5. Undergraduate Research and the Future of Ag Education w/ Lance Nicholas

In this episode of the Deep Roots Podcast, host, Vikram Baliga, PH.D., sits down with Lance Nicholas, a senior agricultural education student at Texas Tech University, to talk about his journey as a student leader, undergraduate researcher, and future educator. Hailing from the small town of Brookshire, Texas, Lance shares how saying yes to new opportunities has transformed his college experience and shaped his passion for agricultural education.

Lance reflects on his involvement across campus, from serving as president of Agricultural Educators of Tomorrow and recruiting future students as an Agri-Techsan to mentoring peers through the Tech Leadership Institute. These experiences helped him develop as both a leader and educator while reinforcing the importance of curiosity, service and personal growth.

A major focus of this episode is Lance’s undergraduate research, where he completed two projects. His first examined the relationship between school administrators and agricultural educators in districts experiencing high teacher turnover, seeking ways to strengthen communication and improve teacher retention. Through interviews with school leaders, Lance gained firsthand insight into the challenges facing agricultural education and the value of collaborative leadership. His second project explored media framing of Texas’s school choice legislation and its implications for rural education, broadening his understanding of research methods and public policy.

Throughout the discussion, Lance emphasizes how undergraduate research has prepared him for a career in education by developing critical thinking, communication and problem-solving skills. He also shares the challenges of conducting qualitative research, including building trust with participants and learning how thoughtful communication can open doors to meaningful conversations.

Looking ahead, Lance discusses his acceptance into the agricultural education graduate program at Texas Tech, where he plans to continue researching teacher recruitment and retention. He hopes to mentor future students while expanding his own research interests under the guidance of faculty mentors.

Let us know your thoughts on Lance’s research, reach out to him for more information, and be sure to subscribe to Deep Roots!

Transcript

Welcome And Guest Preview

Speaker 0:00

Hi, and welcome back to the Deep Roots Podcast, a production of the TechStech Davis College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources, where we explore the fascinating research, teaching, and innovation of our faculty, staff, and students. On today's episode, I sat down with Lance Nicholas, a recent graduate of the Department of Agricultural Communications and Education. Lance was incredibly involved in his time here in Texas Tech, doing everything from collegiate FFA to mentoring students through TTU student engagement. He is a well-accomplished undergraduate researcher and just a really great person to talk to. Lance will be starting his master's degree soon, and we wish him all the best in his future. I don't want to spoil it too much because this is such a fascinating interview about the undergraduate research he did, about his time here at Texas Tech, about the work he did with schools in our region and how that's going to inform his future and how he hopes to help future schools and administrators be better at what they do and serve students and our community more effectively. So get ready for such a great conversation. It's so exciting to get to actually talk to someone who was a student at the time and is a recent graduate for a very different perspective on education and what we do here in the Davis College. So thanks for being here today. I know you're going to love this conversation as much as I did. And as always, let us know if you have any comments, thoughts, suggestions, if you'd like to know more about anything we've talked about and enjoy today's

Lance Background And Campus Roles

Speaker 1:26

show. All right. Well, Lance, thanks so much for coming in and being on Deep Roots today. And we're really excited to talk to you to get a student perspective on research in the Davis College and what you do here. So thanks for giving us your time. And just to start off, tell us a little bit about yourself. What do you do in the Davis College? What are you studying? And what other activities do you take part in?

Speaker 1 1:46

Yeah, for sure. So I'm Lance Nicholas. I'm from Berkshire, Texas. If you don't know where that is, it's just west of Houston on the other side of Katy, a little tiny little town. But I am an agricultural education student right here at Texas Tech. I'm a senior. And so right now, since it's the spring semester, I've been student teaching. So today I actually drove in from Houston.

Speaker 2:05

Oh wow. Well, that's commitment. We appreciate it.

