Nutrition, Dietetics and Food Science
August, 2004
A. Self-Assessment:
I am a somewhat non-traditional faculty member in that I have not come to BYU as a continuation of an established academic career. Rather, I come to BYU from the ranks of industry, having spent the past ten years as a product development scientist and manager of a technical consulting business. I do not come to BYU with an active academic research program which I am transferring from one institution to another. Nor do I come to BYU with a long list of publications to my credit – in fact quite the opposite. While I acknowledge that this places me at a distinct disadvantage in the laboratory, I must also state that my practical industry experience has helped me get a firm grasp on what type of basic research has a meaningful and practical importance to the industry in terms of application. I hope to capitalize on my industry experience not only in my research endeavors, but also in the classroom.
The Food Science group within the department has established a research focus related to stability of foods during long-term storage. I am excited about joining the faculty in examining this important research area and would particularly like to direct my own research efforts towards creating stable fortified foods for nutritionally at-risk populations in underdeveloped areas of the world.
Some of the challenges I will face are: 1) becoming familiar with the players and funding sources in my particular research area, 2) getting a bare research lab staffed, equipped, and operational, 3) learning the ins and outs of manuscript preparation and publication.
B. Professional Goals /Plan for Success/Resource Requirements:
Citizenship:
- As faculty advisor to the Food Science Club, develop the club leadership into a working team that will expand the club’s ability to serve student needs and in the process reduce the workload on faculty and staff.
Plan: Help the club leadership develop a mission statement and objectives for the club. Increase the leadership offices to include activities chair, annual meeting coordinator, product development and college bowl team captains. Develop position descriptions for the various leadership positions and meet with the leadership regularly to ensure that they are fully engaged.
Resources Required: FS Club funds will be used to purchase binders for leadership materials. - Establish a student product development team and help them get a viable product entry in a product development competition on an annual basis.
Plan: Get an enthusiastic person to serve as team captain. Help build an industry mentoring/funding source supporting the team’s efforts.
Resources Required: External industry funding/mentoring assistance. - Provide my expertise in product development to mentor students through assisting the BYU Creamery and Church Welfare Services in their product development needs.
Plan: Work closely with students in NDFS 465 (Food Product Development) and summer interns to successfully carry out projects for the Creamery and Welfare Services.
Resources Required: Use of laboratory, pilot plant and sensory lab. - Serve effectively on the department scholarship and awards committee and in any other committee assignments that my mentor/chair feels appropriate.
Plan: Discuss committee opportunities with mentor/chair before accepting.
Resources Required: None - Help increase undergraduate enrollment in Food Science and Food Industry Management majors.
Plan: Update the Food Science undergraduate brochure to be used as a recruiting tool. Participate as a guest lecturer in NDFS 191 (Intro to Food Sci) and Bio 120.
Resources Required: Funding for purchasing/mailing brochures (already allocated) - Strengthen our ability to educate, mentor, and place students by building stronger relationships between the department and industry and alumni.
Plan: Organize a Food Science Industrial Advisory Committee for the department to assist in internship development, placement, mentoring, and curriculum assessment (Citizenship Project). Create a tradition for a more formal friends-and-alumni-social at IFT annual meeting, and increase attendance by finding sponsorship and building better contact database. Arrange for students to join NDFS 191 industry guest lectures for lunch.
Resources Required: A small amount of money will be needed for phone/mail communication, refreshments and/or meals for meetings, and other miscellaneous items. Some secretarial support will also be required. - (See collaborative research goals listed in the scholarship section)
Teaching:
- Have my teaching reviewed by a department peer annually and by a SCOT assessor each semester.
Plan: Work with department chair and assigned peer reviewer to accomplish dept peer review. Work directly with faculty center to arrange for SCOT review. Implement changes and improvements as recommended.
Resources Required: Time and attention of dept. peer reviewer and SCOT consultant. - Develop outcomes based objectives for all courses and begin developing measures to determine if those outcomes are being achieved.
