Student to Student

Eric Ollila, AgBio Communications

AgBio Ambassador Emily Tschetter interacts with a class of high school students.

AgBio Ambassadors Lead ABS College Recruitment Efforts

They are volunteers who serve on holidays. Their mission’s hallmarks are friendship, service, and support. They employ smiles and laughter and paper airplanes. And over the past 15-plus years, they have helped the College of Agriculture and Biological Sciences and SDSU maintain a continuous physical presence in the region’s high schools. They are the SDSU AgBio Ambassadors, and, according to Tim Nichols, the group’s adviser and the ABS College’s assistant director of academic programs, they are ABS College keys.

“Through the AgBio Ambassador program, we involve current college students in travel and presentations and communications to prospective students around the region. The program really serves as the front line of our student recruitment efforts in the College,” Nichols said. “It is a students-recruiting-students approach.”

The organization’s outreach is extensive. Nichols said that in covering an area of the Midwest that stretches from Minnesota to Montana and from North Dakota to Nebraska, the SDSU AgBio Ambassador organization visited nearly 130 high schools during the 2006-07 school year.
“They really tear up the road,” Nichols said. “They get out there and try to spread the good word about SDSU’s programs and about the educational and career opportunities in agricultural and biological sciences.”

Over the past decade-and-a-half, these dedicated ABS College student-volunteers have repeatedly journeyed to Midwestern high school classrooms, multi-purpose rooms, and adviser’s offices.

The efforts of the Ambassadors are personal. They engage their audiences. They laugh and smile. They soothe and encourage. Their effort is enthusiastic and energetic. And they have the ability to transform the lives of those they speak to.

“I do love seeing some of the kids on campus. I do see faces that I know all of the time,” said AgBio Ambassador Kara VanNurden, Owatonna, Minn., a senior majoring in biology education. “It’s cool to see them on campus and know that I may have had an influence on them.”

The AgBio Ambassadors are influential. And, as they speak and answer questions about issues they feel deeply about—higher education in general, and an education at SDSU’s ABS College in specific—they are also genuine.

“They don’t have an agenda,” said Nichols. “They do this because they’re passionate about SDSU and they really want to serve.”

AgBio Ambassadors is strictly a volunteer organization. Funding for the group is provided by the SDSU Foundation, and the Ambassadors visit high schools primarily during breaks in the University school year. While they don’t get paid, they do receive an AgBio Ambassador jacket, get reimbursed for travel, and have access to state vehicles. They generally travel in groups of two or three, though occasionally an Ambassador will make a solo presentation.

Presentations are primarily friendly Q&A sessions. A presentation may begin with the Ambassadors warming up their audience of high school students with some banter and play, a bag of candy may be passed around, and they may dole out slips of notebook paper. The high schoolers are encouraged to write questions about college on the paper, fold the paper into airplanes, and toss them to the Ambassadors. An Ambassador will then pick up the airplane, unfold it, and answer the question.

The questions fielded range from queries about food and friends to concerns about costs and study time. VanNurden, who has been an AgBio Ambassador since she was a first-year student, said the reactions and questions received from prospective students can be unique, but they are generally honest and sincere.

“You really get a little bit of everything, depending on the class,” VanNurden said. “For the most part, most kids are really interested in what we have to say, mainly because we are college students and we have been where they are.”

Because the success of the 25- to 30-member strong AgBio Ambassador program is dependent on the dedication and excellence of its volunteers, recruiting for the program itself is vital. Once a school year, emails, bulletins, and fliers promoting the Ambassadors are sent out, posted, or distributed around the SDSU campus. Those who apply must submit a cover letter and resume, then interview with a committee that consists of current ambassadors and two faculty members. The application process is rigorous: only one of every three applicants becomes an Ambassador.

“You want the best of the best.” VanNurden said. “Even if I hadn’t got in, I would have been through a fairly rigorous interview process that would help me in my future career.”

Adam Franken, a 2004 graduate of SDSU, has seen the Ambassadors from both the inside and the outside. As an ABS student, he was an Ambassador, and as an agriculture teacher and FFA adviser at Groton Area School, he has invited them to the school and has watched them interact with his students. He said the AgBio Ambassador program is worthwhile, at all levels.

“I think the ambassador program at SDSU is great,” Franken said. “It’s a great way to build leadership and career skills, and it’s also good for personal development and growth—because you are challenged.”

The demands of the program extend past the application process and presentations at high schools. In addition to the high school visits, the Ambassadors spend time at career fairs and are involved in numerous on-campus outreach efforts.

And the nation is noticing. In 2006-07, the program was awarded with the National Agricultural Ambassadors Recruitment and Retention Award. For that honor, SDSU beat out such schools as Penn State University, the University of Arizona, and The Ohio State University.

“It really is remarkable,” said Nichols. “I have had other colleges ask me how we get such amazing volunteers. What can I say? Our students are among the most talented, generous, passionate, and hard-working anywhere.”

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