The National Cooperative Fisheries Scholars Program: A Model for Producing Minority Fisheries Professionals

Racial minorities are underrepresented in the fields of fisheries and wildlife management, and the environmental sciences.  In pursuing these careers, minority students have faced several challenges.  First, because minority students are frequently first-generation college students, they are encouraged by family and high school teachers and counselors to pursue high-paying careers in medicine and law.  Second, careers in fisheries, wildlife, and environmental science are unfamiliar to most people, including high school teachers and counselors.  Thus, minority students are rarely exposed to these career possibilities prior to college.  Third, although state and federal natural resource agencies have made special efforts to recruit students from underrepresented groups for jobs and internships, students still face social challenges with regard to the workplace and work location.  As a result, these factors have limited diversity within the natural resources field at state and federal levels.  In response to these challenges, the National Cooperative Fisheries Scholarship (NCFS) program was created jointly by the U.S. Geological Survey – Biological Resource Division (USGS-BRD) and the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff (UAPB) in 2001.  The primary goal of the program is to attract underrepresented groups into the fields of fisheries biology and natural resources conservation and management.  Additionally, the NCFS mission is to attract high-quality minority students that excel at the undergraduate level and are capable of continuing their education at the graduate level.  Students are recruited nationally to the NCFS program using contacts located through the American Fisheries Society Hutton Scholars Program, youth fishing and conservation organizations, community service organizations, and recruitment pipelines developed at selected high schools throughout the U.S.  Once enrolled at UAPB, students develop professionally by participating in research under faculty mentors, attending scientific conferences, and making presentations at these conferences.  Students are required to complete off-campus summer internships with natural resource agencies.  Students develop academically by being required to maintain minimum grade-point averages, and advised toward more rigorous curricula that prepares them for graduate study.  Since 2001, the NCFS program at UAPB has admitted 26 scholars, retained 20, and graduated 13, with six graduates pursuing graduate study in the natural resources or environmental science fields.  Past graduates are employed with the Missouri Department of Conservation and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.  Past graduates pursuing graduate school are studying at Southern Illinois University, University of Minnesota, Texas A&M University, University of Maryland – Eastern Shore, and UAPB.