AAQEP Accreditation 2022
Standard 4 Aspect B
The program is committed to and invests in strengthening and improving the education profession and the P-20 education system. Each program’s context (or multiple contexts) provides particular opportunities to engage the field’s shared challenges and to foster and support innovation. Engagement with critical issues is essential and must be contextualized. Sharing results of contextualized engagement and innovation supports the field’s collective effort to address education’s most pressing challenges through improvement and innovation.
Recruitment Efforts:
Ag Specialist program faculty, Dr. Sherri Freeman and Dr. Steven Rocca, serve the
Jordan College and the Agricultural Education program as supervisors of the college’s
student ambassadors. The ambassador program strives to develop students’ communication
and leadership skills through activities that promote higher education, the college’s
academic programs and agricultural literacy. The ambassador team participates in approximately
60 different outreach activities each year. These activities include high school and
community college recruitment visits, tours of the campus and agricultural laboratories,
exhibiting at career and trade shows, speaking at career days, agricultural industry
events, and conferences for the improvement of the ambassador team and its individual
members. Being part of the ambassador team provides students with real world, service-learning
experiences that help to shape them as leaders in the agricultural education profession.
The ambassador’s program also includes the Farm Credit Multicultural Ambassadors,
which consists of 5 undergraduate students majoring in Agricultural Education. These
students are assigned to visit urban and/or rural high schools to inform and advise
prospective students regarding the opportunities at Fresno State and serve as role
models to motivate and encourage underrepresented students to acquire the necessary
skills in order to be eligible for college.
Efforts to Support Diverse Students:
Over the past six years, 457 students (76 annually) have participated in the Jordan
College's Ambassador Program with over 39% (179) identifying as Hispanic. Currently
60% (3 out of 5) of the Multicultural Ambassador team identifies as Hispanic. Latinx
students who have participated in the JCAST Ambassador program have an average cumulative
grade point average of 3.07 with a range of 3.02 to 3.19 over the past six years.
During this same period, the next semester retention rate of Latinx students in the
Ambassador program has averaged 98%, which is slightly higher than the overall Ambassador
average of 97%.
Table 1: Demographic Data of Recent Ag Specialist Completers:
| Enrollment Total of survey participants (Reported to CCTC) |
2019 N=25 |
2020 N=31 |
2021 N=34 |
|
| African American | 1 | 0 | 0 | |
| American Indian or Alaska Native | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| Asian | 0 | 1 | 0 | |
| Filipino | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| Hispanic or Latino | 5 | 5 | 9 | |
| Pacific Islander | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| White | 16 | 20 | 23 | |
| 2+ Races | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| Not Reported | 3 | 5 | 2 |
2020-2021 Regional K-12 Enrollment Data by County (source: CDE DataQuest):
| County: | Fresno | Madera | Tulare | Kings | STATE |
| Total | 205,480 | 31,494 | 103,592 | 29,284 | 6,002,523 |
| African American | 4.7% | 1.2% | 1.0% | 3.3% | 5.2% |
| American Indian or Alaska Native | 0.6% | 1.0% | 0.7% | 1.0% | 0.5% |
| Asian | 9.5% | 1.5% | 2.0% | 1.0% | 9.5% |
| Filipino | 0.8% | 0.2% | 0.7% | 1.6% | 2.4% |
| Hispanic or Latino | 65.8% | 75.6% | 78.2% | 71.3% | 55.3% |
| Pacific Islander | 0.2% | 0.1% | 0.2% | 0.2% | 0.4% |
| White | 15.9% | 18.2% | 14.5% | 18.1% | 21.7% |
| 2+ Races | 2.2% | 1.6% | 1.4% | 3.3% | 4.1% |
| Not Reported | 0.4% | 0.7% | 1.3% | 0.2% | 0.9% |