they are leading for the "Save the TFS" campaign described below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nwd0akplHMQ As noted above, we also promote TFS accomplishments via our social media outlets (our Foundations of Sustainable Food Systems (SFSI) UM website, as well as our SFSI Facebook and Twitter accounts). The SFSI social media outlets reach a wide audience of people who follow SFSI news and events from Michigan as well as nationally and internationally, including academics, students at other universities, food systems practitioners and others interested in food systems. SFSI has nearly 3,000 subscribers to our newsletter, and in the last year, we had over 16,700 unique visitors to our SFSI website, 1,700 followers on Facebook and nearly 1,000 followers on Twitter/X. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?In the next month we will be celebrating the graduation of the last seven (of 12) students. One student plans to continue running his food systems non-profit and urban farm in Detroit, while others are applying to continuing education opportunities and food systems jobs related to urban agriculture, program evaluation, urban and regional food systems planning, and agroecology. Over the next and final year of our grant, we will be analyzing course evaluations/reflections and exit interviews we've collected on the TFS Fellows (and other students who took the TFS Seminar). We've also been reflecting on our initial idea of creating a possible cross-unit master's program and have seen value in keeping the same configuration as we've structured the TFS - where students secure a traditional masters in urban planning, nutrition or sustainability studies, while completing a Graduate Certificate in Sustainable Food Systems. We also plan to add profiles of TFS Fellows after they graduate for a series we do on UM Sustainable Food Systems Initiative alumni. As part of our larger effort to keep the TFS program and curricula going, the UM Sustainable Food Systems Initiative (SFSI) Advisory Committee - on which Dr. Hoey and Dr. Perfecto serve - also secured commitments in recent months from 7 units on campus (Taubman College where URP is located, SEAS, SPH, Matthaei Botanical Gardens, the College of Literature Science and Arts, the Residential College, and Ecology and Evolutionary Biology) to share funding for a full-time SFSI Manager for the next three years. We are now asking the UM Provost for matching funding. The goal would be for the SFSI Manager to lead a future version of the TFS program, to mentor future TFS Fellows, run the Graduate Certificate in Sustainable Food Systems, and manage the core TFS course requirements (Food Literacy for All and the year-long TFS Seminar, both of which are open to all university students and have shown high demand from students; the Food Literacy for All course is also open the public, reaching hundreds of community participants each week and thousands of views of videos that remain in our free video library). The SFSI Manager would also continue to fundraise to secure long-term funding for the TFS program, working with UM's Foundation Relations and development staff leading the university's capital campaign, which is making food systems a major priority and which has been working with those of us on the SFSI Advisory Committee for the past year to develop funding pitches.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Our major accomplishment this past year included graduating five TFS Fellows in May 2024, most of whom completed the Graduate Certificate in Sustainable Food Systems. They are each continuing in food and nutrition careers: completing a year-long Dietetic Internship with the VA Caribbean Healthcare System's Nutrition and Food Service in San Juan, Puerto Rico. running a non-profit urban farm in Detroit, Michigan. serving as an agriculture conservation specialist in Hawai'i working as a farmers market assistant manager in Michigan leading policy research on health and wellness education for a Michigan think tank We also ran a second year of a university-wide SFSI Summer Internship Fellowship (with SEAS funding) in the Summer of 2024 for master's students who want to pursue internships with under-resourced food systems organizations (prioritized for TFS Fellows if their IART funding is insufficient to cover their living expenses during their summer internships or independent research).
