KINGSVILLE (Oct. 23, 2025) — The Dick and Mary Lewis Kleberg College of Agriculture and Natural Sciences at Texas A&M University-Kingsville (TAMUK) hosted the Undergraduate Career Experiences and Research Showcase on Wednesday, Oct. 22, where 35 students presented their internship experiences with United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Agencies, the TAMUK Citrus Center, the meat industry and partnering universities.
The event doubled as a retention effort as more than 100 attendees were on hand to hear participating undergraduates presenting their research and internship experiences, while others shared what they learned studying abroad in Guatemala, Brazil and Mexico via an on-stage presentation and viewing board Q&As.
“Students have been exposed to different experiences and all of them have been funded by five USDA grants,” said Dr. Consuelo Donato, Assistant Professor of Research and Instruction for the Department of Agriculture, Agribusiness and Environmental Sciences. “The students have been exposed to multiple experiences and they are all grant funded by the USDA. This is a retention activity and we are looking to recruit students for experiences this upcoming year. We have funding for International Ag Business grants, as well as internships at the Citrus Center, and MEATS Workforce. These are opportunities that we want students to take advantage of.”
Featured programs included the USDA Connecting the DOTS grant, the USDA International Agriculture Program, Drone Wave FACTOR, Manager Education and Agriculture Skills (MEATS’) Workforce and more.
Dr. Mark Lokensgard, professor of Portuguese at St. Mary’s University, is the principal investigator for the USDA International Ag Program that includes TAMUK as a partner to send students to Brazil and said that while St. Mary’s does not offer an Agriculture program, the grant draws interest from students in other departments.
“The purpose of the grant is to promote the study of agriculture broadly for students of all majors while promoting mostly its international aspects,” Lokensgard said. “St. Mary’s does not have an agriculture program, but we have students interested in international business and international relations. We take any major and want to get students who might not consider agriculture or who may have a major where they may have a line drawn to agriculture.”
In preparation for their stay in Brazil, students took a Portuguese class to be better familiar with the language while they studied in Rio De Janeiro and its state’s rural areas.
“With students who are heritage speakers of Spanish, they can very quickly understand a lot of Portuguese,” Lokensgard said. “Without any experience, you probably won’t understand very much, but with a little instruction you can very quickly be proficient enough in it. I like to show students the value of knowledge that they already have that they may not think to value as much.”
Dr. Diane Friend, TAMUK assistant professor of Agribusiness TAMU RELLIS campus, assists in the grant through the perspective of Agribusiness management and prepared students from both TAMUK and St. Mary’s for potential travel as she led a semester-long course in Agribusiness.
“We spoke to students who participated and it’s less about Agriculture as a career and more about cultural broadening and opening their eyes to a larger world,” Friend said. “It’s been fun and the most interesting thing has been putting the students (from both schools) together. They come from different walks of life. They’re opening their eyes to production agriculture, but they are being exposed to different languages, culture and other business thoughts and ideas that aren’t specific to agriculture.”
Other partners in attendance were representatives from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), RELLIS Campus students and Citrus Center faculty.
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