Integrating Food Science, Engineering, and Education Network - UTRGV

ers through collaboration among the four major HSIs in Texas and New Mexico. To accomplish the goal, IFSEEN team will outreach to local high schools, develop new course materials, target incoming students, train them as cohorts as they matriculate through their undergraduate education, conduct cross-disciplinary food science research, and partner with USDA agencies and Tier 1 agricultural institutions nationwide. The IFSEEN activities will increase students’ scientific knowledge, strengthen their research skills, establish a food science research environment, prepare them to matriculate into in food/agricultural science graduate schools, facilitate their placement into career of food/agricultural sciences, and increase community awareness of food science research. Collectively, the IFSEEN program will increase the number of Hispanics that pursue careers in the food/agricultural science fields. To accomplish its main goal, IFSEEN employs an integral strategic model with five core components (Fig. 1): (i) Recruitment and retention, (ii) Curricula enrichment, (iii) Experiential learning, (iv) Opportunity, and (v) Communication. All five components are integrated and supported by different activities designed to achieve the five IFSEEN program objectives.