August 21, 2018
Diversity Programs Office Update
Welcome to some and welcome back to others! The 2018 fall semester is here! Throughout the 2018 summer sessions, your Diversity Programs Office (DPO) was busy and garnered much success.
As the summer comes to a close and we prepare for the upcoming fall semester, the DPO would like to share our efforts. On Sunday, August 5, we welcomed our final summer bridge program participants, the Project IMPACT Kompass program. In the 4th year of this program, Kompass students successfully completed the program on Wednesday, August 8, at 12 p.m. as Mirta Chavez, Sr. Director of Project IMPACT served as the closing speaker. Project IMPACT programs are an ongoing partnership with the colleges of Business and Engineering along with the Office of Student life division- DMSL (Diversity and Multicultural Student Life). The College of Agriculture hosted 15 participants which had an opportunity to experience various college programs, participate in the challenge course, and meet college administrations and university faculty/staff. Special thanks to Dr. Randy Phebus, Interim FSI Director; Dr. Kelly Getty and the Food Science Institute (FSI) staff; for presenting our academic session in Kompass and to all in the college personnel who supported the 2018 Kompass Ag cohort. Congratulations to all 2018 Project IMPACT Kompass students. The College of AG Cohort is below:
2018 Project IMPACT Kompass College of AG Cohort:
Aaliyah Watkins – ATM, Jasmin Choate – ASI, Leilani Alvarez - ASI
Brianna Maudlin – ASI, Catherine Tupac – ASI, McKenzie Stevens – ASI
London Fripp – Ag Econ, Melissa Gaona – ASI, Nicholas Riehl - ASI
Samantha Reynolds – ASI, Sarah Weekes – ASI, Daisy Farr - ASI
William Ellis – ASI, Laura Benavides – ASI, Demetre Miller - Ag Econ
We also would like to congratulate our 2018 MAPS college of AG cohort for successfully completing their program last month. Join us in welcoming them back to campus this weekend. Their names and majors are listed below.
2018 Project IMPACT MAPS College of AG Cohort:
Cheyenne Lozano – ASI, Mayra Damian – ASI, Tomasa Rangel - ASI
Maya Blake – ASI, Ivan Bueso-Interiano – ASI, Ziaire Platt– BSI
Maria Kimzey – Ag Econ, Jaysia Maples – ASI, Shymel Townes - ASI
Diane Perez – ASI, Michael Hook – Ag Bus.
Congratulations to the 2018 KSRE Summer Multicultural Fellows. This past summer, the 2018 cohort consisted of five students whom all successfully completed the program. During the summer, this cohort visited the Riley County CES staff to learn about the importance of KSRE to Kansas citizens. We would like to thank the staff and Gregg Hadley, Director for Extension, for hosting our students who are noted below.
2018 Fellows and Mentors:
Bria Copper, Prairie View A&M University - Dr. John Gonzalez
Kaci Merriwether-Hawkins, Tuskegee University - Dr. Scott Beyer
Victoria Parker, Prairie View A&M University - Dr. Zelia Wiley and Lonnie Hobbs, Jr.
Chelsea Triche, Southern University - Dr. Randall Phebus
Raymond Thomas, Prairie View A&M University - Dr. Vincent Amanor-Boadu and Dr. Kara Ross
*After completion of the program, Raymond Thomas was admitted into the Master’s program in the Department of Agricultural Economics for fall 2018. Welcome Raymond!
For the summer our graduates were very busy in scholarships and leadership programs. Congratulations to Tiffany Carter for receiving the NACTA Graduate Student Teaching Award in June, 2018. Congratulations are also in order for Lonnie Hobbs, Jr. as he successfully presented his research, “An Analysis of Customer Perception of Product Attributes in Pet Food: Implications for Marketing and Brand Strategy,” at the 2018 AAEA conference in Washington, DC on August 12, 2018. He also presented the academic and scholarship opportunities at the 2018 Clarksville (TX) High School, “Be a Boss” - Back to School Conference. For this back to school effort, he represented the DPO, College of AG and KSTATE MANRRS chapter. We are pleased to note that we presented over 10 backpacks and 100 school supplies to the students at this event. Thanks Lonnie for your work!
Both graduate students participated in the 2018 Summer MANRRS Leadership training earlier this month. Tiffany Carter, PHD candidate in Agronomy serves as the National Graduate President; and Lonnie Hobbs, Jr., graduate student in Agriculture Economics; serves as the Region 4 Graduate Vice President. As you can see our students represent the Diversity Programs Office and college well.
Finally, we invite you all to save the date for the KBOR Michael Tilford Conference on Diversity and Multiculturalism which will be hosted this year at Fort Hays State University, October 22-23, 2018. The following webpage link is for the 2018 KBOR Tilford Conference webpage which contains this year’s Save-the-Date flyer as well as the Call for Proposals: https://www.fhsu.edu/tilfordconference/.
Welcome back to our student workers, Ivy Gichohi, Vi Nguyen and Olivia Siebert, and best wishes to all for a great first week of school!!