Evaluation of Graduate Student Education in Plant Breeding.

The demand for plant breeders continues to rise in response to increasing global food consumption, changing climate, and agricultural investment in developing countries.  The Plant Breeder Training Network (PBTN) was developed as an innovative approach to graduate education that meets the evolving multidisciplinary nature of plant breeding and the demand for graduates with both strong technical and professional skills. The PBTN is a community of practice with online and face-to-face components that supports a collaborative approach to enrich and diversify graduate student experiences. The PBTN is part of a USDA-NIFA-funded coordinated agricultural project (TCAP) to develop wheat and barley germplasm adapted to climate change. Using surveys and interviews, we gathered information from faculty and PhD students in plant breeding programs at more than 20 universities throughout the US from 2011 to 2014. We report on graduate student and faculty advisor ratings of level of student participation in more than 30 different activities that would be expected to result in technical skills in the area of plant breeding or implementation of research and professional skills related to communication, leadership, teamwork and networking. These results are discussed in relation to work by others in which the knowledge and skill areas and experiences considered to be essential by stakeholders in the public and private sector were reported. We report graduate student and faculty ratings of the perceived importance of a range of educational activities and summarize comments on obstacles to student participation in experiences that result in plant breeding skills and professional skills. Student participation, or lack thereof, in different components of the PBTN are reported and underlying reasons are discussed. The results are interpreted in terms of how the PBTN might be improved to facilitate diversification of graduate education in plant breeding.