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Progress 02/01/23 to 01/31/24
Outputs
Target Audience:As a reminder, this progress report is for a NIFA NNF grant that is supporting the SEAS Fellows, while a second NIFA NNF grant headed by Lesli Hoey is supporting the Nutritional Science/SPH and URP Fellows. We treat the three-unit, TFS Fellowship as a single program - hence the similar reporting across both grants. This third year of our program did not engage in recruitment or outreach efforts, since we will not be admitting a third cohort. However, we still promoted the accomplishments and activities being led by TFS Fellows, primarily among faculty, administrators and students at the University of Michigan, but also via our social media outlets (our Foundations of Sustainable Food Systems (SFSI) UM website, as well as our SFSI Facebook and Twitter accounts). The SFSI social media outlets reach a wide audience of people who follow SFSI news and events from Michigan as well as nationally and internationally, including academics, students at other universities, food systems practitioners and others interested in food systems. SFSI has 2,000 subscribers to our newsletter (the max we can have through our Mailchimp account), and in 2023, we had 17,979 unique visitors to our SFSI website, 1,700 followers on Facebook and 1,060 followers on Twitter/X https://twitter.com/SFSI_UM (which we joined in 2016). ? Changes/Problems:This past year we haven't had any major changes or challenges - other than the looming reality that our funding will be ending after the second cohort graduates in 2025 and our efforts to consider whether/how we might secure significant funding to keep the program going. For USDA staff reading this - please let us know if there's any way to get additional funding! What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?We continued to support/offer the core requirements of the TFS Fellowship: a field experience (usually in the form of an internship or as part of students' Master's exit projects), the TFS Seminar, the already established Foundations of Sustainable Food Systems course (co-taught by three TFS USDA grant faculty), and the course Food Literacy for All. We also facilitated/encouraged TFS Fellows to enroll in the UM Sustainable Food Systems Certificate program, given that we structure the TFS requirements to be similar. With both cohorts on campus this year, we also hosted a series of dinners and non-credit professional development sessions (on considering a PhD, peer review of resumes/CVs, Cohort 1 presentations about their summer field experiences, discussing additional funding opportunities, etc.). This year we also offered two additional courses for credit. One was a book club where 8 Fellows from across both cohorts and 2 TFS Seminar students read and reviewed three food systems books. We are now working on a co-authored, comparative book review solicited by the Journal of the American Planning Association. The second independent study - titled Turning Theory into Action to Transform Food Systems - involves six TFS Fellows (a mix from both cohorts). Informed by pedagogy developed by the Institute for Teaching Social Action (led by Scott Myers Lipton and sponsored by the Bonner Foundation), the TFS Fellows launched the "Save the TFS" campaign, out of their desire institutionalize the TFS Fellowship so that future underrepresented students can study food systems. As they describe in a pitch they are developing to approach UM leadership and foundations: "The TFS Fellowship is more than a scholarship. It's a consortium of driven students eager to engage in transdisciplinary conversations around transforming our food systems. TFS Fellows represent a diverse array of cultural backgrounds, geographic communities, lived experiences, and professional aspirations. We recognize that diverse leaders are needed to combat diverse challenges. By learning about the unique experiences we each bring to the table, we are stronger together. Furthermore, through critical conversations and course engagement as a cohort, we approach food systems challenges with a multidisciplinary and equity lens. The TFS funding from the USDA was only intended for two cohorts (2022-2025). Therefore, we are working on a coalition to galvanize funding to continue this critical program. There are not many students that would actively organize to ensure their fellowship program benefits future students. That truth speaks volumes to the determination the TFS fellows demonstrate in cultivating food system leaders. While the Save the TFS group accomplished a lot this semester (developing a logo, filming 12 interviews and b-roll, laying out a plan to revamp the TFS Fellows webpage, drafting a "Save the TFS" pitch, researching the history of DEI and other aligned goals at UM we could leverage, and hosting USDA Deputy Under Secretary Stacy Dean on April 19th - a fireside chat that TFS Fellows will facilitate), we have a plan to continue this work together in the Fall, when we will be focusing our efforts on holding meetings with UM Foundation Relations and key UM advocates/programs that could invest long-term in the TFS as well as Michigan foundations. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Because this is a training fellowship, we do not have traditional research "results" to share. The TFS Fellows are organizing a major event around Stacy Dean's (USDA Deputy Under Secretary) visit on April 19th, which we believe is raising the visibility of the TFS and generating additional interest in food systems studies at UM. We also added a TFS webpage where we showcase profiles of each of the fellows and the first cohort's blogs about their summer field experiences (See here: https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/sustainablefoodsystems/tfs-fellows/). We will be adding to this webpage and building out all 12 profiles with their CVs, accomplishments and research projects/writing they produce over the coming months. ? What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?In the next month we will be celebrating the graduation of five students from the first cohort (with one continuing on for a dual degree). We will also support the second cohort with their field experiences this summer and continue the "Save the TFS" campaign. This will be in addition to regular dinners and sessions to maintain community building among the second cohort. We will also be collecting and analyzing course evaluations, holding a collective debrief and requiring a written reflection from students in the second TFS Seminar, and will encourage the second cohort to apply and complete the final credits they need to obtain the UM "Graduate Certificate in Sustainable Food Systems". As we reflect on how the TFS could translate into a possible cross-unit master's program, we will also hold focus groups with current and alumni TFS Fellows in the coming year, and plan to add profiles of TFS Fellows after they graduate for a series we do on UM Sustainable Food Systems Initiative (SFSI) alumni. ?
