NAREA AWARDS

Outstanding Master's Thesis Award: Estimation of Elasticities of Demand for Imported Meat in Russia, by Alexi Soshnin; Master's Thesis Award of Merit: Effective Rural Development Strategies: a Framework for Optimizing Community-Business Matches, by Michael Buescher; Master's Thesis Award of Merit: Sustaining the Atlantic Sea-Scallop Fishery: Viability in a Restricted Industry, by Michael Keith Price; Master's Thesis Award of Merit: Food Demand in China: A Case of Guangdong Province, by Xiaobo Zhang; Journal Article of the Year for 1998: Modeling Fresh Tomato Marketing Margins: Econometrics and Neural Networks, by Timothy J. Richards, Paul M. Patterson, and Pieter Van Ispelen; Distinguished Member Award: Linda K. LeeTeaching/Communication/Extension/Profession,

NAREA AWARDS

Awards: Outstanding Master's Thesis Award The Distinct Impact of Food Stamps on Food Spending: Comparing Evidence from Economic Theory, Policy Experiments, and Non-Linear Regression Methods, by Parke E. Wilde Master's Thesis Award of Merit Economic Analysis of Different Herbicide Treatment Recommendations for Groundwater Protection, by Wei Liu Master's Thesis Award of Merit Implications of Changing European Union Trade Policies on Latin America's Trade in Bananas, by Kleber Machado Journal Article of the Year for 1995 Recreation Swimming Benefits of New Hampshire Lake Water Quality Policies, by Michael Needleman and Mary Jo Kealy Honorary Life Member Award: Olan D. Forker Distinguished Member Award: Conrado "Bobby" Gempesaw IITeaching/Communication/Extension/Profession,

The Master's Thesis: an opportunity for fostering presentation skills

Presentation skills, such as oral expression and public speaking, have normally been relegated to the background in engineering degree programs. In recent years, however, the labor market has specifically demanded these kinds of skills in engineers. Accordingly, new engineering degrees, adapted to the goals of the Bologna Declaration or ABET criteria, consider presentation skills as being fundamental transferable skills. In practice, however, many engineering degree programs do not specifically foster these skills even though they are included in the syllabus. This paper proposes a presentation-skills training that uses the Master's thesis as an opportunity for fostering presentation-related skills. This activity has students deliver a scheduled series of rehearsals, in front of their classmates and tutors, for their officially assessed presentation of their Master's thesis work. The paper also presents a Web tool specifically designed for uploading recordings of the rehearsal presentations for feedback online as a complementary method for fostering presentation-related skills. Finally, the results of carrying out the proposed resource over a 4-year period from 2009 to 2013 are discussed; they show that students following the proposed methodology had higher than average marks, all receiving an A+, and 82% of them receiving an A+ with distinctio

NAREA AWARDS

Outstanding Master's Thesis Award Comparing Two Modeling Approaches: An Example Using Fed Beef Supply, by Camilo Sarmiento Master's Thesis Award of Merit An Econometric Analysis of the U.S. Kiwifruit Industry, by Hikaru Hanawa Master's Thesis Award of Merit Analysis of Short-Run Barge Rates for Southbound Grain on the Mississippi River System, by Gregory Harnisch Journal of the Year for 1996 Preserving Agricultural Land with Farmland Assessment: New Jersey as a Case Study, by Peter J. Parks and Wilma Rose H. Quimio Honorary Life Member Award Johannes Delphendahl Distinguished Member Award Julie A. CaswellTeaching/Communication/Extension/Profession,