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Inside CAFNR
DASS Alumni Newsletter // Fall 2019
Message from the Division Director
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I’m happy to introduce the division’s new e-newsletter designed for divisional alumni and friends — Show-Me Applied Social Sciences. We’ve rebranded our alumni and friends communications effort to align with the college’s new strategic plan.

Show-Me Applied Social Sciences will be released twice annually — in the fall and spring. In this issue, we celebrate accomplishments of Applied Social Sciences faculty, staff, students and alumni; highlight initiatives underway in the division; and introduce faces who have recently joined the division. Read More >>

Tradition of Tigers in the Field (click to read)
Tradition of Tigers in the Field »

DASS video launches, showcasing what its faculty, staff and students do every day to make a difference

Student Success
Investing in the Future (click to read)
Investing in the Future »

CAFNR student named National Teach Ag Ambassador

Innovative Thinking (click to read)
Innovative Thinking »

MU students place second at Food Distribution Research Society Student Marketing Case Competition

Recipe for Networking (click to read)
Recipe for Networking »

CAFNR students apply what they’ve learned in the classroom

In Brief

During November 2018, three agribusiness management students — Clarke Blodgett, Drew Cox and Caitlyn McGuire — traveled to Chicago to represent Mizzou for the first time at the Private Label Manufacturers Association’s University Outreach Program.

Last spring, Madison Byrd, agricultural leadership, communication and education graduate student, and Betsy Smith, agricultural and applied economics graduate student, received the university’s joint 2019 TA Writing Intensive Teaching Excellence Award.

Students honored with CAFNR Outstanding Student Awards for 2019 were all students from our division: Paxton Dahmer, agricultural education and leadership freshman; Sydnee Mason, agricultural education and leadership sophomore; Colton Spencer, agricultural education and leadership junior; and Maria Kuhns, agribusiness management senior.

Agriculture student Sage Eichenburch was one of four Mizzou students to be awarded the 2019 Hesburgh Award. The award, which is funded by the TIAA-CREF Hesburgh Endowment Fund, recognizes student academic achievement.

Holly Enowski, science and agricultural journalism student, won first place during the Missouri Farm Bureau Collegiate Discussion Meet held in December 2018.

On Tap Day 2019, Jason Entsminger, PhD candidate in agricultural and applied economics, was tapped into the Rollins Society, and Holly Enowski, science and agricultural journalism student, was tapped into Omicron Delta Kappa.

Science and agricultural journalism student Jacqueline Janorschke was one of five students nationwide in 2018 to earn a scholarship from the NAFB Foundation. Jacqueline received the George Logan Scholarship, a $5,000 award.

The National Pork Board named Ben Luebbering, agribusiness management student, as one of three 2019 Pig Farmers of Tomorrow.

Rebecca Mott was named to the Mizzou 18 class of outstanding graduate students during spring 2019. With the Mizzou 18 Award, the Mizzou Alumni Association Student Board honors 18 graduate and professional students to recognize their research, collaboration with faculty and staff, and demonstrated leadership with undergraduate students.

Erica Overfelt was chosen to serve as a science communication fellow for the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology in Japan from February 2019 to July 2019.

Faculty Spotlight
Teaching Excellence (click to read)
Teaching Excellence »

John Tummons earns USDA Teaching Award

An Icelandic Adventure (click to read)
An Icelandic Adventure »

Mary Hendrickson awarded 2019-20 Fulbright U.S. Scholar grant

A Passion for Rural Communities (click to read)
A Passion for Rural Communities »

Sarah Low’s entire career has been devoted to rural economic development

Understanding Consumer Behavior (click to read)
Understanding Consumer Behavior »

Michelle Segovia joins CAFNR as a behavioral and experimental economist

In Brief

Rural sociology assistant research professor Dr. Kerry Clark assumed the role of director of CAFNR International Programs in August.

Earlier this semester, we celebrated the careers of newly retired faculty Dr. Jere Gilles, Dr. Mike Monson, Dr. David O’Brien and Dr. Judith Stallmann. We appreciate the contributions all four have made to our division’s research, teaching, extension and engagement work.

Dr. Mary Hendrickson’s promotion to associate professor of rural sociology was effective in September.

