Purdue MANRRS: building national champions

MANRRS officers standing, from left: Johnson Adegboyega, Aminata Diagana, Ayooluwa Ojo, Alejandra Prado, Otto Hoehl, Isa Salaam, Doriane Sossou, Tal Theodorakos, Morgan Murff and Matrie Irving. Seated, from left: Brynn Peterson and Megyn McCoy.

As a high school student in New Jersey, Christine Charles had one of those inspirational teachers, a real “Ms. Frizzle,” she says, referencing the madcap science-loving character from the Magic School Bus series. When the teacher learned that Charles and some classmates were interested in composting, she took them to a composting facility and, later, to a small farming conference.

Charles was hooked. She applied to colleges with ag programs across the county, and Purdue came out the clear winner.

But when Charles arrived on campus in fall 2015, it was a bit of culture shock. “It felt crazy to be in a 200-person lecture hall and not see another person of color,” she says. “It was definitely lonely.”

Finding connection with MANRRS

Then someone told her about a student organization called MANRRS, pronounced “manners.” Charles figured she’d try out a meeting. “It was exciting,” she says. “Everyone seemed like they were friends. And they had pizza!”

From that point on, she was all in. She attended meetings and conferences, networking events, fundraisers and social nights. She became chapter secretary, then vice president, then president. When she went to The Ohio State University for graduate study in soil science, she joined that chapter. Today, she’s a field crops extension educator at Michigan State University. She owes much of her current life to MANRRS, she says.

“That network is priceless, and I’m really grateful for it. Even now, when I run into folks who have a MANRRS T-shirt or say they were involved in the MANRRS chapter at their school, it’s such a great automatic connection point.”

Her only regret? That she wasn’t around when the Purdue MANRRS chapter won the coveted Chapter of the Year award this past spring at the organization’s national conference. It was the culmination of more than three decades of hard work, stretching back to the chapter’s founding in 1990.

“It was something that we’d been working toward,” says Zachary Brown, assistant director for academic programs and strategic initiatives in the Office of Academic Programs (OAP). “There wasn’t a single chapter that brought as much as we did this year — that had so many students apply to be officers, to submit to competitions, to be so nationally engaged.”

MANRRS co-advisor Zachary Brown attended Southern University and A&M College, a historically black land-grant university in Louisiana. Agriculture wasn’t a large area of study, he says —only a dozen students made up a senior class of his animal sciences program. So when he joined MANRRS as a master’s student at Iowa State University, he was “surprised to see how many minorities were involved in agriculture.”

He continued his MANRRS membership at Purdue, when he began a PhD program in Agricultural Education. “That’s when I got really involved,” he says. In addition to working on the organization’s executive board for multiple years, he now recruits students to the organization and offers support.

Today, MANRRS has biweekly meetings, offers professional development opportunities and recruitment events, and makes space for socializing. The group is also involved with Junior MANRRS, which encourages students in seventh through 12th grades to pursue agriculture, natural resources and environmental sciences degrees. MANRRS members have worked with students in Gary, Indiana, and currently support programming in Indianapolis.

Haweit followed Morris’s advice, but when she arrived on campus in fall 2020, the pandemic was in full force, and MANRRS was only meeting by Zoom. “There were like five people on the Zoom,” she says. “Just me and the executive board.”

But she kept showing up, and within a few months had an executive position herself. During her four years on campus, MANRRS participation doubled, then doubled, then doubled again. Virtual meetings gave way to the old pizza dinners plus other activities from yoga to movie nights.

Haweit’s current career is a direct result of her participation in MANRRS. In early 2021 she logged in to the organization’s virtual national conference. At a virtual career fair, she spoke with John Deere representatives. A few days later, she had an offer for a summer internship. That internship led to another, which became a post-graduation job. She’s now a marketing representative at the company’s Cary, North Carolina, offices.

To new undergraduates considering MANRRS, Haweit recommends joining to achieve their goals. “Do you want internships, scholarships and potential job offers?” Even if their goals are different, she says, “It’s still a rich community.”

“Talented students from diverse backgrounds are being supported, highlighting a commitment to a more vibrant and innovative future for agriculture. This dedication is creating a dynamic and inclusive agricultural landscape that will benefit generations – and our industry – to come,” says Kathleen Patel (BS ’19, agricultural economics and agricultural education) of Farm Credit Mid-America.

Today, the group includes many more international students and has also recruited students outside the College of Agriculture; after all, the acronym MANRRS ends with the words “related sciences.”

“We recruited about 20 mechanical engineers,” Haweit says.

“I’ve always known we were the best, even when we were 10 people,” Haweit says.

“We have amazing people; we have amazing culture; we have amazing opportunities. When we won the trophy, it felt like an accumulation of years of hard work. Seeing new members dancing with the trophy, hearing people talk about what positions they wanted to go for next elections, seeing that legacy passed on — it was a really rewarding feeling.”