Progress 09/20/23 to 09/19/24
Outputs
Target Audience:Activities and accomplishments in the first reporting year targeted multiple audiences: 1. The primary audience for this project is HBCU undergraduate students who will: 1) become RDNs; 2) work as community nutritionists without RDN certification or 3) work in allied fields with enhanced nutrition training. Due to a shrinking workforce and a demographic mismatch between the current nutrition workforce and the populations it serves, recruiting students from HBCUs and students from underrepresented backgrounds into the nutrition field who will meet the present and future needs of diverse communities nationwide is a primary goal of this project. 2. Faculty members at partner institutions were the focus of dissemination of multiple faculty development opportunities. 3. Tulane University leadership within the School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine including the Provost, Dean, Senior Associate Dean of Academic Affairs, and Associate Dean of Strategic Initiatives are a target audience as their support for the interinstitutional tuition waiver and operationalizing the cross-registration program are critical to increase access to nutrition-focused curriculum for students at partner institutions. 4. Nutrition- and food-focused organizations and agencies are a key target audience to support our effort to provide mentorship and expose students to opportunities within the public health and nutrition fields. Changes/Problems:Changes Our original Objective 1.2 specified the development of two online courses on "Population Nutrition Assessment" and "Local Food Systems and Nutrition." Given changing demands of our students, we developed two different courses on "Food and Nutrition Policy" and "Essentials of Public Health Nutrition." So, we have changed our objective 1.2 to now read: "Provide education in nutrition for undergrad students within the consortium through the development of two online nutrition courses." Problems In this first year, we have identified three types of problems. First, we noticed administrative challenges at our HBCU partner institutions. Specifically, PDs had less administrative support at the institutional level than we expected, which placed additional demands on their time, and delayed some aspects of our work. For example, it took longer than expected to get all our subaward agreements executed. Invoicing from the HBCUs to Tulane has also been slow. Some of these challenges will be ongoing. Second, we have had administrative challenges at Tulane. Although our chair and dean are both supportive of interinstitutional agreements to allow HBCU students to take our courses and pay tuition to their home campus, developing and finalizing these agreements has been very slow. This is because it represents a loss of revenue to the school, several associate deans must agree on the details, and the whole agreement must be endorsed by the provost. We continue to proceed optimistically and hope to have this resolved in this coming year. Third, there have been declining enrollments in graduate education in general, and public health in particular, in part because of a strong economic recovery post-pandemic. This increases financial concerns by our administration, adding more visibility to our interinstitutional agreements described above. This also might reduce the number of students we can impact through this program. We have redoubled our recruitment efforts to address this problem. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Dr. Diego Rose presented a one-hour webinar titled Nutrition, Environment, and Policy: Multi-Disciplinary Research on Diet and Climate Change in the US on Monday, November 13th, 2023, via Zoom. The webinar was promoted to collaborative faculty and attended by more than 50 people. The Q and A session lasted close to 30 minutes, an indicator of interest in the topic. The Tulane University 6th Annual Sparking Success Faculty Development Conference was held January 10th - 11th, 2024. This free faculty development conference was shared with collaborative partners during year 1. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Dr. Johnson's (Southern University) insights and experiences on promoting diversity in nutrition will be disseminated to a professional nutrition audience, as her paper, written in our first project year and entitled Diversity in the Human Nutrition and Dietetics Profession: Challenges and Opportunities was accepted for publication by the Food and Nutrition Sciences Journal. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Goal 1: Increase recruiting, teaching, and mentoring of HBCU students in nutrition Objective 1.1: Create online network and 2 annual webinars The Green Infrastructure, Food Systems, and Building Climate Resilience in New Orleans Symposium will be held on October 11-12, 2024. This two-day event is part of Tulane University's Climate Change & Health in the Gulf South symposium series. It will feature speakers from diverse disciplines, including architecture, urban planning, public health, nutrition, green infrastructure, and urban farming. The symposium will take place both in person and via Zoom, with a recording available afterward on Tulane Nutrition's YouTube channel. A symposium and accompanying webinar have been proposed for Fall 2025 focused on the state of food access / food policy 20 years post-Katrina in collaboration with the Louisiana Food Policy Action Council. This is envisioned as a way to highlight the impact of collaborative partnerships over the last two decades that have impacted food and nutrition security in the Gulf South. Food policy was identified as a topic of interest for undergraduate students within the collaborative during year 1. The Collaborative website (ladiversenutrition.tulane.edu) will be expanded to include a calendar of events, promotion of training and applied student experience opportunities, and early career job announcements. In addition to the website, we plan to launch a quarterly newsletter highlighting events, accomplishments of the Collaborative, nutrition research and other topics of interest. We anticipate the first newsletter going out Spring 2025. Objective 1.2: Develop two online courses Institutional