Speaker 1 2:07

Yeah, no, I'm it was a good drive, very smooth. But what I do with that is really work on developing myself as an educator. And so there's a lot of different resources that we offer or that Texas Tech has given me to do that inside and outside of Ag Ed that I've been a part of. And so inside Aged, I was very involved with collegiate FFA, now Agricultural Educators of Tomorrow. And I got to, I had the privilege of serving as president for that. And so with that, I got to host some community service projects, get collaborate with my officer team for professional developments and really broaden the horizon of what is agricultural education across the Davis College. And so we invited a lot of different departments into our organization. So it's been very fruitful for that. And so I've also done undergraduate research. I did two projects this semester or this past couple semesters, one for Ag Ed Ed and one for AgCom. Okay. And so that was really cool to kind of see both perspectives of the department. And then, but outside of that, in Davis College, I was an agrixan. I was a recruiter for the longest time. I got to travel all as far as California to as far north as Indiana to tell people the greatness of Davis College. And I had a lot of fun getting to see the all the corduroy jackets, kind of walking around with all the FFA jackets I went to as a future FFA advisor. So that was really awesome and fruitful to just interact with those students from different states to show them how great we have it here in Texas. But then outside of Davis College, I was very involved with student engagement. Okay. The Department of Student Engagement. And so the reason that was is because when I first came here, I joined the Tech Leadership Institute. And so I actually became a peer mentor for that and then eventually the lead peer mentor for that. Wow. And so I got to create curriculum and do a lot of facilitation and really kind of help kids find their purpose here and kind of take them a step further in their leadership journey to really understand what they wanted to do here, what they wanted to accomplish, but more importantly, help them understand themselves a little bit more. Cause that program is based off Know Thyself, quote by Socrates. And so we made sure that we were facilitating towards that goal of helping them do that. And so I was all over the place throughout my time here at tech, and I've enjoyed every moment of it. I tried to stay busy, but I definitely take advantage of those moments. I actually have to sit down and just relax.

Speaker 4:21

I don't know that there's much try there. I think you stay pretty busy, man. That's I try to think of myself as an undergrad, and I'm pretty sure I got really good at Call of Duty.

Speaker 1 4:30

Yeah.

Speaker 4:30

And that was about it. So that I mean it's really impressive. And kudos to you for taking all that on. Because it is a lot between class and everything else you do.

Why He Said Yes To Research

Speaker 1 4:39

Yeah.

Speaker 4:39

So, so thinking about, you know, you mentioned that you've done different undergraduate research projects. So, one, can you talk about that? Talk about the work you did in both of your projects, but also what may and maybe first, actually, what made you want to do that? What inspired you to get into doing that?

Speaker 1 4:55

Yeah. So I we had a PhD student. She actually did her dissertation today, Christy Kelly. She just pulled me aside after class one day. She was one of our TAs for one of my Ag Ed classes. And she said, I have an opportunity for you. And I was like, do tell. And so we go down to Dr. Rayfield's office, and they tell me that there's an undergraduate research scholar grant through Davis College. And so they kind of walk me through a little bit of what the application process looks like. But what really hooked me was what we were studying. And so one thing in education we know is the relationship between administrators and teachers. But in ag ed specifically, that's not something that's studied a whole lot. And so I come from a long line of educators. A lot of people in my family went into education, whether in special education, gen ed, anything like that. But I'm the first agricultural educator. There's my subtle brag. But really, what kind of hooked me and got me into that was them like pouring into me and being like, we think that you would have a lot of fun doing this. Okay. And so, really, by them doing that research or that outreach to me and giving me the opportunity to fill out the application myself, develop and summarize what we'd be studying and turning it in. That after I understood a little bit more of what we were doing, I was like, I'm 110% into this. And so that's what got me into it. But like I said, I did those two

Studying Admin Teacher Relationships

Speaker 1 6:15

projects. The undergraduate research scholar grant that I got for Davis College was focused on the ag education perspective. Okay. And so what we did with that was, like I said, we interviewed different administrators from schools that are dealing with chronic teacher turnover of their ag teachers. And so what that meant is if they're losing 31% of their ag teachers for every year for four years straight. And so believe it or not, it was actually fairly easy to find people for that, which is disheartening to hear. Sure. But it made what that kind of made me want to find the solution a little bit more and really help people push forward and being like, hey, here's what's been researched, here's what we can try now. And so that whole process, doing that, doing the interviews, doing the analysis and everything was awesome because one, I love qualitative research. I think it's more fun to paint the picture, and I'm not very good at numbers. And so, but I love talking to people. And so that was always really fun. And so getting that paper written, we sent it off to a couple conferences. We had some success with it. But on the other side of that, with my agcom research, completely different scale. And so that was on the Texas voucher law, the school choice law, and how they were talking about it in the news. It was more of a framing research project. And that one was really interesting. One because it was quantitative, and so we had to do take different numbers. And so I had Dr. Myers had to coach me a little bit through that because I got confused a little bit. But that one really taught us a little bit the representation of rural education at the Texas legislature. And so what we found from that was surprising to me. And it really kind of made made for good discussion at the conference we took it to. But then

Media Framing Of Texas School Choice

Speaker 1 7:55

when we wrote out the full paper, not only did I get to understand what those findings were, but I actually am excited to put it out there for other educators to read and understand, but also people outside of agriculture to read and understand how can we support our rural communities.

