Young Scholars Program

The CAES Young Scholars program has been a tremendously successful activity, focused on providing minority students with unique exposure to science by teaming up faculty to serve as mentors to the students for six weeks during the summer. Traditionally, a single student worked with an individual faculty member for the program term. A UGA horticulturist and the Assistant Dean for Minority and Multicultural Affairs devised a prototype program based on novel teaching concepts that formed a group of YSP students and assigned them to work with a multi-disciplinary team of faculty. The goal of the program change was to improve student experiences and expose them to a wider range of science and agricultural topics while reducing the time commitments required of individual faculty. The faculty formulated a cross-commodity, cross discipline team to execute a series of activities that focused on the economic and environmental importance of pollination and breeding in Georgia crops. Eleven faculty in the department of horticulture, graduate students and technicians collaborated with faculty in the entomology department. They also engaged Griffin and Tifton campus facilities, the State Botanic Garden, the USDA Research Station at Byron, the Georgia Mountain Station, and several commercial growers, farmers market and retail outlets. The design allowed faculty to complete their grant work and keep up with other college duties while still delivering a quality experience for the students.