processes will continue to be pursued to allow undergraduate students within the collaborative to register for graduate courses at Tulane. One graduate course in public health nutrition (US Food and Nutrition Policy) will be offered in an online modality and a second one (Essentials of PHN) will be proposed for approval, content finalized and anticipated to be offered in an online modality by the end of Year 2. In addition to the continued development of these online courses, the Nutrition and Dietetics Skills Laboratory at Southern University will offer in-house nutrition assessment and counseling to the Southern University community during Year 2. The Human Nutrition and Food Program and the Food and Nutrition Association will partner with the School of Nursing Student Nurse Association to host several events during National Nutrition Month (March 2025). Additionally, Dr. Melissa Johnson (Southern University) will begin offering Registered Dietitian (RD) exam preparation for students enrolled in the Southern University Dietetic Internship program during the next reporting period. Objective 1.3: Arrange mentorship opportunities In Year 2, the Collaborative plans to develop a partnership with the Ochsner-Xavier Institute for Health Equity and Research (OXIHER) to develop a formal nutrition-focused student mentorship program within Ochsner Health. This program will aim to create meaningful opportunities for both undergraduate and graduate students from underrepresented communities, fostering diversity and inclusion in the nutrition field. Goal 2: Provide continuing education & professional development to consortium faculty Objective 2.1: Facilitate continuing education opportunities The Green Infrastructure, Food Systems, and Building Climate Resilience in New Orleans Symposium is scheduled to take place October 11-12, 2024. The two-day event, part of the Tulane University Climate Change & Health in the Gulf South symposium series, will be aimed with students, collaborative partners, community partners and the public during Year 2. The Tulane University 7th Annual Sparking Success Faculty Development Conference will be held January 8th - 9th, 2025. This free faculty development conference will again be shared with collaborative partners during year 2. A webinar has been proposed for Year 2 that will be focused on the state of food access / food policy 20 years post-Katrina in collaboration with the Louisiana Food Policy Action Council. Objective 2.2: Enhance collaboration on research projects & professional meeting attendance In Year 2, monthly Collaborative meetings will shift from a round-robin project task reporting format to a more dynamic and interactive structure. Topics, guest speakers, and professional development opportunities will be identified in the initial meeting with PDs. Based on this discussion, future meetings will be strategically planned with designated themes, speakers, or technical assistance sessions. While a portion of each meeting will remain focused on progress reporting, the majority of the time will be dedicated to capacity building and professional development. Additionally, conferences will be identified for which abstracts focused on work of the collaborative will be submitted. We plan to have each PD attend a professional conference in Year 2. Goal 3: Establish interinstitutional agreements Objective 3.1: Develop cross-registration agreements between Collaborative universities Initial research into the current Consortium agreements that exist between Tulane, Xavier and Dillard Universities (which permits undergraduate students to cross register for undergraduate classes at consortium member schools) revealed an opportunity to expose undergraduate students from Xavier and Dillard to undergraduate nutrition courses at Tulane while the interinstitutional agreement for graduate classes is still under development. The Collaborative will begin actively promoting nutrition focused courses at partner institutions during Year 2. Objective 3.2: Create early access programs The Discover Nutrition Pilot Pipeline Program proposal is currently under consideration by the Dean and Provost to allow undergraduate students to take graduate level courses at CSWSPHTM. Once finalized and approved, we will work closely with our admissions team to provide tailored outreach information to students at collaborative institutions about these opportunities. Additionally, press releases and additional public-facing communications are planned to coincide with the launch of these new programs.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Operational Framework Project directors established and designed an administrative, communication, and leadership framework to execute the project's goals and objectives for the first year and advance the project successfully into Years 2 and 3. Subaward Agreements: Developed, negotiated, and fully executed signed subaward agreements with three university co-project directors- Johnson at Southern University (SU), Knapp at Xavier University (XU) and Reed at Dillard University (DU). Senior Program Manager Recruitment: Recruited a Senior Program Manager at Tulane University (the lead site) in March 2024. This role oversees overall project management and coordination, project reporting, administrative coordination with subcontractors, and communication facilitation across the multi-site team. Team Coordination: Established a structured schedule of meetings to ensure smooth collaboration, including monthly meetings with project directors and regular email communications with updates and administrative requests. Subcontractor Recruitment and Development of Evaluation Services: An external evaluator from Indiana University was recruited. Initial consultations in 2023 informed our project proposal. Additional planning and consultations with the evaluator took place in July 2024. A contractor agreement was formalized in August 2024. Development of a systematic data collection tool and plan for semi-structured interviews with each project director began in September 2024. Goal 1: Increase recruiting, teaching, and mentoring of HBCU students in nutrition Objective 1.1: Create online network and 2 annual webinars To create an online network for undergrad students in