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Our major accomplishments this past year included: welcoming our second cohort and second year of the integrative TFS Seminar - which we are continuing to test as a possible model for an eventual, inter-departmental Master's program. We are also running a second year of a university-wide SFSI Summer Internship Fellowship (with SEAS funding) for master's students who want to pursue internships with under-resourced food systems organizations that focus on sustainability, social justice and nutrition (prioritized for TFS Fellows if their IART funding is insufficient to cover their living expenses during their summer internships or independent research). ?
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Progress 02/01/22 to 01/31/23
Outputs
Target Audience:NOTE: As a reminder, this progress report is for a NIFA NNF grant that is supporting the SEAS Fellows, while a second NIFA NNF grant headed by Lesli Hoey is supporting the Nutritional Science/SPH and URP Fellows. We treat the three-unit, TFS Fellowship as a single program - hence the similar reporting across both grants. We carried out a number of activities during this second year of our grant to recruit applicants for the second cohort of the Transformative Food Systems (TFS) Fellowship, focused on our target audience (i.e. low-income, first-generation and/or underrepresented prospective Master's students from the U.S.). This included posts on social media (Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin) and e-mails we forwarded to 15 food systems networks, 5 food systems listservs (e.g., COMFOOD, an urban planning food systems scholars listserv), 7 UM or Detroit-based programs that work with underrepresented or food systems-oriented undergraduate students, and 32 McNair Scholars who graduated spring of 2022 with majors in food systems-related topics. We also advertised on the Journal of Agriculture, Food Security and Community Development webpage (a journal widely read by action researchers and food systems practitioners). Since our last progress report submitted April 1, 2022, 49 people completed the TFS interest form, indicating that they were interested in learning more about the Fellowship. We also had 81 registrants and 36 attendees for our TFS Webinar Fall of 2022, from 20 different states as well as Washington DC and Puerto Rico. In April, 2023, we also held a virtual preview event with our second cohort of six applicants who were offered the fellowship (to encourage them to accept our offer of admissions). The major difference in year two is that the students in the first TFS cohort shared their experience in the Fellowship and offered advice to prospective and admitted students. Our 2023 recruitment attracted a total of 167 applications to the TFS Fellowship (up from 97 last year), although only 50 of those applicants were eligible and submitted complete applications. For the three units involved in the Fellowship, this included 27 applicants to SEAS, 9 to SPH, and 10 to URP. Four of these students applied to both URP and SEAS. One additional applicant was undecided. Our 2023 TFS Admissions Committee offered the Fellowship to six applicants (3 in SEAS, 2 in URP and 1 in SPH). Five of the six applicants who were offered admission accepted the fellowship, and one student declined because of a better fit with another university program. That final fellowship was offered to someone on the waitlist, who accepted the offer. Changes/Problems:This past year we haven't had any major changes or challenges. We plan to make some changes to the TFS Seminar in the coming year based on their feedback and ideas to strengthen it further. We also decided to drop the requirement to re-take the seminar in year 2 to free them up to take more courses specific to their individual Master's programs, but we are designing a professional seminar to keep the first cohort engaged with regular check-ins, both with their cohort and in combination with the second cohort to foster peer-mentoring. This coming year, the major challenge will be considering whether/how we might secure significant funding to keep the program going. Cindy Leung, from the School of Public Health, also left her position for Harvard, so she is no longer part of our grant. But Andrew Jones, also in the School of Public Health Nutrition Sciences program was always a part of our grant from the beginning (we're not sure why he isn't listed on the cover page), so he has continued to be our SPH mentor/faculty co-project director. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?The first cohort of six TFS Fellows began their respective two-year programs Fall of 2022. They all enrolled in the year-long TFS Seminar as well as two already established courses required for the Fellowship (Foundations of Sustainable Food Systems and Food Literacy for All). Together, these courses expose the Fellows to diverse food systems researchers and practitioners, as well as core concepts related to food systems challenges and opportunities for facilitating change. We also worked with each fellow to ensure that they secured a summer "field experience" so that they gain hands-on experience. Two of the six students will be working with organizations in Alaska, three are collaborating on a professional research project together as a group in Hawai'i (and one of these Fellows is also working with an organization in Puerto Rico), and one Fellow will be working with a non-profit in SE Michigan. In addition to one-on-one meetings with their TFS Advisors, we also held regular group check-in meetings throughout the year, to discuss summer internship/research possibilities, ensure adequate academic progress, offer advice on courses to take, solicit feedback on adjustments we can make to the Fellowship and create a strong peer mentoring, cohort effect. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Because this is a training fellowship, we do not have traditional research "results" to share. We created the TFS website and held a public webinar in 2022 as part of our recruitment strategy, which we believe generated additional interest in food systems studies at UM. We also added a webpage where we showcase profiles of each fellows (See here: https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/sustainablefoodsystems/tfs-fellows/) and we will be adding short blogs of their summer field experiences and links to students' TFS Seminar projects. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Over the coming year we will be welcoming the second cohort and piloting a TFS Professional Seminar (Pro-Sem) with a monthly gathering that combines both cohorts to encourage peer mentoring, maintain community building among the first cohort (which will also sometimes meet on their own), and engage in professional development activities. We will also be collecting and analyzing course evaluations and assignments from the first TFS Seminar, soliciting applications from non-TFS Fellows to participate in the second year of the course, and holding focus groups with TFS Seminar students and TFS Fellows to solicit feedback to inform adjustments to the Seminar and Fellowship for the coming year. We will also be working with the first cohort to formally apply and complete the final credits they need to obtain the UM "Graduate Certificate in Sustainable Food Systems".
