Recipient Organization
RESEARCH FOUNDATION OF THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK
31-10 THOMSON AVE
LONG ISLAND CITY,NY 111013007
Performing Department
Natural Sciences
Non Technical Summary
"Project SEMBRAR: Diversifying the next generation of urban agricultural STEM leaders", is an innovative, tiered grant, from LaGuardia Community College. New York City is a melting pot of immigrant communities and represents a wealth of underrepresented populations, but research shows that immigrants are suffering economically due to a lack of access to careers in the Food and Agriculture industries. The main goal of Project SEMBRAR is to sustain and grow the next generation of Urban STEM agricultural leaders. LaGuardiaCommunity College is a two-year public, open access college that has been serving the borough of Queens for over thirty-two years. It is known as the World's Community College, with students from over 158 different countries, speaking 114 different native languages. The College enrolls over 33,000 students and provides degree courses, job-training, career development and English as a Second Language courses. It is the mission of this College to raise the aspirations of low income, first-generation minority students and then assist them to achieve their goals. A recent report from The Center for an Urban Future, ranks LaGuardia third amongst 25 CUNY colleges in successfully graduating students with STEM degrees. LaGuardia is a pioneer in STEM education, we have robust state of the art research labs, field internship programs, NIH-Bridges program, Women in STEM scholarships and the CUNY Research Scholars Programs which are just a few examples of the research opportunities we provide students so that they may successfully graduate and transfer. For over six years, LaGuardia's Environmental Sciences Program has offered first-class research projects that have enabled our students to grow in self-confidence and ability while exposing them to the critical ecological and biological issues facing our country and planet. Project SEMBRAR uses three major tasks which are steeped in evidence-based research to build a coordinated pathway to degrees and careers in urban agriculture, food science and food justice for Hispanic and low-income students of color. Project SEMBRAR will serve as a model to urban community colleges nation-wide by mobilizing students of color into new hot-spot AgSTEM careers. SEMBRAR plans to do this by building strategic partnerships between high school, associates, bachelors programs and local community stakeholders, providing opportunities and access to food and agricultural careers in the public and private sector and strengthening recruitment, retention and leadership at respective partner institutions. SEMBRAR plans to use 90% of the funding directly towards urban agricultural curriculum development, community partnerships, and student stipends for participating in the AgSTEM Experiential Learning Program (SELP).Urban community colleges tackle our nation's greatest challenges: growing economic disparity, a shrinking middle class, declining standard of living for low-income Americans and food insecurity. Project SEMBRAR is an example of the amazingsynergy that exists between New York's urban and rural educational institutions when we work together forthe betterment of our students.
Animal Health Component
20%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
60%
Applied
20%
Developmental
20%
Goals / Objectives
ProjectSEMBRAR has three major tasks that are anchored within LaGuardia Community College'sStrategic Plan Prioritiesand uses the Nationally Accredited (AAC&U) Guided Pathways model as its framework to build cohesion. The three major tasks with the assigned perfromance objectives are listed below:1. Building F&A Career Path. Attract and support high school students from 21 College Now High Schools through improved pre-registration activities, engaging digital media and accessible career and workforce information.Performance Objective:In 2021-25, enrollment of urban Hispanic students into the Associates level program in Environmental Science Program will increase by 30%. There will be a 20% increase in number of students pursuing Sustainable Urban Agriculture and Wildlife Science tracks.2. Strengthening and articulating F&A curriculum. Build and grow new tracks within the Environmental Science program directly related to F&A careers. Articulate these tracks with 4-years CUNY and SUNY institutions.Performance Objective:In 2021-25, urban Hispanic students will: (1) be offered 2 new tracks Sustainable Urban Agriculture and Wildlife Science to pursue careers in AgSTEM. (2) show increased retention by 50% in the 2 tracks offered above. (3) be offered 4 new articulations with four-year programs (4) show increased graduation & transfer rates by 15%.3. Creating Experiential Learning Opportunities. Engage students in the SEMBRAR: AgSTEM Experiential Learning Program (SELP) by strengthening experiential learning though summer intensive programming with community partners such as: OKO farm, GrowNYC, and USDA NRCS, Newtown Creek Alliance and Kingsland Wildflowers.Performance Objective:In 2021-25, 25-30% more urban Hispanic students will: (1) Be offered a 6 week summer intensive experiential learning program in AgSTEM. (2) Present an AgSTEM related topic at an undergraduate research conference. (3) Participate in service learning with Queens Community House and (4) Participate in USAJOBS.gov training.