In September, Dr. Wyatt Thompson was promoted from associate professor to professor of agricultural and applied economics.

Awards and Achievements

Welcome to DASS

In February, Dr. Lupita Fabregas joined MU and our division. In her new role, Dr. Fabregas serves as an associate extension professor in our agricultural education and leadership program and as state 4-H director.

Dr. Seth Meyer joined our division in August as an agricultural and applied economics research professor and associate director of our Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute. Before joining our division, Dr. Meyer served as the chairman of the World Agricultural Outlook Board. He received his doctoral degree in agricultural economics from MU and previously worked at FAPRI as a researcher and faculty member.

Dr. Rebecca Mott joined our agricultural education and leadership faculty as an assistant extension professor effective March 2019. She has a shared appointment with the College of Human Environmental Sciences.

The division welcomed Dr. Mallory Rahe as an assistant extension professor in July. She works with University of Missouri Extension’s community and business development program. Her research interests focus on the mechanics of local development in rural communities and understanding how communities access resources and make decisions locally and regionally.

Program and Center Updates

The hospitality management program joined our division effective Jan. 1, 2019. This realignment has provided opportunities for our division to enhance its work in applied management practiced from field to plate and through the everyday services that accompany travel, tourism and entertainment. Hospitality management faculty, academic associates and staff have moved to new offices in Gentry Hall.

The Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute celebrated its 35th anniversary in 2019 and was named as a CAFNR program of distinction.

On LinkedIn, our #TigersInTheField series profiles several of our division’s students who participated in summer internships. See an archive of our #TigersInTheField features.

If you have a visit to campus planned, then consider having lunch at the Café at Eckles. Operated by hospitality management students and faculty, the café is open during the fall 2019 semester from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Tuesdays through Fridays in 154 Stringer Wing of Eckles Hall. Visit the café’s webpage to access the current menu and other details.

The FARM360 e-newsletter launched during spring 2019. Produced monthly by a student-faculty team, the e-newsletter provides in-depth, comprehensive, on-target coverage of Missouri food, agriculture and rural community news. Subscribe to FARM360.

A partnership between our agricultural education and leadership program and the newly formed Future Farmers of Ukraine has focused on opening opportunities for Ukrainian youth to learn about agriculture.

Effective Jan. 1, 2019, the Office of Social and Economic Data Analysis joined the Truman School to partner with the Institute of Public Policy.

Research Highlights

At this summer’s International Food Marketing Research Symposium, recent alumna Emma Boase, who was a graduate scholar in our McQuinn Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership and was advised by Dr. Randall Westgren, received the Outstanding Student Paper Award. Her research examined how nutritional, health and production claims made on food packaging may create a “halo” effect — meaning, a claim made for one product attribute also affects consumer perceptions of other attributes found in the same product.

Research from Dr. Jasper Grashuis, assistant research professor of agricultural and applied economics, and Dr. Mike Cook, professor of agricultural and applied economics, suggests that cooperative longevity depends not only on a co-op’s financial performance but also the utility and satisfaction that the co-op creates for its farmer-members. In particular, the study measured how five factors — trust, participation, mission support, organic lifestyle and satisfaction — affected farmer-members’ long-term commitment to sustaining their membership in a co-op.

Hospitality management master’s student Yidan Huang and adviser Dr. Pei Liu, assistant professor of hospitality management, were recently recognized for their research. Their work, titled “An Evaluation of College Students’ Healthy Food Consumption Behaviors,” was nominated for four best paper awards.

A research poster from Anadil Iftekhar, rural sociology PhD student, placed second at this summer’s Rural Sociological Society annual meeting. It presents preliminary findings from a survey of 63 Muslims living in the U.S and Canada. The findings show religious factors affect Muslims’ food choices — the foods they eat and their food-related charitable activity. As Muslim populations grow, their food attitudes and behaviors may shape and affect interactions with food systems as they make choices consistent with their religious and cultural beliefs.

For restaurant and foodservice businesses, the most effective cause marketing messages pair visuals with text, according to research co-authored by Dr. Dae-Young Kim, hospitality management associate professor; colleague Dr. Sung-Bum Kim; and Dr. Kathleen Jeehyae Kim, hospitality management doctoral program graduate. The research also found that selecting an appropriate cause leads to consumers viewing cause marketing more favorably.

