Welcome letter from Gail Imig

Welcome to Food Systems Professions Education (FSPE) web site. FSPE is a W.K. Kellogg Foundation sponsored initiative through the Food System and Rural Development programming area. The W. K. Kellogg Foundation has been committed to agriculture, nutrition, and efficient food systems since 1930. With the Food Systems Professions Education (FSPE) initiative, the Foundation offers universities the opportunity to determine their desired future for food systems education. Kellogg grants will catalyze long-term planning, innovative thinking, and new collaborations between higher education, communities, and business partners. In short, FSPE seeks to nurture a new harvest of ideas, networks, and practices, designed to sustain and improve our food system during the coming century.

The FSPE initiative seeks to catalyze significant, positive changes in university-based education programs throughout the United States to better prepare food systems professionals to be responsive to the dynamic and complex food systems issues of the 21st century. It builds on the tremendous contribution of the land-grant systems of higher education to food production and utilization and assumes the natural evolution of institutions to serve the needs of a diverse constituency in the next century.

The FSPE Institutional Models substrategy is a two-phase effort in which Kellogg Foundation resources are directed toward building the initial capacity for institutional change. The first phase funded 12 institutional models: to participate in collaborative visioning exercises, to identify education models, and to prepare professionals who will be able to respond to the complex food systems issues of the next century. The first phase has been completed. Those that completed the visioning process, and submitted an acceptable Phase II proposal for the implementation phase, will be considered for a second grant. In Phase II, they will begin the actual transformation of the food systems education program, based on the outcomes of the visioning process. In all, the 12 models include 26 land-grant colleges and universities in 22 states, as well as dozens of community colleges, and state colleges and universities.

The FSPE web site strives to meet two goals. First it is a central repository of information about the W.K. Kellogg FSPE initiative, including the grantees and their projects. Second this site is a knowledge base of information about Food Systems and Higher Education generally. To that end we have included a wide variety of information that we hope you will find useful, including publications, events, funding opportunities and more.

Please don't hesitate to contact me if you have any comments or suggestions about this site.

Thank you for visiting this site.

Gail Imig

Program Director of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation Food Systems Education Professions Initiative

Gail Imig

Program Director of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation Food Systems Education Professions Initiative