Performing Department
Agriculture
Non Technical Summary
According to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, there is an underrepresentation of minorities in the USDA permanent workforce (U.S. EEOC). Similarly, the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) found that underrepresented students in the Class of 2019 experienced a high disadvantage in obtaining paid internships compared to White students (NACE, 2019). RAISE's goal is to implement an innovative strategy to increase U.S. underrepresented students' opportunities in food, agricultural, natural resources, and human sciences (FANH)agencies by: 1) creating a one of a kind internship HUB to assist and offer each year, 55 paid fall, spring, and summer internships with USDA, Texas AgriLife Extension and Bobcat Farm to not just the host institution, Texas State University students, but also to a group of partnering community college students, 2) targeting urban counties to broadcast USDA opportunities to a wider, non-traditional agriculture audience allowing students to engage directly in county challenges and feel a sense of making a difference, 3) providing tools to include families and intentionality in career choices (on-boarding process), 4) implementing a unique mentoring program using former USDA fellows that have already participated in an internship and have employment in USDA or government agencies, 5) targeting FANH majors other than agriculture (Nutrition, Family and Consumer Science, Engineering, Biology, Chemistry), and 6) connecting students with federal and state agency professionals to gain skills in applying for federal jobs, resume and cover letter writing, professionalism, communication, ethics, etc. Community college students will be given an opportunity to make a connection with the four-year university by being dually enrolled at each institution and gaining course credit to be applied once transfer takes place.RAISE will increase the number of underrepresented students completing a four-year degree in FANH, aid in developing a vibrant, competitive, and highly skilled FANH workforce eligible for federal and state agencies, improve professional development opportunities for current and future USDA employees, and establish a model internship HUB for federal employment that can be used by other higher education institutions in the U.S.
Animal Health Component
0%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
(N/A)
Applied
(N/A)
Developmental
(N/A)
Goals / Objectives
RAISE's goal is to develop strong, long-lasting relationships with USDA, AgriLife Extension, and target community colleges in Texas: Austin Community College, Palo Alto College (San Antonio), Laredo College, and Houston Community Collegeto provide hands-on experiential learning activities, scholarships, and paid internships to build a highly qualified FANH workforce for the future.Objective #1 - Create and implement admission agreements between Texas State University and four community colleges to enable college students to gain course credit for AG 1110 -Careers in Agricultureand 4310 -Agricultural Internshipand develop relationships with a four-year university.Objective #2 - Create a peer mentoring and recruitment program composed of 10 former USDA fellows and 10 enrolled students who are members of the bobCATS student organization.Objective #3 - Improve leadership and professional development skills for FANH employment using newly developed AG 1110 - Careers in Agriculture curriculum.Objective #4 - Develop Bobcat Farm and curriculum into a training site for the local community, NRCS employees, student interns, AgriLife Extension agents, and high school agricultural science teachers.Objective #5 - Provide 275 paid internships with USDA, AgriLife Extension, or Bobcat Farm.Objective #6 - Host 4 yearly summer conferences showcasing student internships, research, and experiential learning activities.Objective #7 - Create and maintain a USDA / governmental agency internship hub at Texas State University for students to enter FANH employment.