Speaker 8:09

For sure. And how cool to get to do something that will directly influence your free future career. Yeah. Right? To do work to make your potentially life as an educator better. Yeah. And make you a better educator in general, knowing some of the things that you've learned through all this. Which I think takes us into some of the impacts of your work. And you've discussed this a little bit already. But thinking at a several levels. On students, on professionals in the ag industry, and then just on the ag society in general.

Speaker 1 8:40

Yeah.

Speaker 8:40

What impacts do you see coming out of that work?

Speaker 1 8:44

So with the ag ed paper, the biggest thing that I see coming from it is more proactive standpoints to addressing teacher retention and turnover. Okay. And so the reason I say that is, you know, that is such a complex topic

What The Findings Could Change

Speaker 1 8:58

to where people are like, let's try this one thing and then we'll see if it works. And if it doesn't, we'll come back a couple years and reevaluate and try again. But the reason I think that one is so important is because one, it advocates for the administrators and the ag teachers to collaborate a little bit more and address issues within the school and in the department for them to kind of get on the same page. You know, throughout my student teaching, I've gotten to collaborate with different student teachers and different teachers and really understand their relationships with their admin. And it's such a diverse scale. Sure. And so that's what I always try to push with this research when people are asking me a little bit why I did it. It's to really kind of close that gap between administration and teachers. And I think that goes far beyond ag teachers. Sure. Every teacher is important, whether CTE, fine arts, general education. I think that this paper is going to be a little bit eye-opening for some people. And saying, Am I really showing up for my teachers or are teachers really showing up for their admin the way they need to? And so I think that it advocates for discussion and a lot of collaboration, which I think is something that's not as talked about in education anymore. Everything is so procedural now. You basically fill out your complaint form and move on with your day. Sure. We need more face-to-face conversations. And I think that this, that research is going to lead towards that.

Speaker 10:13

That's awesome. And you know, especially in this field that is very personal in a lot of ways. Education's personal or should be, I think, in my opinion, something that's relational and relation-building and things, those kinds of things. But agriculture, we rely so heavily on each other in all of our pursuits that the ability for from an administrative standpoint, but also the educator frontline standpoint, there needs to be mutual understanding. There needs to be clear communication. And that's great. That's something that you get to look into.

Speaker 1 10:40

Yeah, absolutely. And I think another important note with that is the importance between communication and understanding the admin to the teacher thing is so important to me. I've seen it, and like I said, my whole family has been educators. And so just hearing from their experiences of that as well, I just, it's so it fills me with gratitude a little bit to know that I can motivate teachers to step out of that comfort zone to go ahead and do that. But we all have the ability to be an agricultural educator in some regard, yeah, in some aspect. And so I think that can also be translated beyond the academic standpoint, but also even to the agricultural industry and helping people understand how can we not only retain our ag teachers, which we need, uh how can we retain our employees or our managers and everything like that. And so obviously I have really high hopes for this paper. Yeah, but I think that it's a good conversation starter for sure for all of these different people.

Speaker 11:32

It is, and that's such an important piece of the puzzle, too, is starting the research, starting the work, and giving future work something to build off of as well. So you mentioned you didn't have too much trouble finding or at least finding schools that fit your criteria, finding programs that fit into that turnover rate and some of the stuff that you worked with. Yeah. But working

Recruiting Interview Partners Without Judgment

Speaker 11:55

with collaborators sometimes can be very challenging. There's there's a lot to that. Can you talk a little bit about the process and the experience of actually, you know, as someone who's student teaching now, who's seen it through your family, what was that process of actually working with the folks that are again on the front lines of ag education? Yeah. Was that a I mean, I hope that it was a positive collaboration, a positive experience, but I'd like to hear from you a little bit about what that experience was like for you.

