PurdueAgricultures
Jamie’s big adventure
Multicultural scholarship brings challenges and changes
By Olivia Maddox
The same day we finished skydiving, we decided to go white-water rafting. I can’t even describe how amazing skydiving is.” Then there’s, “We were so excited to get into the raft. Little did we know, I would be the only one to fall out!”
Jamie Lanier’s adventurous day of skydiving and whitewater rafting in Australia is just one of the many experiences she chronicles for Boilermaker Life, a feature on Purdue University’s undergraduate admission Web site.
Lanier, two other Purdue students and one recent graduate record their lives through online photographic journals as they enjoy friendships, face challenges and pursue career goals.
Lanier’s photo gallery is a mosaic of her life—showing her with good friend Andrea, whom she teams up with for “really gross labs”; with Gamma Phi Beta sorority sisters; and with study abroad classmates touring Australia, New Zealand and the Fiji Islands.
And these experiences might not have happened, if not for a phone call.
Sweetening the deal
Like many academically talented high school seniors, Lanier had attracted the attention of admission recruiters and had her pick of any number of colleges and universities. The suburban Chicago resident, who aspired to be a small-animal vet, had narrowed her choices to three top Midwestern schools—Purdue, Ohio State and Illinois.
Lanier chose Purdue after Nicolé Gale, former coordinator of multicultural programs for Purdue Agriculture, called to encourage her to apply for a new multicultural scholarship. Purdue Agriculture had been awarded a $100,000 competitive grant through the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Multicultural Scholars Program to provide five students with $5,000 scholarships for four years. “Getting the scholarship tipped the balance to Purdue,” she recalls.
Lanier and Christa Wessels, a fellow multicultural scholar, are among the five inaugural scholarship recipients who started fall semester 2003 and will be the program’s first graduates this year. An additional grant has allowed the scholarship program to continue, and a second group of recipients started last fall.
More than money
The multicultural scholarships are part of a concerted effort to increase the diversity of the student body. “The multicultural scholars grant creates an opportunity for us to attract a number of people to Purdue Agriculture who might not have considered it before,” says botany professor Ronald Coolbaugh, member of the Diversity Action Team in Agriculture and co-author of the scholarship grant proposal.
The scholarship program provides more than just financial assistance. It’s an ongoing process that supports students until they graduate and includes faculty, staff and peer mentoring; leadership and career development; study abroad; and internships.
“The program has created some great opportunities for me to network within the College of Agriculture and throughout the rest of campus,” says Lanier, who has an impressive résumé of activities in Purdue Agriculture, multicultural programs, campus organizations and service learning. One of the experiences that figures prominently in her journal was a trip Down Under last summer for a new study abroad course, Exploring Australia’s Food and Conservation Systems. “Everyone thought I was Fijian,” she says. “When I got off the plane, people were speaking to me in their native language. I was so flattered because they’re a beautiful group of people.”
New horizons
Another change for Lanier came when she switched majors from pre-veterinary medicine to wildlife science. “I’m still chasing my childhood dream to work with animals,” she says. “I’m a city girl at heart, so everything in wildlife science is a new experience. In every class, I’ve learned something new, and I’ve loved it all. I hope it works out.”
The new major also opened the door for a new career. Lanier was accepted into the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Student Career Experience Program. Last summer, she interned as a management trainee at Quivira National Wildlife Refuge in Kansas. She will complete a second internship in Utah this summer, then begin a permanent assignment as a wildlife refuge manager.
Overcoming obstacles
Lanier admits that for all the positive things that have happened, it has been a challenge to fit into an environment that is only 4.5 percent diverse. “There’s not a lot of diversity in my field,” she says. “But the multicultural programs office has been a huge help to those in my situation.” Lanier says that faculty, including Shorna Broussard, an assistant professor in the Department of Forestry and Natural Resources, have helped her with both personal and academic issues.
Lanier says she tries to take the challenges in stride and considers them life lessons. “For every roadblock I come across, I learn about other people and myself,” she says. “I hope my peers learn something, too.”
Find out more about Jamie Lanier’s experiences on the Boilermaker Life Web page .
Contact Olivia Maddox at
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