Project Methods
EffortsObjective 1: RAISE will solidify relationships with four target community colleges that are located within a day's drive of TXST and each other and develop and implement an admissions agreement that will include dual enrollment between TXST and the four community colleges. Students from the community colleges will dually enroll as non-degree students and gain course credit for AG 1110 - Careers in Agriculture (1 credit hour) and AG 4310 - Agricultural Internship (3 credit hours). Once community college students are ready to transfer to a four-year university, these four credit hours will follow them.Objective 2: RAISE will develop and implement an innovative outreach program targeting community college students in a wide range of academic majors that are relevant in the FANH sciences to build awareness of career opportunities in the USDA, AgriLife Extension, and other agriculturally-related government organizations, including the private and non-profit sectors. The target community colleges that will be active and engaged partners [Austin Community College, Palo Alto College (San Antonio), Laredo Community College, and Houston Community College) are in the southern portion of Texas that is densely populated by a Hispanic population. Additionally, a student organization, bobCATS (Champions for Agriculture that Teach Success), will be formed to develop marketing and recruitment materials for RAISE and TXST's Department of Agricultural Science.Objective 3: TXST's Department of Agricultural Sciences AG 1110 - Careers in Agriculture freshman level course will undergo a significant curriculum revision for implementation in RAISE.Objective 4: RAISE will develop Bobcat Farm, housed at TXST, into a training site for local community members, NRCS employees, AgriLife Extension agents, high school agricultural science teachers, and student interns. Fifty RAISE student interns (10 students per summer) will participate in paid internships and enrolled at the Bobcat Farm through the AG 4371 Field Experiences course. After successfully completing AG 4371, RAISE students will host Bobcat Farm field days for the community centered around the following topics: 1) soil health principles, soil restoration, and management, 2) fruit and vegetable cultivation and methods for improving plant health, 3) integrated pest management and methods to decrease pest pressure, 4) water conservation and management with rainwater harvesting and efficient irrigation systems, and 5) innovative agricultural technologies. Two field days including hands-on demonstrations will be offered during fall and spring semesters for K-12 youth, including schools, 4-H clubs, and FFA student organizations. An additional two field days, one each fall and spring semester, will also be offered on weekends and/or evenings for the larger community, including NRCS employees and high school teachers.Objective 5: Once bobCATS make recruiting visits at the respective community colleges and Texas State University each semester, internship applications that are submitted by the interested applicant will be reviewed by an advisory committee who will make recommendations on who is selected to participate. The advisory committee, project directors, AgriLife Extension directors, hub coordinator, and USDA-ARS officials will make recommendations on placement locations. Students will be notified and be required to attend an on-boarding workshop discussing pay, duties, location, living, expectations, and mentors. Parents will be invited to this information session. Fifty-five students per year will be selected for internships as seen below:AgriLife Extension (40):10 Fall, 10 Spring, 20 SummerUSDA-ARS (5):5 SummerBobcat Farm (10):10 SummerObjective 6: IDEA (Intern Display of Experiential Accomplishments), a two-day conference will be conducted each summer in late August showcasing fifty-five interns' experiences via oral and poster presentations. The conference will incorporate a browse session with different booths featuring industry, agribusinesses, USDA agencies, and AgriLife Extension and career and leadership development activities including, but not limited to, career counseling, ethics and professionalism, application process to USDA and other governmental agencies, resume/cover letter assistance, and interviewing.Objective 7: An internship hub for Food, Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Human Sciences (FANH) minority recruitment will be created at Texas State University to become a state and national center for recruiting, retaining, and placing students from underserved populations in local, regional, state, and federal agencies, with a particular focus on the USDA agencies and AgriLife Extension.EvaluationA mixed methods approach will be employed to assess reaching the proposed outcomes as the project evolves and evaluate its impact at the end of each year. The plan includes an internal quantitative data collecting process (summative) and an external quantitative and qualitative process (formative).The internal evaluation process will be monitored and supervised by the PI, Co-PIs, and Extension Internship Program Coordinator. These and demographic data will be collected by TXST project staff. Students will be tracked for three years to assess the impact of RAISE, e.g., employment in the USDA, AgriLife Extension or the private and non-profit sectors disciplines related to FANH sciences.The external evaluation process will be formative in nature and conducted by an external evaluator who will be a part of the project leadership team and participate in all project meetings and key project activities. The evaluation will continually assess five points: (1) status and progress toward reaching the measurable stated objectives; (2) successes and concerns expressed by stakeholders, e.g., students, faculty and internship mentors; (3) identification of additional topics that may be researched through the RAISE network; (4) lessons being learned in implementing RAISE; and (5) illumination of next steps that may be taken as a result of the RAISE experience.A preflection/reflection exercise that is intended to prepare the students for the overall learning experience (preflection) and assess what the students gained from the experience (reflection), with an emphasis on Bloom's affective domain. The preflection exercise will be conducted at the start of the students' time in the program: the reflection exercise will be conducted at the end of their time in the program, e.g., in conjunction with the poster presentations during the annual conference. Responses will be content analyzed, tabulated, interpreted, and reported to the PI.Pre- and post-tests to assess what knowledge the students have gained about the missions, programs, challenges, employment opportunities, and application processes with the USDA, AgriLife Extension, and private and non-profit sectors. (Cognitive domain).Formative focus group surveys/discussions with students, faculty, internship mentors, and other stakeholders will take place mid-way and at the end of each 10-15-week internship period four. The objective will be to assess what is working well and what may need attention. Three questions will guide the survey/discussions: How do you describe RAISE? What is going well with RAISE? What would you like to see different in RAISE? Responses will be content analyzed, tabulated, interpreted, and reported to the PI.Review of progress based on internal and external evaluations will be continual, reported, and discussed at all project meetings.