Speaker 1 12:21

Yeah. So every administrator that I had the opportunity to interview was very excited to be a part of the research. And so that made the entire process so much easier because they made it clear to me that they want to fix their retention strategies and they want to find out how to keep their educators. And so, really, the whole process with that has been very easy and it's they were very open about everything. And, you know, I of course I gave them the opportunity to say, if you don't want to answer any of these questions, you don't have to, don't feel obliged to do so. But I mean, they answered every single question and they gave me that was supposed to be a 30-minute interview. Some of them were like almost an hour and a half. Oh, wow. And so they had a lot of different things to say and do, and you know, that's what I needed. I wanted to be able to put all these pieces together to paint that picture for people and find those results and everything like that. But you know, the challenging part with finding collaborators though, was the key the tone of which I was trying to locate them. Yeah. And so I actually had some trouble there because some of those administrators don't want to admit that they have this issue. And so it was, I felt like I had to word myself enough to be like, I'm not, I promise I'm not insulting you. I swear. This is just you were just a suggestion. I don't know if you meet the definition, but I had some that responded very positively, and I had some that responded very negatively. And so finding those collaborators, while easy to locate, it was, and the ones that wanted met the definition, they were definitely a part of it. But if I accidentally found somebody that wasn't meeting the definition, they were not too happy with me. And it was Yeah, I could see that.

Speaker 13:55

I can see that being a challenge because, you know, even though you're not going in saying this is a problem and it's a you problem, like that kind of thing, like it is a sensitive subject, it is a tough topic to discuss. So I can see that being a roadblock in some ways for sure.

Speaker 1 14:11

Yeah, and it has definitely made me rethink a little bit more of like my styles of finding those interviewees. And it as I started from my first phone call to my first email to my very last ones, it was like night and day because by then I finally understood this is the tone I need to be talking to them and I need to get to the point by I need to get to the reason I'm calling by this point. I need to say these words. That way they correlate it with I'm just curious, I'm not judging you. Right. And I think that once I established that cure, this was a sense of curiosity and a sense of compassion and genuineness, they were a little bit more open to the idea of being like, hey, I unfortunately I don't meet this definition. Or yes, I'm very excited to be a part of this. Please let me know what I need to do. Yeah. And so that growth experience with that, I think, is something very important that you have to realize because this isn't the only research project that I'm doing. You know, like I hope to do more studies that are like this where I get to meet with people. Yeah. And so really this is just helping me develop my toolbox. And I'm glad that I had these challenges that I had because now I have those reflective moments and can actually become the better researcher as I go forward with it.

Speaker 15:19

And great. Again, at your stage of your career, what a great opportunity to get to be a part of undergraduate research, but also a very different kind of undergraduate research than probably we normally think about in the college, where you know, there's a lot of undergraduate researchers that end up doing like lab science or benchwork or field work. And yours is again very qualitative, very like people driven, and getting those experiences and those lessons now. Yeah. And having the opportunity to work through those challenges now will serve you really well. Now I did

Graduate School Plans And Research Values

Speaker 15:52

see that you just got accepted to a master's program. Is that correct?

Speaker 1 15:54

Yes, I did.

Speaker 15:55

Very cool. So congratulations on that. Thank you. Which sort of works me into the next question of the future. Yeah. Right? What does that look like for you? What you know, you mentioned a little bit that you want to continue with studies like this, but are there projects on the horizon or that and again, don't talk about anything you're not supposed to, but like don't scoop yourself. But at the same time, what's coming up next that you're excited about? Where do you want to go from here?

Speaker 1 16:17

Yeah. So yes, I just got into grad school here at Texas Tech, actually, on in the Ag Ed program. So I will be on an assistantship under Dr. Will Doss. And so me and his research values very heavily align. And so mine specifically are obviously teacher retention and recruitment. I think if you're an agricultural education, you need to put at least a little bit of emphasis on it because that's what we are. We're teachers, and we need to make sure that we're not only creating them, but keeping them. Yeah. And so, you know, supervised agricultural experiences, those projects students do, that's always something that I'm very curious and understanding and everything like that. But really, I want to diversify more portfolio, my portfolio of that and really taking those risks to find other research values and interests because I think that is what drove me to go to grad school was to just be curious about so many components of agricultural education. And that's what I think my future looks like. I think it's a very colorful future. I think that there's gonna be all kinds of directions to go. And, you know, I'm very lucky to have an assistantship under someone who's very supportive of that and someone who is gonna guide me through those moments. And so not only do I hope to mentor other students through that moment and actually maybe even advocate for undergrad research for them, but also be mentored by people who have been there and have been in the classroom and have now gotten their PhDs or have gotten their graduate degrees and everything like that. And so that's really what I think my future is filled with. It's filled with curiosity and mentorship. And because I think at where I'm at right now, it's more important than ever to just be curious about the all of these opportunities and all of these fields of study. Because, you know, as a future teacher, I have to be ready for all of these different horizons. You know, there's six pathways in agriculture, food, and natural resources. I have to be prepared to do it all. And so I think that really just being open to whatever opportunities are in front of me. And, you know, that's even how I got involved here, just being open to the ideas of I don't know what this looks like, I don't know how it's gonna go, but you know what? It seems fun. Let's go ahead and give it a try and we'll put what we have into it and everything and see what success comes from it. And even if there's not success from it, there's always a growth point from it. And so that's really what I look forward to in the future. It's scary because I don't know exactly what's gonna happen, but I think that fear is what makes it more exciting.