Soojin Lee, PhD student in hospitality management, earned third place at the 2019 Chinese Association for Food Protection in North America student presentation competition. Her presentation shared findings from a study that she and adviser Dr. Pei Liu, assistant professor of hospitality management, conducted to assess how campus dining employees accommodate student-customers who have food intolerances and food allergies. Just four in 10 adult U.S. campus dining employees participating in the survey research knew the difference between a food intolerance and a food allergy. The study highlights the need to train personnel about how to recognize and accommodate food intolerances and allergies.

Farms that adopt precision agriculture can sustain profitability, according to research co-authored by Dr. Ray Massey, agricultural and applied economics extension professor. A precision agriculture system (PAS) intends to maximize yields and crop quality while using inputs efficiently and achieving environmental conservation. For two successive 11-year periods, the study compared yields and profitability for one 86-acre field first managed using conventional practices and then a PAS. Profitability was essentially the same in the two periods. The study concluded that growers may consider PAS to not only preserve profits but also capture other potential benefits, such as improved soil health and water quality.

Our division’s Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute (FAPRI) released its annual baseline update in August. Watch this segment in our Take One for Ag series to hear Dr. Seth Meyer, agricultural and applied economics research professor and FAPRI associate director, and Dr. Joe Parcell, division director, share highlights from the update.

For farms interested in operating agritourism enterprises, their location matters, according to research co-authored by Dr. Sarah Low, associate professor of regional economics. To study how place-based factors affect agritourism activity, the research first identified agritourism “hot spots” — areas with the greatest shares of farms involved in agritourism. It found that counties with proximity to scenic byways, remote locations, nearby natural amenities and access to residents who have high per capita incomes tended to be hot spots.

At this summer’s Community Development Society Conference, rural sociology PhD student Andres Felipe Mesa Valencia received the Best Poster Presentation of a Theme with International Significance award. The research addressed the emergence of food deserts — defined as areas that lack adequate access to fresh, healthy and affordable food — in Colombia, and it outlined several possible solutions to the Colombian food desert challenge.

Forming quality relationships with students and the community is critical for new agricultural education teachers to feel they can succeed in their jobs, based on research co-authored by Dr. Jon Simonsen, agricultural education and leadership associate professor. The research measured how different forms of teacher support — from school sources, such as students, parents, the community and colleagues, and non-school sources, such as family and friends — affect self-efficacy, which is the sense that one can do a job well and succeed.

With the updated “Missouri’s Third Class County Budget Trend Analysis” electronic workbook, Missouri third class counties — those with asset valuations that total less than $600 million — may study budget and fiscal trends for their respective counties from 1996 to 2017. Reviewing these data may also help counties to identify factors that influence those trends. Professor Dr. Judith Stallmann and James Rossi, agricultural and applied economics PhD student, created the new workbook.

Alumni Corner
From Farm Kid to Executive (click to read)
From Farm Kid to Executive »

Crop Science division COO of Bayer returns to campus

A Career Communicator (click to read)
A Career Communicator »

Christine Tew honored with Ag Communicator of the Year award from Missouri Department of Agriculture

In Brief

Kellie Bray, who is a general agriculture alumna and chief of staff for CropLife America, visited campus in February 2019 as CAFNR’s Robert O. Reich Executive-in-Residence.

Agricultural economics alumnus and Missouri Farm Bureau president Blake Hurst served as CAFNR’s Robert O. Reich Executive-in-Residence during April 2019.

On Oct. 4, Dr. John Phillips was our division’s recipient of the CAFNR Column Award for Distinguished Alumni. Dr. Phillips received his PhD in rural sociology from our division and serves as executive director at the First Americans Land-Grant Consortium.

Agribusiness management alumna Jessica Kueffer was selected to the AgGrad 30 Under 30 class of 2019. Jessica works as a recruitment and employee development manager at MFA Incorporated.

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Give to DASS

If you’d like to give to the Division of Applied Social Sciences, then please consider a gift to the DASS Excellence Fund, which provides donors with an opportunity to support a wide variety of initiatives. Those include enriching the student experience, engaging alumni to interact with students, funding faculty externships and enhancing the learning environment.