2012

CAES students and faculty celebrate international learning and outreach

By Merritt Melancon
University of Georgia

The task of ending world hunger begins with understanding that poverty affects over 1 billion people worldwide, who lack of resources or live in areas engaged in conflict. In developing countries, one of three children is malnourished.

The University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences faculty, staff and students celebrated international education within the college and the international activities CAES students this month at International Day 2012.

“We would like to have 100 percent of our students study abroad,” said CAES Dean J. Scott Angle. “Our goal is to get everyone to go overseas to learn a different culture.

If we can get all our students to understand that this is an international business that we’re in, and that feeding the hungry around the world is all of our responsibility, then we can be exactly where we need to be.”

To emphasize the college’s goal of building a more food-secure global community, Maria Navarro, associate professor of Agricultural Leadership, Education and Communication, served foods representative of the diets in high-, low- and mid-income countries.

Former study abroad participants Paul Adeyemi, a senior studying Agricultural Engineering, and Myra Clarisse Ferrer, who is pursuing her PhD in Agricultural and Applied Economics, shared their travel experiences with the crowd last week.

William McFall, a master’s degree student studying Agricultural and Environmental Economics, took home a CAES Graduate Student International Travel Award to pay for a plane ticket to Brazil, where he will present a paper.

Laura Ney, who has worked extensively with farmers living near UGA’s campus in Costa Rica, was honored with the college’s Undergraduate Global Citizen Award. The award recognizes a student who has embraced global citizenship by participating in and promoting the college’s international outreach efforts.

Ney and Adeyemi will receive their Certificates in International Agriculture this spring along with four other CAES undergraduates. Food Science student Ariel Chan, Agricultural Education student Amanda Stephens, Environmental Economics and Management student Ben Dymecki and Biological Sciences student Ukachi Ugorji also will receive certificates.

CAES offers the International Agriculture Certificate to students who achieve fluency in a second language and complete a minimum 8-week internship in a country where English is not the first language.

The college started offering a graduate certificate in International Agriculture this year. Graduate students Na Hao, Zachary King and Ishakh Pulakkatu thodi also took prizes in this year’s international photo contest.