Speaker 18:38

Absolutely. And I think, you know, having been through a lot of school and done this for a while, it's sometimes only in retrospect that you can look back and see how those pieces fit together. And in my experience as I've navigated my education and my career and everything else, it has been a benefit to me to give myself a lot of pieces, if that makes sense, right? To take a lot of opportunities. And sometimes it's hard to see what the right decision is, right? And there's just the next one, and then you take the next one, you see where that leads. And then you look back in 10 years into your career and you say, Oh wow, it's really cool what I've built out of all those pieces I gave myself. Absolutely. So uh again, congrats to you on all the stuff you've already accomplished and getting into grad school and just all the stuff you're gonna do. It's really cool.

Speaker 1 19:23

Thank you.

Speaker 19:24

So, as we wrap

Be Curious Not Judgmental Takeaway

Speaker 19:25

up here, one of the traits, the marks of a good communicator and a good educator is to be able to, I think, encapsulate things and put complex ideas into bite-sized pieces and things that people can really grab onto. So to that end, you know, you we have a pretty diverse listening group to this. There's all kinds of people, little from students to academics to the general public. What do you hope they take away from hearing from you talk today? What one thing or a couple of things do you think they should take away from this conversation?

Speaker 1 19:58

The biggest thing I think that people should take away from this, and it's something I tell myself at least once a day at different points, is the famous Ted Lasso quote be curious, not judgmental. And because that everything that I built here at Texas Tech was based on curiosity. Everything is a what if, or how would I? And I think that's something that we all need to carry. And so if you're a student, my experiences were so diverse and open because I was curious about something and I asked a question, or I found interest in things that I didn't even know existed. And, you know, a lot of that was built off of taking those risks of signing up for Tech Leadership Institute. I didn't know what that was, or saying yes to undergraduate research, didn't know what that was gonna look like. And but being curious about the different opportunities that are in front of you are what's going to open the doors for you, basically. Cool. And that's really what I've seen because I wasn't gonna go to grad school, and but I got bit by the research bug or something because I just want to keep doing it and because it's just exciting to me. And I sound like a complete nerd sometimes when I talk about it, but it's my favorite thing now. And so for students, I think that is something that I think that they I hope they take away from this. But as for everybody else listening, I think that really just saying yes to those opportunities and letting fear not be the driver, but letting motivation just spark itself because it will. Yeah. But we have to set fear aside to do that. And I think that there were so many moments at Texas Tech where I was afraid that I wasn't gonna get something or I was afraid that something just wasn't gonna work out. But the second you put those aside as the second one, you start having gratitude for the moment. And I think that once we start showing gratitude for ourselves and our experiences, life just is so much better. And I know that can be a challenge, but if we push ourselves, find those mentors that'll help us build those foundations, man, the options are just limitless at that point. If you can just drive on your own motivations and drive on your own gratitude, you will be unstoppable compared to what other people are gonna think that you're only capable of doing.

Speaker 22:04

That's awesome. Great advice. So, this is a question I normally throw at researchers of where can we find your work?

Where To Follow His Work

Speaker 22:10

And they throw us me a lab website or whatever. But if people want to know more about what you do, are there any public-facing things you'd like to send them to? You want them to go look at your LinkedIn? Just like where can people find you?

Speaker 1 22:20

So always on LinkedIn. That's where I post a lot of my research or academic updates. This year, at some point in 2026, I will have some published papers on the Journal of Agricultural Education. So my ag my rural communities and education school choice paper will be in there, and then my administrators perceptions paper will be in there as well. So if you're ever curious to read those papers, they will be in there this year for sure. But if anybody is looking to learn more, a little bit more about what I do or what I'm doing, LinkedIn is going to be the best point to do it. But I'm active on all social media platforms as well Instagram, Facebook, and everything like that.

unknown 22:57

Cool.

Speaker 22:57

Well, Lance, again, thanks so much for your time and for making a very long drive to get here.

Speaker 1 23:02

Of course. Thank you.

Speaker 23:02

Just for your perspective and getting to hear from your experience is really cool. So thanks for coming.

Speaker 1 23:06

Yeah, thank you for having me.