FOOD SAFETY AND QUALITY PROGRAM

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FOOD SAFETY AND QUALITY PROGRAM
Robert F. Wideman, Ph.D. ESCOP/ACOP Phase II
Project I was asked to "facilitate" the final
stages of delivering a Food Safety and Quality
(FSQ) program, with which I had no previous
involvement. This program was ambitiously
conceived in 2000 as a multi-university,
inter-disciplinary, web-based training course for
managerial personnel within a large integrated
poultry company. The goals of the FSQ project
were to create and deliver two web-based
curricula leading to for-credit certification in
the areas of HACCP and Food Safety. The FSQ
programs remain highly important to the upper
management of the company, but we failed to
achieve academic approval of the programs in time
for the anticipated target date of Spring
semester 2004. For a variety of reasons related
to "tenured-faculty-personalities" and
incompatible technical requirements, once again
we were flirting with missing key deadlines for
submitting the essential paperwork needed to hit
the new target of Spring 2005. Initially it was
necessary to spend considerable time ironing out
several issues that needed to be resolved in
order to submit the necessary proposals for
approval through the Arkansas academic system.
That immediate goal has been achieved, and we
will perform as a reliable, professional partner
in meeting the educational expectations of key
Arkansas agribusinesses. The next objectives
included coordinating the project with our
Division of Continuing Education, facilitating
the delivery of additional courses that are
needed to provide breadth to the certificate
programs, and then  working toward delivering a
web-based non-thesis Masters degree in FSQ. The
accompanying slides summarize the organizational
structure weve achieved, and the problems that
remain to be resolved
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Current Status Non-Thesis Masters
Degree in Agricultural, Food and Life
Sciences 1. All courses are available as
web-based courses with the exception of one
course which is under development and is due
for Spring Semester 2005. 2. The Non-Thesis
Masters of Agriculture Degree currently exists,
and is being modified to include the new
title and description. 3. Discussions are in
progress with Dr. Pat Koski the Graduate School
to resolve the details of this proposal. 4. The
University of Arkansas Division of Continuing
Education has agreed to deliver the web-based
portions of the MS degree. Many details remain
to be addressed. a. Preparation of a Business
Plan (student numbers, tuition and fee estimates,
etc.). b. Agreement between Deans of DBCAFLS and
Continuing Education. c. Develop a plan for
reimbursing faculty (per-capita payments avoid
potentially large deficits). d. Coordination
arrangements between Graduate School, Distance
Ed., Program Chair, etc. 5. Development of
additional courses a. Dr. Yanbin Li agreed to
adapt his course BENG5723 Food Safety Engineering
to a web-based format. This can be modified
to provide both undergraduate and graduate
versions. b. Dr. Casey Owens agreed to develop a
course related to Meat Science in a web-based
format. This can be modified to provide both
undergraduate and graduate versions.
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