By TIM ALEXANDER
Illinois Correspondent

URBANA, Ill. — For more than two decades, the Research Apprentice Program (RAP) at the University of Illinois College of Agricultural, Consumer, and Environmental Sciences (ACES) has existed to recruit minority and underserved high school students for careers in agribusiness, ag finance, food science, dietetics, crop science and related fields.

The program, which began in 1988, has made a big impact on the makeup of the College of ACES, with some 234 students of color enrolled in it this semester. Some 20-25 percent of this year’s ACES freshman class are graduates of RAP.

And of the 647 students of color that ACES has graduated since 1990, 160 – or approximately 25 percent – were RAP alumni.
RAP coordinator Jesse Thompson, assistant dean of academic programs for the College of ACES, explained the program begins for qualifying high school students the summer following their freshman year, during a four-person “team project experience” in math or science. This is paid for by private companies such as Kraft Foods, Oscar Mayer, Pioneer Hi-Bred International or other corporate sponsors.

“The RAP program makes a humongous difference because of the unique set of experiences and exposures that students have with the college, the faculty, other students and the food and agriculture industry,” said Thompson. He has been involved with RAP since DuPont, Quaker Oats and Monsanto partnered with ACES to recruit the first minority students for the program over two decades ago.
“RAP students become more confident and more certain about their career paths. RAP accomplishes all of that while the students are still in high school.”

To be eligible for RAP, high school freshmen must be ranked in the top 25 percent of their class, submit an essay expressing their interest in math and science, receive a recommendation from their high school math or science teacher and present strong grades in those subjects. Applications are usually given out by participating high school counselors or teachers. If ACES accepts the application, prospective students are invited to a personal interview and matched with a mentor.

Because of budget and staff restraints, not all students who apply for RAP are selected. Of about 300 applications received each year for RAP I, the first stage of the two-tiered program, only 28-30 are usually selected. Of some 100 applications for RAP II, only 24 were approved for this year’s program, representing a class size reduction of about 20 percent from historical levels.

“We haven’t been immune to the (state) budget (cuts),” Thompson acknowledged. “We would like to have around 30 to 35 RAP II participants and around 40 RAP I team projects.”
Funding for RAP is provided primarily by corporate sponsors, with Kraft Foods donating $100,000 to this year’s program. Archer Daniels Midland Co., PepsiCo and Pioneer also stepped forward with gifts. Approximately 20-30 percent of RAP’s funding comes from the state.

“RAP used to rely on 85 percent funding from internal, state funding and 15 percent from external (corporate) sources,” said Thompson.

RAP by the numbers
Historically, RAP participants are 63 percent African-American, 27 percent Latino and 5 percent of other heritage; the rest are non-minorities. Seventy-six percent are women.

Of those students, 40 percent hail from Chicago, 28 percent from the metro-Chicago area, 20 percent from other areas of Illinois and 12 percent from out of state. Virtually none of the program’s students originate from downstate cities such as Peoria, Decatur, Bloomington-Normal, Springfield or even Champaign-Urbana – a disparity Thompson said program leaders are looking to rectify.

“We are trying to work a little bit more on (those) schools to get them more exposure to the program, in order to get higher levels of participation,” he said. “We would like to work out agreements with some of the schools.

“We’re trying to do a greater push outside metro Chicago and into central Illinois; we’ve even been spending some time down in Cairo (far southwestern Illinois). The numbers are there, and we need to get those students involved in the program.”

According to Science Spectrum magazine, which organized the Science Spectrum Minorities in Research Science Conference in 2006, 68 percent of the nation’s “new” workforce will be comprised of minorities and women. However, “very few” minorities pursue careers related to agriculture, according to the University of North Carolina extension.

As an example, only 3.1 percent of employed foresters in 1990 were African-American, as were only 6.9 percent of employed forestry technicians, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Three to four times as many African-American foresters are needed to achieve a proper balance, the UNC extension noted.

UNC also reported that low interest in agriculture, food and environmental sciences as career choices by African-Americans can be attributed to a belief that low socioeconomic status is associated with jobs in agriculture. This is in addition to the sometimes low formal education of parents and students’ poor high school background in science and mathematics.

“Finally, a lack of financial resources often keeps potential students from attending college,” the UNC extension report concluded.

Thompson said though the food and agriculture industry has done a poor job in selling itself to young people, especially minorities, low interest in agriculture and science-related careers is currently pervasive in all cultures.

“To me, I think we’ve done a very poor job of creating awareness for opportunities,” he explained. “When I look around I see an influx of students into law, medicine, engineering ... these programs have always been very aggressive in their advertising, in creating awareness. We’re now trying to create a new awareness for the food and agriculture industry.