Source: HUMBOLDT STATE UNIV submitted to
CAMBIO: CLIMATE-CHANGE ADAPTATION AND MANAGEMENT FOR BIODIVERSITY TO PROMOTE INCLUSION AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR HISPANIC STUDENTS IN THE FIELDS OF FORESTRY, WATERSHED,AND RANGELAND MANAGEMENT
Sponsoring Institution
National Institute of Food and Agriculture
Project Status
EXTENDED
Funding Source
OTHER GRANTS
Reporting Frequency
Annual
Accession No.
1003920
Grant No.
2014-38422-22081
Project No.
CALZ-Cambio
Proposal No.
2014-02725
Multistate No.
(N/A)
Program Code
NJ
Project Start Date
Sep 1, 2014
Project End Date
Aug 31, 2018
Grant Year
2017
Project Director
Stubblefield, A.
Recipient Organization
HUMBOLDT STATE UNIV
(N/A)
ARCATA,CA 95521
Performing Department
(N/A)
Non Technical Summary
Hispanics are rapidly increasing demographic of the United States population but are an underrepresented group in the natural resource fields as students and professionals. The main goal of this project is to provide educational opportunities to increase the skillsets of Hispanic students in critical natural resource management professions as identified by the USDA. An additional goal of this project is to provide education and training experiences focused on climate change issues related to the natural resource fields. As a result the combination of education and professional experience will promote placement of students into positions to improve the representation of Hispanics the natural resources field and to provide them with the necessary skills to address climate change related issues.Humboldt State University, Reedley College and Bakersfield College, will offer scholarships to pursue degrees in forestry, range or soils at Humboldt with an emphasis on climate change impacts. Undergraduate students will be selected from students graduating from the two-year colleges who have proven academic performance and interest in natural resources. Ten graduate students will receive two-year scholarships for $10,000 a year. Ten undergraduate students will receive three-year scholarships for $5,000 a year. Undergraduates will receive two $2500 stipends for internships with USDA agencies and funds to attend conferences. Peer-mentoring and close faculty advising will boost student success.
Animal Health Component
0%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
50%
Applied
50%
Developmental
0%
Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)Subject of Investigation (SOI)Field of Science (FOS)Percent
1120320205034%
1210199107033%
1230613106033%
Knowledge Area
112 - Watershed Protection and Management; 123 - Management and Sustainability of Forest Resources; 121 - Management of Range Resources;

Subject Of Investigation
0320 - Watersheds; 0199 - Soil and land, general; 0613 - Mixed conifer-broadleaf forests;

Field Of Science
1070 - Ecology; 1060 - Biology (whole systems); 2050 - Hydrology;
Goals / Objectives
Humboldt State University, Reedley College and Bakersfield College, will offer scholarships to pursue degrees in forestry, range or soils at Humboldt with an emphasis on climate change impacts.Goals:Recruit Hispanic students into natural resource careers in critical disciplines identified by the USDA. Objectives:Identify and recruit top Hispanic students with a demonstrated interest in natural resources fields, to attend Humboldt State University and pursue majors offered by the Department of Forestry and Wildland Resources.Improve recruitment and retention of top students by providing scholarship funds for each year spent attending HSU.Improve recruitment, retention, and placement in natural resource careers by providing stipends and placement assistance into summer internships with USDA agencies and research experiences.Improve retention and student success by providing peer and faculty mentoring opportunities.Improve recruitment and retention by hiring part time recruiter and internship coordinator.Improve awareness of 4-year college education among community college students at Reedley and Bakersfield Colleges with prospective student tours.Facilitate transferring to 4 year colleges in natural resources by increasing capacity of staff at Reedley and Bakersfield Colleges.Increase awareness and networking skills in undergraduate participants by providing opportunities to travel to scientific and USDA conferences.
Project Methods
Efforts include:formal classroom instruction, laboratory instruction, supervised independent research, conference attendance, peer and faculty mentoring,informal camping weekend, week-long field tour for prospective students, ten week internships.Evaluation includes:Independent evaluation by the Center for Rural Policy. Collection of data for USDA meta-analysis efforts.Details are listed here:In conjunction with HSU's Office of Institutional Research and Planning, the Project Coordinator will track and maintain enrollment and retention data, which will be used to evaluate the effectiveness of the recruitment and retention efforts of the program. Upon completion of the program we will track job and graduate school placement of students. Summer training experiences will be assessed through the a priori development of student and professional partner goals and expectations, followed by a post-experience evaluation. Independent project evaluation will be conducted by the California Center for Rural Policy (CCRP).CCRP has extensive expertise conducting program evaluation for both university and community-based projects. CCRP will utilize both quantitative and qualitative methods to conduct the HSI evaluation, including student surveys, student interviews, faculty focus groups, and reviews of case specific records and official school records.CCRP will create a web-based reporting mechanism to facilitate data collection regarding completion rates for various components of the program. Project staff will enter and submit data on a quarterly basis to CCRP for analysis and CCRP will in turn provide quarterly progress reports related to student enrollment, retention, experiential learning opportunities, summer training experiences, participation in clubs and professional associations, peer mentoring, and career attainment activities. Data will be compiled for peer-reviewed educational journal articles. Outcome-related data will be assessed based on pre-set targets; for example, the 90% retention and graduation rate. CCRP will design survey tools in collaboration with project faculty and staff to demonstrate the project's impact on improving education. Students participating in the program will complete a pre/post skills inventory focused on skill attainment related to research, collaborative problem-solving, and other career relevant skills.Students will also complete an annual satisfaction survey to assess their experiences and their perception of the quality of instruction and the quality of career preparation components of the program.CCRP will also conduct an annual focus group with faculty members involved in the project and annual key informant interviews with a randomly selected group of students participating in the project. These tools will provide information that will allow CCRP to assess how the project advances the five HSI Education Grants Program Goals. Faculty focus groups and key informant interviews will include questions about the impact of recruitment efforts, experiential learning activities, and collaborative efforts with internal and external partners.