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
In line with our goals, our major accomplishments this past year included: launching our program with our first cohort, admitting the second cohort, and launching a new course - the integrative TFS Seminar - which we are piloting as a potential model for an eventual, inter-departmental Master's program. We also launched a university-wide SFSI Summer Internship Fellowship (with SEAS funding) for master's students who want to pursue internships with under-resourced food systems organizations that focus on sustainability, social justice and nutrition. This additional funding is being prioritized for TFS Fellows who need to supplement the $2,750 IRTA funding for their summer field experience, but is open to any Master's student across campus. This funding has an important equity implication, to ensure that low-income students have the option of considering unfunded or under-funded internships.
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Progress 02/01/21 to 01/31/22
Outputs
Target Audience:(NOTE: As a reminder, this progress report is for a NIFA NNF grant that is supporting the SEAS Fellows, while a second NIFA NNF grant headed by Lesli Hoey is supporting the Nutritional Science/SPH and URP Fellows. We treat the three-unit, TFS Fellowship as a single program - hence the similar reporting across both grants). School for Environment and Sustainability/ Urban and Regional Planing/ School of Public Health We carried out a number of activities to recruit applicants for the Transformative Food Systems (TFS) Fellowship, focused on our target audience (i.e. low-income, first generation and/or underrepresented prospective Master's students from the U.S.). This included reaching out to 32 individual contacts working with organizations across the country who work directly with the population we aim to engage (such as Black run urban agriculture organizations), 39 academic institutions across the U.S. that host an undergraduate food systems program, 6 groups at the University of Michigan that work with underrepresented undergraduate students, and 9 national listservs that focus on issues of food systems, equity, and justice. Additionally, we met with the Tribal Liaison and Native American Specialist for the State of Michigan, who shared information about the TFS Fellowship directly with tribal education directors throughout Michigan. We also reached out to representatives of tribal colleges and HBCUs across the country. The interest that these recruitment efforts generated included: 61 registrants and 23 attendees for our TFS Webinar Fall of 2021 and 53 people who completed our TFS interest form linked to our TFS webpage. The TFS, we believe, may have also attracted more applicants who are specifically interested in studying food systems to each of the programs that will house TFS Fellows (the Nutritional Sciences/School of Public Health - SPH; the Urban and Regional Planning (URP) Program; and the School of the Environment and Sustainability (SEAS)). A total of 99 (or 36% of) URP applicants, for instance, and 224 (or 18% of) SEAS applicants expressed an interest in studying food systems. Ultimately, our recruitment attracted 97 applicants to the TFS Fellowship (for 6 fellowships in year one). For the three units involved in the Fellowship, this included 55 applicants to SEAS, 14 to SPH, and 29 to URP. Two of these students applied to both URP and SEAS for a dual degree. One additional applicant was undecided. Changes/Problems:The only major challenge we realized initially was that we might not accomplish our goal of attracting the most underrepresented students possible (i.e. those who are not only culturally underrepresented or first generation, but also low-income). Securing funding to cover a significant portion of tuition helped tremendously in this regard. We are still trying to cover student health insurance, however, as our current budget does not cover this. If we can secure initial financing from each of the three units over the next month, we may ask USDA if we can rearrange our NIFA budgets to allocate a portion of our budget towards student health insurance to cover the remainder needed. Until we can resolve this issue we have not been drawing on either of our grants for one of our key administrators who has been working with us since April of last year and has been vital for helping us carry out recruitment efforts and manage the admissions process. To date, we have been supporting her salary via other sources, but we will soon transfer the portion we allotted in our NIFA NNF budget to her salary as she will continue to work with us to manage recruitment and admissions, track our outcomes, and supervise the internship portion of the program that students will complete Summer of 2023 and 2024. One minor change from our original plan is that we decided to only engage in recruitment efforts virtually, due to COVID, but this does not seem to have affected the number of applicants (97) which was far higher than we expected to attract. We also attracted a number of international applicants as well as other U.S. applicants who did not meet our eligibility requirements (i.e. low-income, first generation and/or underrepresented). We have identified ways to make the eligibility requirements clearer on both our website and the application process and don't expect this to be a problem next year. