Putting Grants to Work for Culinology

In order to enhance students’ experiences throughout their college careers, several schools that offer Culinology® programs are applying for USDA Higher Education Challenge (HEC) grants. Projects supported by HEC grants will, according to USDA, “address a state, regional, national or international education need, and involve a creative or nontraditional approach toward addressing the need that can serve as a model to others.”

USDA’s Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service (CSREES) awards the grants to eligible institutions for high-priority research, education and extension. The program encourages innovative teaching-enhancement projects with the potential for regional or national impact to serve as models for other institutions. However, while a funded HEC project may include research and extension activities, the main goal must be to improve teaching within a degree-granting program. By enhancing teaching, the HEC program seeks to increase the number of graduates with a baccalaureate (or higher) degree in the food and agricultural sciences, and to increase the quality of postsecondary instruction within these disciplines. USDA/CSREES requires grant recipients to match awarded grants on a dollar-for-dollar basis.

Applications for two HEC grants related to Culinology programs are in the works: Iowa State University, Ames, and a collaboration between Southwest Minnesota State University, Marshall; Clemson University, Clemson, SC; University of Nebraska-Lincoln; Kapi‘olani Community College, Honolulu, HI; and Maui Community College, Kahului, HI. Allan Hancock College, Santa Maria, CA, has been awarded two USDA grants, one of which was in collaboration with California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo.

GRANTS IN ACTION

The culinary arts program at Allan Hancock College, an Hispanic-Serving Institution (a school with at least 25% full-time Hispanic enrollment), along with Cal Poly, received a $300,000 USDA grant for “Food Science, Culinary Arts and Nutrition Inter-Institutional Collaborative,” with a funding period from Sept. 2005 to Aug. 2008, “to create a Culinology associate in arts at Alan Hancock, and a bachelor of science at Cal Poly,” says Ginger Lordus, M.S., R.D., Culinology program coordinator, Alan Hancock. The school was awarded a second USDA grant, “Multicultural Culinology from Campus to Career,” for $275,000 from Feb. 2007 through July 2010.

The priority mission areas for “Food Science, Culinary Arts and Nutrition Inter-Institutional Collaborative” include:

• Scientific instrumentation of teaching;
• Student recruitment and retention;
• Curricula design, materials development and library resources;
• Instruction delivery systems;
• Student experiential learning.

“The objectives of this project are to develop a transferable associate in arts degree and bachelor of science degree in Culinology, develop marketing materials, expand and revise all culinary arts courses, and add three new courses,” says Lordus. In addition, the grant will help buy library resources, create a web page, and develop marketing brochures and program information. In order to garner interest for the Culinology program, the grant helps the college market the program to secondary schools, high schools, and community and local colleges, as well as local community businesses.

The “Multicultural Culinology from Campus to Career” grant has similar priority mission areas, with the following additional goals:

• Faculty and counselor preparation and enhancement;
• Increasing faculty teaching competencies;
• Expanding career opportunities;
• Facilitating interaction with other academic institutions;
• Expanding student workforce diversity.

In essence, the grant is designed to meet the growing needs of the food industry for professional culinologists by providing an “easy-to-follow Culinology transfer program, and to increase graduation and employment success of Hispanics and other underrepresented students in the culinary arts and Culinology fields,” says Lordus.

ONLINE EXPANSION POTENTIAL

Southwest Minnesota State University, in collaboration with Clemson University, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Kapi‘olani Community College and Maui Community College, is in the process of trying to obtain a USDA grant. One of the primary objectives is to develop a research-based online course that will bridge the gap between culinary arts and food science.

“In order to make this viable to USDA, we worked it into one of their main goals, which is supporting healthy food choices and lifestyles, and obesity-prevention strategies,” says Michael Cheng, CHE, associate professor and director of Culinology and hospitality management, Southwest Minnesota State. “The rationale is that a trained culinologist will directly impact the food choices and healthy lifestyles of the general public through new food-product development.

“These USDA grants will be beneficial in helping schools obtain much-needed resources for programming, as well as growth,” continues Cheng.

FUNDING IOWA INTERNSHIPS

Iowa State University submitted an HEC grant application for its “Inter-disciplinary Internship Program: Preparing Culinologists for Opportunities in the Food Industry” in Jan. 2008. The funding for the school’s proposal would enable creation of an internship program for the culinary science program, notes Erica Beirman, Culinology coordinator, Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition, Iowa State. “Students are required to have two internship experiences,” she says. “The focus of the experiences should be one in culinary skills development and one in food science.” The proposed program would also focus on the development of a student assessment tool.

Currently, the school’s Culinology program only supports a half-time program coordinator. In order to develop the internship program, assessment tools and industry partnerships, the coordinator will need to be full-time, explains Beirman. “The grant funding would provide us with three years of funding to assist in creating the internship components. Once this is completed, we fully expect for this to be an ongoing project.”

Online Resources
Information on the Higher Education Challenge grants
Submit applications online
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