The George Washington Carver Internship Program has been impacting the minds of young students, from high school level to collegiate level, for over 25 years. This program encourages them to direct their interests towards the future of Agricultural-STEM professions through promoting science and exposing them to practical research opportunities under the guidance of the faculty at the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and other participating colleges. The George Washington Carver Internship Program seeks to improve the research enterprise by increasing the number of brilliant students who have experience with researching, networking and interacting with other students having different origins. The students who participate in the program learn a lot about their area of research through close engagement and interaction with their mentors, and as well as their peers, all the way through their internship. |
George Washington Carver, born in Diamond Grove, Missouri in the year 1860, was an impressive individual, becoming both a botanist and an inventor. He was no stranger to the experience of the hardships of being born a slave until being freed approximately around 1864. Carver's brilliant mind was infused with the desire to research many different crops, including cotton, peanuts, soybeans and sweet potatoes. He collected data pertaining to the nutritional value of these crops so that farmers can improve the production of said food sources. He became one of the nation’s greatest educators; an agricultural researcher at various schools and was honored and acknowledged for discovering the differences between cotton crops. In 1891, he became the first African American to enroll at Iowa State College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts, which is known as Iowa State University today. Carver received his bachelor’s degree in 1894 and still chose to continue his path of education. He became the first African American faculty member at Iowa State College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts soon afterwards. As a faculty member, he researched plant biology and served as an assistant botanist in mycology. Booker T. Washington invited Carver to head the Agricultural Department at Tuskegee Institute, now Tuskegee University, in 1896. Carver taught at Tuskegee Institute for 47 years. While at Tuskegee Institute, he gained an international reputation in his research and developed new methods teaching and outreach to the local farmers. Through his passion of teaching, he showed his students that understanding nature is the greatest knowledge that one must possess to understand the dynamics of agriculture. Carver's research resulted in 325 products from peanuts, more than 100 products from sweet potatoes and hundreds of other plants that are native species to the South, of which none were patented. He also conducted research with the intent of to improve soils by growing crops with low inputs and using other species, such as cowpea and the peanut, to fix the nitrogen. His legacy of achievement, talent and skill are still being practiced in today’s society at Tuskegee University and Iowa State University, engaging students in the knowledge of Agriculture & STEM fields. |