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?The first cohort of TFS Fellows will begin in the Fall of 2022. At that point, TFS Fellows will enroll in the coming year in the new TFS Seminar as well as two other, already established courses required for the fellowship. Each of these courses will include in depth exposure to food systems researchers and practitioners, as well as core concepts related to food systems challenges and opportunities for change. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Because this is a training fellowship, we do not have traditional research "results" to share. We created the TFS website and held a public webinar in 2021 to disseminate as part of our recruitment strategy. In the future, we also plan to showcase profiles of each fellow and some of their writing/experiences, as well as program evaluation data. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Over the coming year we will begin the first year of our first cohort. Our team will mentor the students, ensure they take the three required courses, and help them identify and secure summer internship or research opportunities. We will also recruit our second cohort of fellows, who will begin Fall of 2023. Additionally, we will refine and begin to collect process and impact evaluation data.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Overview During this first year of the grant, we focused on recruitment, admitting our first cohort, additional fundraising, and designing a new course specific for the TFS Fellows program. Our recruitment efforts and accomplishments are noted under "Target Audience". The admissions process required us to form a cross-unit Admissions Committee and to establish criteria and a process for making admissions decisions. Six students (3 in SEAS - one of whom is a dual degree applicant with URP, 1 in URP and 2 in SPH) were offered admission. As of the end of March, four of the six applicants offered admission had accepted the fellowship and matriculated to their programs; the deadline to decide is April 15th. We also created an internal waitlist in case any of these students do not accept the TFS Fellowship offer. We also succeeded in designing the integrative TFS Seminar that the Fellows will be required to take during their 2-year program, which will be vital to creating a strong cohort effect. We secured approval from all three units to offer the new cross-listed course and agreed that Fall of 2022, the Seminar will be co-taught by the two PIs of our two NIFA grants (Lesli Hoey and Ivette Perfecto), and thereafter the course will be co-taught by Lesli Hoey and another NIFA grant faculty member. Other students across campus will also be invited to enroll via an application. The course will be available to 15 students total, 6 of whom will be Fellows the first year, and 12 the second year of the course. Registration for the course is underway. Another major accomplishment was our fundraising over the last year to complement the NIFA NNF funding in several ways. First, we raised additional funding in order to increase the financial package offered to TFS Fellows. While the USDA-funded stipend and travel award would likely attract many underrepresented or first generation students to apply, we were concerned that we would not be able to attract low-income applicants because tuition at the University of Michigan - especially for out of state students - is so high (over $48,000 annually, not counting health insurance and fees). Through our efforts, we were able to convince each unit to commit $24,000 in a tuition scholarship for each of their TFS Fellows, and our Rackham Graduate School to match this commitment, so that all TFS Fellows will receive $48,000 towards tuition. For out of state Fellows, this will cover 50% of their tuition costs over two years and nearly 100% of the tuition costs for in-state students. Second, we were awarded an internal grant of $10,000 from the University of Michigan Center for Research on Learning and Teaching to cover costs for the TFS Seminar, such as vehicle rental for all-day field trips, lodging for our 3-day retreat at the end of each year, and honoraria for community-led workshops and speakers. Third, we secured additional funding from SEAS to offer a stipend to all TFS Fellows interested in doing their required summer internship or research component in the U.S. While the NIFA travel award will be useful for students who want to work with one of our international partners, we also have numerous partners in the U.S., particularly here in Michigan, who are interested in working with our Fellows. This additional funding will offer students a stipend of $3,000 to cover 10 weeks of a part-time (20 hour/week) internship or research position in Michigan or elsewhere in the U.S. Across these three funding efforts, we secured a total of $616,000 through internal UM sources, more than doubling the amount that we received through two NIFA NNF grants.
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