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via teleconference. In addition, representatives from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and other NGOs were present (in person or via teleconference) for lively discussion with the students and faculty about the methodology of the project and how the work done by Auburn students might scale up to allow other NGOs to analyze and evaluate both existing and new data.
Students were responsible for the presentation and were widely complimented, both for their work and for the work’s usefulness to other organizations interested in feeding the hungry. Participants praised students’ sophistication in undertaking a complex research process and noted their depth of understanding, not only about the process but also about the complexities of food delivery and the unique problems crisis organizations face.
As the report was being finalized, the Auburn research group’s findings were compared to the experience of WFP’s Emergency Response group during a videoconference with the leaders of the WFP project in Rome. Again, the students led the presentation, were able to answer technical questions about the findings, and were pleased to learn that WFP’s evaluation team thought the findings were accurate and represented real issues that WFP either needed to address or that it had addressed during the decade represented by the data. This member-checking is an important part of the qualitative research process; it allows feedback from the individuals or organizations being studied and is used to verify the trustworthiness and credibility of the findings. Finally, in one of the project’s most exciting developments, WFP headquarters in Rome invited team representatives for a visit. Two students (Sara Rains and Sydney Herndon) as well as faculty, including College of Human Sciences Dean June Henton and Associate Dean Jennifer Kerpelman, traveled to Rome to present the study’s results to an overflow crowd that included more than 80 WFP participants as well as a large contingent from the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization. WFP’s African and Asian field offices joined via teleconference.