Progress 09/01/16 to 08/31/17

Outputs
Target Audience:Students at Bakersfield and Reedley Colleges, HSI colleges with programs in Forestry, that could potentially transfer to Humboldt State University for a 4 year degree. Graduate students interested in Natural Resources. Changes/Problems:One of the partner community colleges, Bakerfield, while successful in bringing students to field tour at Humboldt County, has been unable to perform the additional advising and recruting activities originally laid out. We are working to modify their subcontracts and use the funds to support the goals of the project in a complementary fashion. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?As mentioned above, graduate students received one-on-one mentoring with thesis advisors and have completed field research for their Masters thesis research and all coursework. They are now writing their thesis. Undergraduates have received peer mentoring and faculty mentoring and summer internship experiences. Both groups participated in the fall 2016 field tour. Current participants helped with the spring 2017 recruiting visit, attending events and describing their experiences here to the 30 prospective students from our community college partners.Two students traveled to the meetings of the Society of American Forestry in Madison, Wisconsin. Two students traveled to the NIFA HSI meeting in Alburquerque, New Mexico,for a poster presentation of their research and special programming for for careers in Natural Resources". How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? Nothing Reported What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?We have recruited a new group of 5 graduate students for admission in Fall 2017. We will be mentoring the full group of ten undergraduates through the next year of their studies. We will be mentoring the graduate students towards completion of their coursework and theses. We will conduct a fall field tour for current participants and spring recruiting week visits for the community college partners. This year we will be taking participants to professional meetings in their fields, such as the the Society of American Foresters meetings for undergraduates.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Our first cohort of graduate and undergraduate students arrived on campus in August 2015 and hav

Publications


    Progress 09/01/15 to 08/31/16

    Outputs
    Target Audience:Students at Bakersfield and Reedley Colleges, HSI colleges with programs in Forestry, that could potentially transfer to Humboldt State University for a 4 year degree. Graduate students interested in Natural Resources. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?As mentioned above, graduate students received one-on-one mentoring with thesis advisors and have begun field research for their Masters thesis research. Undergraduates have received peer mentoring and faculty mentoring and summer internship experiences. Both groups participated in the fall 2015 weekend field tour. Current participants helped with the spring 2016 recruiting visit, describing their experiences here to the 30 prospective students from our community college partners. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? Nothing Reported What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?We will be recruiting a new group of 5 graduate students for admission in Fall 2017. We will be mentoring the full group of ten undergraduates through the next year oftheir studies. We will be mentoring the five graduate students towards completion of their coursework and theses. We will conduct fall field tour for current participants and spring recruiting week visits for the community college partners. This year we will be taking participants to professional meetings in their fields, such as the American Geophysical Union Fall meeting for the watershed/hydrology graduate students, and the Society of American Foresters meetings for undergraduates.

    Impacts
    What was accomplished under these goals? Our first cohort of graduate and undergraduate students arrived on campus in August 2015 and have now completed two semesters towards their degrees in Forestry. We worked with Bakersfield and Reedley colleges to recruit another cohort ofundergraduates who arrived in August 2016. We hired a part time recruiter and internship coordinator in November 2015. We negotiated for her to be hired by our admissions and recruiting department to help with new student orientation and recruitment for the other half of her time, so she now has a full-time salaried position. She gave an orientation speech in Spanish to parents of Hispanic students attending Humboldt. Faculty advisors, student peer mentors and the internship coordinator met with the students many times to provide mentoring. In September 2015, we took the group on a 2 day field tour that exposed them to natural resource managers in the fields of river restoration, land preservation and fire management. In April 2016 (and April 2015), we conducted a recruiting visit with Reedley and Bakersfield Community Colleges in which 30 prospective students traveled to our university, learned about our programs and life at a four year college, and toured local National Parks and industrial timber land. We found internships and career-related summer jobs with USDA agencies for all the participants and gave them a stipend for participation. We have worked toward improving undergraduate retention by hiring an undergraduate peer mentor, and by increasing the number of advising hours for faculty.

    Publications


      Progress 09/01/14 to 08/31/15

      Outputs
      Target Audience:Students at Bakersfield and Reedley Colleges, HSI colleges with programs in Forestry, that could potentially transfer to Humboldt for 4 year degree. Graduate students interested in Natural Resources. Changes/Problems:We have delayed hiring the project coordinator/ recruiter position until this fall because we wanted to secure match funding from Humboldt University (this has been done), and then have this person in place for the full 4 years (fall 2015 - spring 19) that we will have students in the program on campus. We have had some issues getting a subcontract in place with Bakersfield. We will be filling a budget change request shortly, as Bakersfield does not have the capacity to administer the scholarship funds to students that transfer to Humboldt. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? Nothing Reported How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? Nothing Reported What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Studentswill receive scholarships, paid internships, faculty and peer mentoring and conference travel opportunities. We are interviewing 3 finalists for a full time recruiter/project manager position. Half the salary will be paid by the University and half by the grant. We will recruit another five undergraduate students for next fall admission.

      Impacts
      What was accomplished under these goals? In year one we have recruited4 undergraduate and 5 graduate students to pursue education at Humboldt State University in the department ofForest and Wildland Resources. They have enrolled in fall semester 2015. 3 of the 4 undergraduates and all of the graduate students are Hispanic. We conducted a prospective student tour in April 2015 to 30 students from Bakersfield and Reedley Community Colleges, our HSI collaborators. They have used their portion of the grant to increase staff capacity for advising students in natural resource fields.

      Publications