[ΦTΣ] [Foodsci] Certified Food Scientist (IFT CFS) is questionable

[Wayne Iwaoka]

Gary,

This comment is not about Certification of food 
scientists but I needed to respond to your 
comments about the 2011 Guidelines and submitting 
annual reports in your message below.  I believe 
your comment "ŠIFT operating without considering 
the opinions of the academic leadership" is 
somewhat misleading for the work that was done on 
the 2011 Guidelines.  I was the chair of the Task 
Force that developed the IFT 2011 Resource Guide 
for the Approval and Re-Approval of Undergraduate 
Food Science Programs.  The guidelines were 
developed by a group of food science academics, 
food industry personnel, and food science 
students - all of whom were keenly interested in 
the direction of food science education. The Task 
Force went out of its way to solicit input at the 
CFSA meeting in Corvallis, OR in Nov. 2009, and 
also from the IFT membership at large at the 2010 
annual meeting.  Many of the CFSA and member 
recommendations were included in the new 
guidelines, however, many Task Force members did 
NOT agree with the one CFSA's recommendation that 
an annual reporting section not be included. 

*  The main reason is that several of the FS 
programs requesting a 5-year re-approval from 
HERB provided limited or no evidence that they 
had carried out the assessment of learning they 
proposed five years earlier (at initial 
approval).  Almost nothing was done to improve 
the quality of food science education in these 
programs during the 4-year period leading up to 
re-approval.

*  It appeared that many programs had put their 
proposals on the backburner after obtaining IFT 
approval and then had to scramble to report what 
they did for re-approval.  Thus, during the last 
several years, HERB had to defer re-approval of 
FS programs because of missing or insufficient 
information on program or course assessment. 

*  The three-page form-fillable annual report was 
a solution to this problem.  The Task Force felt 
that this would remind and assist programs to 
work on sections of their proposals over a 4 year 
period rather leave it to the end.  Also, a 
shorter Re-Approval document  containing all the 
annual reports was developed to make it easier 
for re-approval.  

I hope this provides some rationale why we had to 
do something different in the 2011 guidelines. 
The good intentions of 2001 guidelines didn't 
work as envisioned. 

Lastly, I do hope you change your mind about not 
submitting annual program review information.  If 
others followed your suggestion, it would 
definitely delay their FS programs from 
developing a better curriculum for our future 
food scientists. 

Wayne Iwaoka
Chair, Task Force to develop the 2011 IFT 
Resource Guide for Approval and Re-Approval of 
Undergraduate Food Science Programs.




At 6:15 PM -0500 4/22/12, Gary Reineccius wrote:
>Hello:
>
>  I had the opportunity to express my (strongly 
>negative) opinions about the Certified Food 
>Scientist program directly to Roger Clements a 
>couple months ago when he spoke at the Minnesota 
>IFT section meeting. I covered many of the 
>points each of you have raised and hope that the 
>emails he is receiving now might have an impact 
>on this program and more broadly, the path IFT 
>is taking in decision making.
>
>The process is one of IFT operating without 
>considering the opinions of the academic 
>leadership.  I believe it was two years ago when 
>Bob McGorrin presented the proposal to 
>department heads (CFSA/ANDP meeting), that we 
>should be providing information to the IFT HERB 
>group annually instead of every 5 years. At this 
>meeting, every department head spoke against 
>this change and show of hands resulted in  a 
>unanimous vote against IFT implementing annual 
>reporting. It was interesting that 2 months 
>later, IFT informed all of us that we would be 
>required to present some materials for HEBB 
>every year from then on. At the last joint 
>head's meeting (CFSA/ANDP), there was a 
>presentation (by John Huff) and discussion of 
>the proposed Certified Food Scientist program. 
>Again, without exception, there was opposition 
>to the program and now ... IFT is implementing 
>the program. I am extremely concerned that IFT 
>is choosing to ignore our input. If opinions 
>were mixed and no clear stand was evident, IFT 
>may take an action they favor, however, they 
>chose to act directly contrary to our views.
>
>
>
>In my view, we should not be submitting program 
>review information to HERB annually, we should 
>not support the Certified Food Scientist program 
>and perhaps consider boycotting IFT until 
>changes are made in how IFT deals with issues in 
>our domain.
>
>
>
>Gary Reineccius
>
>
>
>Professor and Department Head
>
>University of Minnesota
>
>
>
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