the consortium to communicate about nutrition, a Collaborative website (ladiversenutrition.tulane.edu) was developed and published in June 2024. This includes profiles and activities of each Collaborative partnerand student resources including Consortium Agreement information and a directory of national public health and nutrition student associations. "Promoting Nutrition Security for Women, Children, and Their Families--An Inter-University Research to Practice Symposium" was held on Tuesday, April 16, at Dillard University and virtually via Zoom. A total of 101 attendees participated, including 74 students. Dillard students supported the symposium by staffing the sign-in table and introducing the panelists. The event was promoted through multiple channels, including campus and community groups, listservs for students, faculty, and alumni at partner institutions, online, and social media. A post-symposium evaluation received 28 responses, with 25 from students. Student respondents shared their current or anticipated professional development needs, which included internships (22), networking opportunities (13), mentorship (9), exploring career pathways (14), and job postings (6). Respondents also indicated preferred topic areas for future events: Sustainable Food Systems (11), Food Policy (8), Maternal Child Health (12), Sports Nutrition (12), and Breastfeeding/IBCLC (11). Planning and promotion of a career panel webinar titled "What is Public Health Nutrition?!" took place within the first reporting period, though the event took place in the first week of our second project year. This was promoted through multiple channels and was hosted by Tulane Nutrition and Tulane Undergraduate Studies in Public Health. See plans for next reporting year for additional details. Objective 1.2: Develop two online courses We proposed to adapt courses on population nutrition assessment and local food systems to an online format. However, to meet changing demands, we adapted two other courses. Food and Nutrition Policy (SBPS 6770) was developed with 14 modules and offered in an online modality during the Spring 2024, though it was not yet accessible for enrollment by undergraduate students within the Collaborative. SBPS 6690 Essentials of Public Health Nutrition was approved by the Tulane SPHTM curriculum committee to be offered in an online modality as of Spring 2024. Sixteen online modules were in the development stage as of the end of our first year. Additionally, Southern University enhanced their Dietetics lab this year. Equipment, materials and tools for improvements to the lab were identified based on comparisons to nutrition and dietetics skills labs at other universities and based on subject areas covered in the Registration Examination for Dietitians. Purchase requisitions have been submitted.On average, 6 undergraduate students and 1 faculty member engaged with the dietetics lab on a weekly basis during the first reporting period. Objective 1.3: Arrange mentorship opportunities We provided mentorship arrangements between undergraduate students at collaborative partner institutions and practicing professionals. Formal agreements between Xavier University and three food/nutrition focused community organizations are in place for paid student practicum experiences.Applications opened summer of 2024, and 15 students applied for positions at Ochsner Eat Fit, Recirculating Farms and Louisiana Food Policy Action Council. Three placements were made as of September 2024. The Dillard University Nutrition Equity Scholars Program was developed in year 1. This program is designed to providecompensated training and mentoring for a select group of students. Applications will openduring year 2 to support 4 scholars for the year. Scholars will receive stipends for professional memberships, conference travel and a research assistantship with a nutrition faculty member within the collaborative. Goal 2: Provide continuing education & professional development to consortium faculty Objective 2.1: Facilitate continuing education opportunities Dr. Diego Rose presented a one-hour webinar titled Nutrition, Environment, and Policy: Multi-Disciplinary Research on Diet and Climate Change in the US on Monday, November 13th, 2023, via Zoom. The webinar was promoted to collaborative faculty and was attended by more than 50 people. The Tulane University 6th Annual Sparking Success Faculty Development Conference was held January 10th - 11th, 2024. This free faculty development conference was shared with collaborative partners during year 1. Objective 2.2: Enhance collaboration on research projects & professional meeting attendance Megan Knapp (Xavier) collaborated with Diego Rose (Tulane) and Melissa Fuster (Tulane) on the Healthy Default Beverage study, an evaluation of a New Orleans policy to reduce consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages. Tyra Gross (Xavier) attended the 2024 City MatCH annual meeting in Seattle, Washington from September 9-11, 2024. Goal 3: Establish interinstitutional agreements Objective 3.1: Develop cross-registration agreements between Collaborative universities Drs. Diego Rose and Keelia O'Malley from Tulane Nutrition and leaders at Tulane University--including the Dean, Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, and the Associate Dean for Strategic Initiatives--have met regularly to develop new and expand existing pathways for students from HBCUs to pursue graduate studies at Tulane's SPHTM, including the development of specific interinstitutional course agreements. Objective 3.2: Create early access programs The Discover Nutrition Pilot Pipeline Program proposal is currently under consideration by the Dean and Provost to allow undergraduate students to take graduate level courses at Tulane. The proposal includes four key aspects: 1. Expanded collaboration with 3 local HBCU's, Xavier, Dillard, and Southern Universities. 2. Focused recruitment of select high-achieving undergraduates from these HBCU's. 3. Expansion of the existing undergraduate Consortium tuition waiver program to apply to graduate courses in nutrition and other topics. 4. Extend the existing Public Health Discovery program components to partners.
Publications
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