The U.S. Department of Agriculture on July 10 welcomed 30 faculty and staff from Hispanic-Serving Institutions nationwide to Washington D.C. as the 2023 class of E. Kika De La Garza Fellows to learn more about USDA services and programs that will benefit them and their students. This effort is part of the USDA’s commitment to advance equity in professional development opportunities as well as to build a more diverse pipeline into public service and the agricultural sector.

The fellows from Fresno State, Nancy Vue (coordinator of internships and professional experiences in the Jordan College) and Kalyani Maitra (Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, associate professor), spent one week of the meeting, from July 10 through 15, with leaders from different USDA agencies. They gained knowledge and understanding about national and regional issues, policy making, and ongoing research endeavors in several focus areas of the USDA agencies.

As a science fellow, Kalyani spent an additional week at an Agricultural Research Service facility in Baton Rouge, Louisiana that has a research focus on areas of honeybee breeding, genetics and physiology. With this participation and acquired knowledge, she looks forward to partnering with colleagues and researchers in ag-sciences in the upcoming years to initiate projects that will provide enriching experiences and training to students at Fresno State.

Kudos to Julie Renee Moore, special collections cataloger, for the publication of her chapter in "Best Practices for Cataloging DVD-Video and Blu-ray Discs, Objects, Streaming Media, and Video Games Using the Original RDA Toolkit and MARC 21." This guide brings together the Online Audiovisual Catalogers' existing best practices into a single document, updated for consistency and clarity which will assist library patrons in finding and utilizing these research materials nationwide.

Dr. Helda Pinzón-Perez, professor of public health, was a panelist in the statewide Zócalo Public Square series, "What Is a Good Job Now?" Her expertise is in the health issues of rural areas and vulnerable populations, to define the problem with health care jobs.