AEE Student Tiera George Gains Valuable Research Experience through REACH Program

Tell us about the organization you partnered with and what your major roles and responsibilities were. 

This past summer, I worked with my advisor, Dr. Joseph Donaldson in collecting data for the REACH program. The REACH program works to connect outstanding community college students to careers in food, agriculture, natural resources, and human sciences at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. REACH addresses the needs for food and agricultural workforce development through greater equity, access and opportunity for research experiences an 21st century skill development. My major roles and responsibilities were to prepare all surveys and evaluation materials. Additionally, I helped in administering focus groups and surveys. Once returning to the university, it was my responsibility to edit transcripts and code all information and to deduce larger themes into codes. From here, my adviser and I worked to analyze the data and prepare the Year Two Evaluation Summary. 

Additionally, I worked as a field facilitator for the Womxn of Color Retreat from October 10-13, leading women through reflection, awareness building, and actualization.

“The Womxn of Color Retreat (WOCR) focuses on awareness-building, reflection and actualization. Sponsored by the NC State Women’s Center and campus partners, WOCR serves any self-identified womxn of color, inclusive of cis, trans, femme, and gender-queer Latinx and/or Hispanic, Indigenous and/or Native, Black, African, Asian, Pacific Islander, Desi American and those of any multiracial group at NC State University.

The Womxn of Color Retreat (WOCR) aims to create a space where womxn of color can express themselves, explore their multiple realities and intersecting identities and discover the intricacies of power, leadership, sisterhood and scholarship. The retreat is open to undergraduate and graduate student self-identified womxn of color who seek to challenge, explore and nurture themselves authentically through self-exploration with other womxn of color.

Participants of the Womxn of Color Retreat have the opportunity to create bonds with other students as well as faculty and staff of color as we collectively take ownership of our authentic identities as womxn from varying cultural backgrounds, gender and/or sexual expressions and religious and/or spiritual backgrounds. By nurturing ourselves individually and collectively we strengthen community bonds to create positive self-care and academic fortitude, positively affecting our connection to and impact on our campus.”

https://oied.ncsu.edu/divweb/womenscenter/women-of-color-retreat/

How has this partnership impacted your career, family, and/or success?

Coming from a humanities and social science background, this was my first experience seeing not only the process of research, but actually being immersed into it, in such a way that I was able to learn through my experiences and the expertise of my advisor, Dr. Joseph Donaldson. I’m very grateful for that. Furthermore, we prepared two research posters for the AAAE Southern Conference. They were both accepted! This will be my first time presenting at a conference and I’m very excited. I now feel more confident and competent as a researcher, and I’m glad I did this. 

This experience has been extremely impactful as it allowed me to connect with other women of color, while giving us an inclusive space to share our experiences. From this retreat, I believe I’m a better listener, advocate and teacher due to this program.