Project Methods
Methods and EffortSEMBRAR is steeped and woven into the fabric of LAGCC's Strategic plan, the best-practice based Guided Pathways model, and NIFAs Educational Need Areas, purpose and goals. Here we describe each of the objectives of the program it's plan of operation and methodology in detail the efforts for each of the tasks are also described. Major Task 1: Building F&A Career Path. Major Task 1 will utilize three inter-locking objectives that will recruit, retain and enroll urban agricultural STEM students into F&A career paths. (1) High-Tech Media Outreach, high school partnerships and digital street teams to decrease "enrollment melt": Of the approximately 40,000 students admitted to LAGCC each year, less than 10% actually register. Major task 1, will hire a Digital Street member and a Peer Advisor who will be LAGCC graduates and/or peers from the Environmental Science program. (2) SEMBRAR AgSTEM Family Career and Internship Open House: AgSTEM Career and internship open houses for high school students will drive more high school students of color into LAGCC's F&A track and address the regional workforce demands by increasing the number and diversity of students pursuing post-secondary agricultural education. AgSTEM Family and Career Open house activities will include eight sessions (in four years) of hands-on learning for high school students and their parents in collaboration with Career and Professional Development Department and USDA related career panels (NRCS). (3) Collaboration with local High Schools: Marisol Lisboa (Key Personnel) will serve as AgSTEM recruiter to Project SEMBRAR and the College Now Program. Through SEMBRAR and College Now's Campus Cohort program, we will offer F&A courses for college credit. High school students enrolled in 18 College now high schools will earn college credit at LAGCC when they enroll in F&A courses. SEMBRAR will also conduct student engagement and outreach with Patrycja Zbrzezny of at John Bowne High School's (JBHS) Agricultural Program. (4) Leveraging the power of CUNY ASAP: Project SEMBRAR will leverage the power of ASAP-STEM (Accelerated Study in Associate Programs) in high impact advisement. ASAP STEM liaison to SEMBRAR; Charis Victory will coordinate this effort. Major Task 2: Strengthening and articulating F&A curriculum. To keep students engaged with their F&A curriculum, Major Task 2 will: (1) Build and grow two new tracks within the Environmental Science Program - Sustainable Urban Agriculture and Wildlife Science. The new Sustainable Urban Agriculture (SUA) track within the A.S. Environmental Science program has already been approved by the State of New York (2020). Across the five boroughs, commercial urban agriculture, community supported agriculture, use of community gardens, and home gardening have all steadily gained momentum in recent years. The SUA track will cultivate future leaders in urban agriculture and address the relationship of agriculture to issues including food security, resource use, climate change, and energy consumption. The core curriculum includes courses in soil science, botany, chemistry, biology, as well as electives in economics, food science, and geographic information science (GIS). The final sequence in this track is Sustainable Urban Agriculture and Sustainable Vegetable Production, where students receive practical training and experience in techniques including propagation, irrigation, and pest control, and conduct a field practicum in urban farming. Graduates of the track will be prepared to enter gardening, agriculture, hydroponics, community organization, or agricultural businesses, or can choose to continue to a 4-year college. The second new track is Wildlife Science (WS) (offered in 2022-23). It will cover topics such as Wildlife & Conservation Biology and Comparative Vertebrate Anatomy and Physiology. (2) Articulate the two new tracks with 4-year urban schools: While a long-standing articulation agreement exists with the School of Earth and Environment Sciences at Queens College, as part of this grant, agreements will be pursued with other 4-year colleges. (3) Restructuring of a Food and Culture Course: The Nutrition and Culinary Management Program currently offers an urban study pathways course - Food and Culture (SCN240) that explores the foodways of population groups across the globe as an expression of the identity and history of their culture. Major Task 3: Creating Experiential Learning Opportunities. Build, grow and sustain SEMBRAR: AgSTEM Experiential Learning Program (SELP). Experiential learning is a High Impact practice and is a HSI educational need area (ENA). SEMBRAR plans to foster a 6-week intensive experiential learning program with community partners. SELP will enable students to build skills necessary to make sound decisions concerning their future employment or continued collegiate education in the areas of the agriculture and natural resources. From the summer sessions of (2022-24) PDs, ASAP, College Now and digital street team recruiters will recruit 15 students into a competitive SELP program (min GPA 3.0 and total number of credits earned between 24-35) to earn experiential learning hours towards an internship that is recommended prior to graduation. This will be an application-based program where students are paid a stipend of $1,500 for 100 hours of hands-on experiential learning with several community partners. In the SELP program, students will work with SUA experiential learning curriculum designed by Jacqueline Pilati from Reclaim Seeds. Topics will include case-studies on USDA supported CSAs and the future of sustainable farming. Students will engage in weekly workshops in collaboration with community partners such as OKO Aquaculture farm, City Growers, Kingsland Wildflowers, and the Newtown Creek Alliance.Evaluation Plans: Baseline Data. LaGuardia Office of Institutional Research (IR) will provide summative feedback and help guide Project SEMBRAR. Key Personnel, Nava Lerer (See Key Personnel) from IR has extensive experience in evaluating a range of higher education initiatives including several Title V grants. The Office of Institutional Research (OIR) at LaGuardia Community College will evaluate thePartnership for Equity and Advancementproject. OIR is housed within a different division from the project team,allowing for independent evaluation, as has been completed for other grant-funded projects (Title Vs) in the past LAGCC's OIR will provide the project team with guidance and expertise on evaluation methodologies, survey instruments, and data analysis. PDs and Co-PDs will administer surveys for qualitative assessment of combined data from OIR. Formative Evaluation: IR will conduct formative evaluation activities to guide program development through the four years of the project. Formative evaluation data will include student surveys, project documentation, faculty and staff feedback, and data related to the pilot testing of specific interventions. Quantitative outcomes and survey data will be compared to college baselines. Summative Evaluation: Summative evaluations will examine the extent to which the program has met desired outcomes, using relevant performance indicators, as noted above.