Plan: Work through the modified Fink Course Planning Guide, provided by the faculty center, for each course that I teach and focus on specific outcome objectives and measurements.
Resources Required: None - Build a more student-interactive NDFS 462 course, utilizing more and better case studies and practical exercises (Course Development Project).
Plan: Select personal examples/exercises from industry experience, as well as current issues in the press to create regulatory case studies for class discussion. Augment these from Food & Drug Law, Cases and Materials, authored by PB Hutt and RA Merrill (which will need to be purchased).
Resources Required: Funding to purchase the Hutt/Merrill case studies book ($90.00) - Update/improve NDFS 251 instructor’s manual to make it easier for the TA’s to use.
Plan: Teaching assistants for this course presently use an instructor’s manual (with answers written in) and an outdated TA Guide, which provides details on how to organize and conduct the various labs. Some of the labs require other handouts and instructions to provide the TA’s with enough information to be able to successfully instruct the students. Based on feedback from previous TA’s, I plan to update both and combine them into a single instructor’s manual, which would include additional explanatory materials to help with difficult to understand principles. I will enlist the help of one of the TA’s, to do the electronic cut and paste. I will edit the combined version and provide additional instructional materials to increase the utility of the book for TA’s.
Resources Required: Some time from Michelle Lloyd to assist with formatting. Money to purchase 4 or 5 printed TA manuals from packet center once it’s complete ($25). - Update NDFS 251 student manual to bring it more into keeping with existing industry practices and to provide for improved correlation with NDFS 250 lecture.
Plan: Many of the methods and experiments used in the NDFS 251 lab manual are outdated or inadequate. I would like to replace some of the experiments with more practical and modernized versions that would better prepare the students for future work in the food industry. I will try to select one or two experiments to modify each semester and work at it systematically so that the entire lab manual is updated within 2-3 years. A budget will need to be put together each year to accommodate equipment/materials needed for the new experiments.
Resources: Some of the experiments that I have in mind, might require purchase of laboratory equipment/apparatus. - Complete the Fall 2003, and Winter/Spring 2004 Faculty Development Series
Plan: Attend the Fall 2003 and the Winter and Spring 2004 Faculty Center programs for new faculty. Work closely with mentor and department chair to complete materials and to prepare for a successful 3 and 6 year review.
Resources Required: None - Attend Blackboard course training to learn how to use Blackboard effectively to facilitate course management. Implement usage in classes taught.
Plan: Schedule attendance at a Blackboard training course. Use training to build blackboard course materials for classes I teach. Attend advanced Blackboard training once I have acquired the basic skills.
Resources Required: None - Participate as a peer reviewer in the department to be able to observe other teaching styles and approaches.
Plan: Work with department chair to get assignment to peer review another faculty member in the department. Review the course materials and attend their class and incorporate useful learning into my own courses and teaching.
Resources Required: None
Research/Scholarship:
- Get lab equipped and initiate research in the areas of food storage stability and international development. Build up to three graduate students and 2 undergrad mentored students working in lab by Fall 2005.
Plan: Initially using internal funding and then augmenting with external funding, bring additional graduate and undergrad students into lab to assist with research. Need to set up meaningful research projects leading to publication and seek ORCA and external funding.
Resources Required: Need start up funding for lab equipment and supplies. Need internal funding for two graduate students and 1 undergraduate RA for at least the first 2 years until external funding can be obtained. - Develop an effective laboratory mentoring environment for graduate and undergraduate students.
Plan: Meet weekly with lab group. Have students participate in research brainstorming and strategy in order to help them feel that they are an important part of the research process. Have regular informal and formal evaluations to ascertain what is and is not working in the mentoring process.
Resources Required: None - Submit at least two grant proposals for outside research funding sources, in addition to an ORCA mentored student grant proposal each year.
