Pathways to Success for Hispanic Students as Registered Dietitians

The Pathways to Success for Hispanic Students as Registered Dietitians project (Pathways) develops a comprehensive cooperative pipeline for recruiting, retaining, and supporting undergraduate and graduate students in order to prepare them for careers as Registered Dietitians. Through a cooperative initiative between CSUN and Mission College, the two institutions plan to collaborate by developing and institutionalizing a pipeline of Hispanic and other underrepresented students prepared to embark on a career as Registered Dietitians. The two institutions plan to do so by integrating and infusing multiple student services including systematic and comprehensive outreach to local high schools to increase awareness among underrepresented high school students about careers in dietetics, comprehensive advisement services at the undergraduate level, tutoring support services targeting high failure rate courses, research assistantship opportunities for the undergraduate nutrition science students, soft skills and leadership skills coaching, financial support for undergraduate and graduate students, peer mentorship, faculty mentorship, and a career mentorship. In addition, two lactation courses as well as an experiential learning opportunities in the field will equip students with the knowledge and skills to be able to promote and support breastfeeding as Registered Dietitians. The impact will be to a) dramatically increase the number of Hispanic students who successfully transfer from Mission College to CSUN's nutrition science bachelors; b) increase the number of Hispanic nutrition science bachelors students who graduate with a degree in nutrition science; (c) increase the number of Hispanic nutrition science bachelors students who get admitted to CSUN's accredited Dietetic Internship Program; d) increase the number of Hispanic students who successfully complete the Dietetic Internship and graduate programs at CSUN and become eligible to sit for the Registered Dietitian credentialing exam; e) increase the number of Hispanic students who are Certificated Lactation Educators and successfully complete an experiential learning opportunity in the field. Through the development and implementation of innovative education strategies that address specific educational needs at the partner institutions, the Pathways project will advance the overall goal of the HSI Education Grant Program to build the capacity of HSIs to improve teaching, enrollment, and graduation rates, thereby strengthening our educational response to societal challenges impacted by the food and agricultural sciences.