Source: UNIVERSITY OF GUAM UOG STATION submitted to
PHASE V: DEVELOPING RESIDENT INSTRUCTION IN FOOD AND AGRICULTURAL RELATED SCIENCES AT LAND GRANT INSTITUTION IN THE PACIFIC AND CARIBEAN
Sponsoring Institution
National Institute of Food and Agriculture
Project Status
TERMINATED
Funding Source
OTHER GRANTS
Reporting Frequency
Annual
Accession No.
0219367
Grant No.
2009-38416-20016
Project No.
GUAE-2009-02417
Proposal No.
2009-05841
Multistate No.
(N/A)
Program Code
AA-Q
Project Start Date
Sep 1, 2009
Project End Date
Nov 30, 2011
Grant Year
2009
Project Director
Yudin,L,S
Recipient Organization
UNIVERSITY OF GUAM UOG STATION
(N/A)
MANGILAO,GU 96913
Performing Department
(N/A)
Non Technical Summary
The Consortium grant has numerous products, results and measurable Outcomes. Below is a highlighted summary of products, results, and outcomes from the 8-Consortium members. The University of Puerto Rico ? will strengthen academic program offerings through the acquisition of state of the art equipment for teaching and research, further the development of professional and global competences for students from institutions with the Insular Area Land Grant Institutions, and will increase by 10% enrollment and retention in the programs of Horticulture, Agricultural Economics, Crop Production, and Soil Science. The University of Virgin Islands ? will increase the educational opportunities in agriculture for undergraduate and graduate students, and provide funding for a student from the UVI to attend a summer internship program at the University of Puerto Rico. Northern Marianas College ? will increase enrollment in Natural Resources at NMC, increase scholarship and/or financial-aid opportunities for students, graduates will move on for advance degrees at other Land Grant institutions, increase the number of adjunct faculty providing instruction, increase course and short-term training opportunities, and increase learning resources available for program, student and community needs. The College of the Marshall Islands will ? produce certificate programs in food and agricultural sciences, 10% of students with Certificates will pursue higher degrees in food and agricultural sciences, and increase the number students in the program at COM. Palau Community College will ? develop additional courses in Agricultural Science to accommodate specializations in Plant Science, Animal Science, and Crop Protection, increase manpower resources required in instruction to implement additional specialization in the 2-year Agricultural program, acquire up-to-date scientific equipment for the laboratory to strengthen instructional delivery, and to recruit high school graduates to enroll in the Agriculture Science program. The College of Micronesia, FSM will ? produce a number of Certificates in Agriculture, and hire a full-time coordinator to assist in the Associate degree program. American Samoa Community College will ? hire faculty to support existing staff, offer scholarships to associate degree holders to seek either a Bachelor?s or Master?s degree, and develop a glossary or instructional materials for both print and web-based formats. The University of Guam will ? develop a Sustainable Technologies for Tropical Farm System course that will address the development of small sustainable farm systems for Guam and for other consortium members (rubrics will be developed to assess student learning outcomes), develop a minor degree program in Ag Business, start a feasibility study for the development of a graduate program in Plant, Soil, and Natural Resources, increase faculty capacity in teaching distance education classes, and develop a web-based DE course that includes a DE laboratory.
Animal Health Component
(N/A)
Research Effort Categories
Basic
(N/A)
Applied
100%
Developmental
(N/A)
Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)Subject of Investigation (SOI)Field of Science (FOS)Percent
90360993020100%
Knowledge Area
903 - Communication, Education, and Information Delivery;

Subject Of Investigation
6099 - People and communities, general/other;

