2010 Kaplan Family Distinguished Faculty Fellows

Mary Jo Dudley

Director, Cornell Farmworker Program, Department of Development Sociology

Mary Jo Dudley is the Director of the Cornell Farmworker Program and a faculty member in the Department of Development Sociology. She is bilingual and has numerous years of experience of working with issues related to migration and Latin American-US relations. She is currently involved in research that explores immigrant farmworkers’ perceptions of their lives in New York State. Her research examines the factors that motivate farmworkers to leave their home communities, their views on their journey to where they are currently employed, how they view their social and economic contributions in NYS as well as in their home communities, and what they envision for their future.

This project proposes to engage Cornell undergraduate and graduate students in collaborative research and outreach efforts with farmworkers. Through a community based learning endeavor, they propose to develop materials/ actions to expand their capacity to respond to farmworker concerns. This project proposes to support farmworkers’ aspirations to gain skills that will contribute to their future economic and social well-being. This collaborative effort will simultaneously provide a meaningful service learning opportunity for Cornell students with sustained, long-term, measurable results.

The proposal consists of five components of collaborative learning: 1) a broad community needs assessment conducted with farmworkers through focus groups; 2) joint development of educational materials and programs to respond to identified needs; 3) field testing and revision of draft materials/ programs; 4) development of an evaluation component; and the 5) drafting of a curriculum for farmworker trainers. Students will be involved in this effort through their participation in the CFP summer internship, the fall course or independent studies.

Rebecca Stoltzfus

Professor, Division of Nutritional Sciences, Human Ecology

Rebecca Stoltzfus is Professor in the Division of Nutritional Sciences. She holds a Ph.D. and M.S. in Human Nutrition from Cornell University and a Bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Goshen College. She has been a member of the National Academy of Sciences Food and Nutrition Board, Associate Editor of the Journal of Nutrition, president of the Society for International Nutrition Research, and is a Fellow of the International Union of Nutritional Sciences. She recently received the Kellogg Award of the American Society for Nutrition for excellence in international nutrition research, and is a member of the WHO Nutrition Advisory Group for the Biennum. Her research focuses on the causes and consequences of malnutrition in women and children in low- income countries, with research is ongoing in Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Peru, and Haiti. She directs Cornell’s Global Health Program, which offers a minor in global health to Cornell students from any college and any major. This summer, more than 50 Cornell students will complete global health internships in low-income countries, including 12 students will participate in the service learning program in Tanzania now supported by the Kaplan award.

The mission of the Global Health Program (GHP) is to engage new researchers in the field of global health and to establish new and unique research, educational, and service collaborations that will foster a multidisciplinary approach to solving global health problems. Last summer, in collaboration with Kilimanjaro Christian Medical College (KCMC) the GHP successfully launched a new global service-learning program in Moshi, Tanzania. The goal of the eight-week summer program is to enhance the cross- cultural competence of students and to provide these students with opportunities to gain broad knowledge about global health and agricultural issues in the Tanzanian context. During the second half of the program, students contribute forty hours of service per week to a local non-governmental organization, hospital, government agency, or research project through an internship placement that is tailored to the student's interests in global health. This year they would like to direct their attention to enhancing the quality of these placements. An excellent way to start this work is to create a stronger and more meaningful collaboration with the Fukeni Parish Rural Livelihoods Project. Under the supervision and guidance of Cornell Global Health Faculty and Pastor Kennedy Kisanga of the Fukeni Parish Rural Livelihoods Project, Cornell undergraduate students will design and implement a formative needs assessment to learn about on-going development projects in Fukeni, to identify the specific needs of each project and to discern points of collaboration between Cornell and Fukeni. It is their hope that the findings from this report will generate a meaningful dialogue about and a plan for the ways in which Cornell students and faculty can realistically contribute to and support the on-going work of the Fukeni Parish Rural Livelihoods Project.