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City students find greener pastures by minding their best MANRRS By David Jwanier
James Kennedy, sponsor of the Junior Minorities in Agriculture, Natural Resources and Related Sciences (MANRRS) program, helps Erika Rushcheck, a MANRRS participant, examine a specimen under the microscope.	Cows. First, you notice the smell. For a kid from West Philly, that takes some getting used to, for while the urban landscape provides a daily variety of assaults on the human nose, the aroma of cows is not typically among them.   “I got used to the smell,” 17-year-old Kayana Higgs said. “At first, I was scared of them, too, because they were walking around loose, but I got used to that after about two weeks.”   Higgs lives in West Philadelphia and attends Lincoln High School, a sprawling campus in the Mayfair section of the northeast that is pretty urban in its own right. As part of a school-sponsored program, she spent half of the summer of 2000 at Penn State’s University Park campus examining cows that had given birth. Among other things, she studied how various foods in cows’ diet can impact the time it takes them to recover and start producing large quantities of milk again.   That unusual opportunity came from her participation in the Junior Minorities in Agriculture, Natural Resources and Related Sciences (MANRRS) program, a national program designed to help minority students reach out and smell the roses — or the cows, whatever they find most interesting.   The Junior MANRRS program at Lincoln High School, which meets about once a month, has helped some 40 students learn about agriculture during its six years in existence, according to program sponsor and environmental technology teacher James Kennedy. Half of those students have gone on to pursue college degrees in agriculture-related fields, and many have done so at Penn State.   Penn State Cooperative Extension in Philadelphia County administers the program, with support from the Penn State Community Recruitment Center in West Philadelphia and the Penn State Educational Partnership (PEPP) Program.   Dr. Theodore R. Alter, associate vice president for outreach, director of Cooperative Extension and associate dean in the College of Agricultural Sciences, said, “The MANRRS program is outstanding. It helps acquaint students early in their education with our agricultural and food system, and it introduces them to academic and career opportunities in the agricultural and food sciences.”   Cathy Lyons, assistant to the dean for minority affairs in the College of Agricultural Sciences, said, “The Junior MANRRS program serves as a wonderful feeder to the University. Many of the Junior MANRRS students consider Penn State as their first choice undergraduate institution. Once matriculating, they immediately identify with the College of Agricultural Sciences MANRA (Minorities in Agriculture and Natural Resources Association) organization and explore ways to give back to their communities. Often through volunteer work, paid internships and research experience, these young students become agricultural workers helping to dispel the traditional notion of ag, and they give a more comprehensive view to those in their communities who inquire: Why agriculture?”   Kennedy added, “All of our students are urban, and what surprises most urban youth is the simple fact that no matter where your interests might lie, they all have agricultural implications.”   He noted, for example, that most of the current DNA research on animals and plants is being done by agricultural researchers. Often, golf course groundskeepers and restaurateurs also have agricultural backgrounds.   One of the benefits for the dozen or so students currently in Lincoln High School’s Junior MANRRS program comes from the program’s relationship with Penn State. Students attend a MANRRS conference each spring at the University Park campus and get to meet current Penn State undergraduates who are in the University’s MANRRS program.   “I enjoy the activities they have planned for us at Penn State and having a mentor,” said Stephanie Lyons, 17, a senior from Mount Airy. A two-year member of the program, she said she grows flowers and vegetables at home in her garden, and she plans to go on to veterinary school after college.   Frank Mathis, 16, an 11th-grader from Southwest Philadelphia, plans to be a neurobiologist someday and study the cause of genetic disorders.   “I’m interested about the environment, our life system, our biosphere and stuff,” said Mathis, who is considering Penn State and Bloomsburg University for college. “Everything we do has an effect on our community, whether it’s positive or negative.”   The Junior MANRRS program also has been very successful at Thomas FitzSimons Middle School in North Philadelphia, where Penn State initiated the program in 1992, according to Elmore Hunter, youth educator for Penn State Cooperative Extension in Philadelphia County.   The MANRRS program at the University level began as a joint venture between Penn State and Michigan State University in 1986. Now, many predominantly minority colleges and land-grant universities have such a program in place.