Plan: Build a network of funding sources to work with and update it regularly. Talk to colleagues, people at ORCA and LDS foundation, etc. to get ideas for new funding sources. Have a proposal in the works each semester.
Resources Required: None - Have at least one student present a technical paper or poster session at 2005 IFT Annual Meeting. Have one or more students present each year.
Plan: Work closely with graduate student(s) to keep them on track for presentation at IFT.
Resources Required: None - Maintain at least two ongoing, collaborative, long-term storage projects.
Plan: Develop/maintain relationships with other FS faculty and students and provide significant contributions to their research programs.
Resources Required: Cooperation with other faculty - Maintain at least one ongoing, collaborative project in international development.
Plan: Build relationships with other colleagues conducting research in the area of international development, where fortification might play an important role.
Resources Required: None
C. Relationship Between Individual Goals and Department and University Aspirations
As previously mentioned, the Food Science group in our department has a research focus on long-term storage and stability of foods. My personal research goals tie in well with that emphasis, as well as the department’s secondary emphasis on international development. The department has also recently added a Food Industry Management major, with a required internship. My citizenship goal to establish an industry advisory board will help increase opportunities for internships and will strengthen our overall program in significant ways. I hope and believe that by accomplishing my own personal goals, I can help the department achieve its mission to prepare students to succeed in their respective places of employment.
D. Resources Needed
(SEE description of resources required under individual goals)
E. Progress Made Toward Meeting Goals
Citizenship:
I have already begun working with Food Science club and have initiated a product development team, and obtained some limited funding for the team.
I have worked with the NDFS 465 students to develop one new product for Welfare Services (sugar-free, fortified fruit drink), and to improve another (Tomato Soup). I have also had students in the class work on three projects for the BYU Creamery. I continue to work with one student to commercialize one of the 465 projects at the Creamery (Yogurt Drink).
We have already met as a scholarship committee and coordinated the distribution of scholarship and awards funds for the 2004-05 school year.
I coordinated a BYU Alumni & Friends breakfast at the annual IFT meeting in July. I plan to continue this in the future.
Teaching:
I have already had one peer review of my 462 class. I had a SCOT assessor come in to my 462 and my 465 classes and received good and useful feedback, which I have implemented.
I have completed my 462 objectives and need to work on my 465 outcome based objectives.
This coming semester (Fall) I will be incorporating more case studies and hands on exercises for 462.
I have already completed the upgrade to the 251 TA manual. I need to get these printed off for the TA’s to use Fall semester.
I have written down several ideas for new experiments for the 251 student manual. I am also working with a TA to get better coordination between 250 and 251.I have completed the Fall 2003, Winter and Spring 2004 faculty development series and completed the Spring Seminar checklist.
I have attended basic Blackboard training and plan to incorporate Blackboard course management into my courses this coming academic year.
I have received an assignment to peer review another faculty member’s course this coming semester.
Scholarship:
I have purchased some equipment and supplies and have one graduate student and one undergrad working on a long-term stability project (liquid vegetable oil). I have two more graduate students starting Fall 2004 and at least one of them will be working on a international development project (corn tortilla fortification).
We are currently holding regular lab meetings. The students working in my lab completed a department mentored experience evaluation and I was allowed to review the results. I need to develop an additional evaluation form or procedure to get more specific and meaningful feedback.
I have submitted one proposal to SUSTAIN for the tortilla project, and it appears that it will be funded at least partially. I am also working on some additional proposals.
We seem to be on track to get a poster abstract submitted for next year’s IFT meeting.
The above represents my top priorities and goals, which I feel will allow me to make a significant contribution to fulfill the mission of the department and the aims of the university.
This faculty plan has been reviewed with my department chair who agrees that the goals and plans detailed herein will help me successfully prepare for a continuing faculty status review within six years time.
__________________________ ______________ XXXX, Assoc. Professor Date __________________________ ______________ XXXX, NDFS Chair Date