Field Of Science
3020 - Education;
Goals / Objectives
The goal and objectives of CariPac are to harness research and education to help address local food, agricultural, andenvironmental needs; support local economic growth; and to prepare students toachieve their own personal career goals. To do this, CariPac is striving to help meet workplace needs through increasing the quality of undergraduate instruction, by developing new methods for delivering instruction, modernizing instructional technologies and methodologies; updating courses and improving disciplinary students' analytical interpersonal, leadership, communications, problem-solving, computational, and decision-making skills and abilities. The basic theme throughout all CariPac institutions is to strengthen our academic program offerings through the acquisition of "state of the art equipment" of both teaching and student research. To further develop the professional and global competencies for students from institutions within the Insular Area. To increase enrollment and retention in the agriculture and food science programs we offer in our institutions. To build a stronger curriculum that has student learning outcomes that are tied to program outcomes and possible college or university-wide student outcomes. To build upon our student experimental learning program at the University of Puerto Rico and in the near future host our summer internship program at one of the Pacific institutions. Finally, we all seek to produce students to help meet workplace needs through increasing the quality of both undergraduate and graduate instruction and build greater teaching capacities for our current and future faculties. By developing new methods for delivering instruction, modernizing instructional technologies and methodologies; updating courses and improving disciplinary students' analytical interpersonal, leadership, communications, problem-solving, computational, and decision-making skills and abilities - we will change old outdated educational practices to more realistic and measured outcomes.
Project Methods
The assessment consultant will be a critical component of this grant. Their primary function will be to correspond directly with each of the consortium institutions and help them evaluate their proposed outcomes. Each sub-grantee has outlined their specific evaluation plans. As the Principal Investigator, the Assessment Coordinator will work directly under my supervision. Each campus will be provided an evaluation template that will include a column to produce listed objectives/activities, the metrics they will use to measure the anticipated outcomes, and finally - the predicted indicators. Each of the listed objectives must fall under one of the RIIR Program Goals (1) To increase the number of graduates with an associate (or higher) degree in the food and agricultural sciences or (2) To help students achieve their career goals and help meet workplace needs by increasing the quality of undergraduate instruction through modernizing and decision making skills and abilities. The evaluation template will be provided to each of the Co-PIs at the beginning of the project. At mid-year, the assessment coordinator or the PI will request an update on each objective or activity. At the end of the year all evaluation templates will be turned into the Assessment Coordinator and they will write a written report and summarize all assessment activities for the year and then disseminate this report to the PI and all Co-PIs.

Progress 09/01/09 to 11/30/11

Outputs
OUTPUTS: Project work throughout the consortium was divided into ENA. Each project location submitted a final report that was published and set to NIFA nearly six months ago, "Review of Phase V (2009-2010) of the CariPac Program. For the most part, there was high alignment between plans of work and outcomes within the programs; mostly in the areas of increasing enrollment by providing scholarships and/or program promotion, building institutional capacity through technology acquisition, and developing and implementing short-term internship opportunities to aspiring learners at CariPac colleges. One key activity that all the consortium members participated in was the three week summer internship program that was held on the campus in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico. The summer internship program (students from all CariPac institutions) was evaluated and overall, participants scored the experience as very good and commented that they were committed to implement technologies and ideas that they observed in Puerto Rico in their home islands. Each of the eight member institutions conducted student surveys, assessed individual student learning objectives, added new courses in the field of agriculture and life sciences, created demonstration sites, field days and had students participate in symposia held on individual campuses. New equipment was purchased to create a better learning environment. The greatest investment in Phase V, has been the increase in agriculture enrollment by students in all the insular institution. On an average a 10 percent increment in majors has been documented. The dissemination of information was formally submitted to NIFA via our external review's report entitled: Review of Phase V (2009 - 2010) of the CariPac Program. PARTICIPANTS: Consortium project with eight insular area institutions. Lead institution University of Guam, with University of Puerto Rico, University of Virgin Islands, Northern Marianas College, College of Micronesia, College of the Marshall Islands, American Samoa Community College, Palau Community College as consortium members. TARGET AUDIENCES: Our project audience is high school students who want to participant in our summer internship programs (i.e., University of Guam, American Samoa Community College, Northern Marianas Community College, University of Puerto Rico), current undergraduate students enrolled in our agriculture and food science programs and potential undeclared students enrolled in our colleges and universities. We also offer certificate programs in many of our 2-year community colleges and therefore island communities can be potential audience. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: Nothing significant to report during this reporting period.

Impacts
What we as an consortium has learned is listed below in the executive summary complied by our external reviewer: 1. Find ways to keep up-to-date and objective-specific spending records so that data does not need to be teased out of larger ledgers. 2. Have PI's meet with coordinator on a regular bases. 3. Tighten up proposal writing and organization by having a consortium-wide standard project template that must be used by all work sites. In addition, review all proposals carefully, perhaps by sharing in a round-round format with one other institution, each institution's proposal so that stay "to do" and other distracting issues are not left in project documents that then are need to be addressed during a review. 4. As a standard practice, keep more detailed and up to date records on student and where they are in their educational program is scholarships are given to support their education. 5. Look for more students on scholarships to contribute to the knowledge base in the college through meaningful projects. 6 Share ideas and successes within CariPac team to get maximum use of investments. 7. Join forces with other projects that have content or have distance communication needs.

Publications

  • CariPac Consortium Final Report (2011). Review of Phase V (2009 -2010) of the CariPac Program.
  • J. McConnell, P. Singh, M. Marutani ((2011). Developing Plant Biology as an Outline Lab Course in Moodle. Poster at the Botanical Society of America annual meeting.