U of I grad student organizes event to build off-campus camaraderie

University of Idaho doctoral student Rabecka Hendricks collaborates daily with renowned scientists on important potato research, yet she’s never gotten to attend a welcome-back-to-school picnic or otherwise experience campus life as a Vandal.

Hendricks is among the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences graduate students who are remotely pursuing degrees from the university’s southern and eastern Idaho research and Extension centers.

Though she still hasn’t stepped foot onto U of I’s main Moscow campus, Hendricks, who studies plant sciences under Professor Nora Olsen, took it upon herself to address her lingering feeling of being disconnected from the broader university and its student body. She organized a recent social networking event for her fellow off-campus graduate students, some of whom have kept in contact with one another since meeting and have begun working together on a potato-related research project.

“A lot of students said, ‘Thank you so much. It’s nice to know there are other students out there doing stuff,’” Hendricks said. “I go home to my husband and my dogs. I don’t go to tailgates. I don’t go to the games. There’s this whole aspect of a peer group that you don’t get off campus.”

Supportive faculty

Olsen and Extension Seed Potato Pathologist Kasia Duellman, based at the Idaho Falls Research and Extension Center, were sympathetic upon hearing Hendricks’s feelings and encouraged her to pursue college funding to make a gathering of off-campus graduate students a reality. Professor Joseph Kuhl, acting head of the Department of Plant Sciences, approved funding for the event, hosted early in Summer 2025 in Twin Falls.

“In science, part of our success depends on our network. It’s not just getting a degree and going out into the world and getting a job. You have to know how to network, build relationships and collaborate,” Duellman said. “The graduate students in the southern part of the state don’t have access to the same opportunities as the graduate students on campus.”

Fun with new friends

Seventeen graduate students representing five off-campus research and Extension centers met at a local park pavilion. Hendricks modeled the opening ice-breaker activity after speed dating, pairing participants and giving them each three minutes to introduce themselves and share background on their research before changing partners.

“It went really well. People would be, ‘Wait! We’re still talking,’ and we’d go, ‘No! Next person,’” Hendricks said.

The students also had lunch at an area food court and then competed at miniature golf.

Faculty were thrilled by the outcome, and many now hope to make off-campus graduate student gatherings a semesterly tradition.

Seeking to continue the dialogue and further grow new relationships, Hendricks plans to start an online chat group for off-campus graduate students. The networking opportunity she spearheaded is also paying dividends from a research standpoint. Hendricks and four other event participants have been meeting about combining their research into a single review paper on various stressors affecting potatoes.

Advancing crop science

Hendricks moved from central Illinois to Idaho’s Magic Valley in 2018, when her husband’s job was relocated to Burley. She took a position as a research technician in weed science under Don Morishita, who is now an emeritus professor.

When Morishita retired, Olsen convinced Hendricks to join her as a research technician — and ultimately to pursue a master’s degree in plant sciences, which she completed in 2021. Hendricks’s thesis entailed studying the factors that contribute to shatter bruise and black spot bruise, caused when impact force damages potatoes, and recommending how to mitigate the quality problems through harvesting and transloading management.

She remained with Olsen as a research associate and started a doctoral program last fall. Her doctoral thesis is focused on potato quality in storage, including studying the potential for using sprout inhibitors as a tool to help minimize the risk of spreading diseases associated with exporting potatoes — information that could help open new markets for fresh U.S. potatoes.

“Several years later, I have relationships with large potato growers and industry in general. I’m so blessed to be where I’m at,” Hendricks said.

Though rewarding, her education has been a solitary experience at times. About 260 miles removed from her classmates in Moscow, Hendricks takes her exams in a small office while her proctor, Olsen, completes desk work.

Building community

Pankaj Yadav, an international graduate student from Nepal who is based in Kimberly, shares Hendricks’s desire to bring off-campus graduate researchers together. Yadav, who is pursuing a master’s degree in plant sciences, has continued checking in with his graduate student colleagues since the Twin Falls gathering. Sometimes he touches base with them just to say hello or to inquire about their projects.

Some experiences can only be had on a college campus. Yet Yadav is encouraged that there’s ample room for a rich off-campus student experience, as well.

“In Moscow, there are lots of Nepalese students, and they have cultural nights and all of these things, and I never get a chance to see them,” Yadav said. “I think that was really awesome to get to know friends from different stations. I was looking for those types of programs for so long.”