The School of Food Science (SFS) is raising funds to fund a full-time teaching instructor position dedicated to undergraduate teaching. This position will focus exclusively on providing mentoring and support to our undergraduate students. As we move forward into the future, SFS will grow the program to increase enrollment and retention of undergraduate students by providing significant attention to the undergraduate program. Most of our undergraduate students come from high schools in Washington State and across the Pacific Northwest region and California.
Food Science is a STEM major where the students learn chemistry, microbiology, engineering, and sensory sciences and their applications in making nutritious foods that consumers like. The Food Science program provides excellent career opportunities for our graduates in the food industry, a growing industry. Generally, we have more job openings than the number of graduates. With more awareness about the food science program, we anticipate significantly increased enrollment in our program in the coming years. Thus, we are making every effort to increase the number of teaching faculty who can support the students.
This new “Food Science Teaching Instructor Endowment” was instituted by the seed funding of $100,000 from the Puget Sound Institute of Food Technologists (PSIFT) section in the Fall of 2021. Our goal is to raise a total of $1,750,000/- for this endowment. This endowment will provide the base salary for one full-time teaching instructor for perpetuity. This will be supported by the funds from the University and the SFS to provide operational costs for the position. This will enable a stable teaching instructor dedicated to the Food Science undergraduate program.
We wholeheartedly request you to provide any support you can for this endowment. Motivated to give, please visit the WSU Foundation/Teacher Endowment or use the QR code.
If you need additional information about this endowment and about the Food Science program, please reach out to Dr. Girish Ganjyal (girish.ganjyal@wsu.edu or 509-335-5613) and/or Dawn Butler (ndbutler@wsu.edu or 509-335-6205).