Ready for the World honors those who enhance intercultural and international awareness of students and the campus community.
Michael O. Smith
Michael O. Smith, an animal science professor, helps his students get Ready for the World while also leading them in research to help solve many global food problems. He’s taken nearly 100 students to Jamaica, Thailand, Vietnam, and Ghana during the past decade. He teaches International Experience in Agriculture and Natural Resources, a class that involves a semester of coursework on a country’s agriculture, government, and culture followed by a two-week study tour of the country. Smith also has won two federal Higher Education Challenge Grants to coordinate international experiential learning for students. One of those grants funds programs focusing on minority, low-income, and first-generation students. An expert on the effects of heat stress on poultry production, he also has consulted in Egypt, Jordan, Romania, Thailand, and Turkey.