USDA Scholars Summer Program
A Fantastic Summer for the USDA Scholars Program
Ten USDA Scholars participated in the summer 2009 program which is funded by a USDA Higher Education Challenge grant to Deborah Good (PI) along with Christina McIntyre (Honors, coPI) and Mary Marchant (Ag Econ, coPI). The Scholars started the summer saying “It was a little bit overwhelming at times” and “I was really nervous/anxious to start the week and didn’t know what to expect,” but all of them ended the summer by giving very professional oral scientific research presentations at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, at the second annual USDA Scholars Multi-Institutional Symposium.
This year the program also included a journal club, lead by HNFE graduates students Courtney Robert, Stephanie Riviere, and Brian Williams. USDA Scholars were divided into three groups of students who met weekly and discussed current literature in an informal setting (i.e. Mill Mountain Coffee). One student wrote in the weekly reflections forum, “The weekly journal club meetings are a definite must have with the program. It was a great way to get to know the people in our group and I learned a lot from our conversations. Once again it promoted a different type of learning that was fun.” Thanks to the graduate students for doing this during the summer.
For the fall, USDA Scholars will again be peer mentoring in selected HNFE courses. We hope that the other HNFE students will enjoy the journal club as much as our scholars have.