SAVE THE DATE!
WebANR Café Thursdays: Starts May 17, 2018 

You'll need to bring your own beverage and food, but please join us for our first WebANR Café Thursday on May 17 at noon: “Planning Makes Perfect: Best Practices for Engaging Webinars”

During this webinar, Brook Gamble, community educator with the California Naturalist Program, and Steven Worker, 4-H advisor will help you

• Improve your understanding of the critical steps for preparation, implementation and post webinar follow-up.
• Introduce ZOOM capabilities.
• Introduce tricks of the trade to keeping webinar participants engaged and not checking their email.

Please join us with the following Zoom information:

https://ucanr.zoom.us/j/963167636

(646) 558-8656 or + (669) 900-6833

Webinar ID: 963 167 636

These sessions will be recorded and linked to the WebANR page in case you would like to access them at a later date.

New Employee Administrative Orientation Registration is Open!

You can register now for yourself or for a new employee who will be onboarding soon.

Who Should Attend: All UC ANR Employees (academics, staff and affiliated staff on campuses, counties and RECs) who have not participated in an administrative orientation. Priority will be given to those hired by ANR within the past year.

For more information, visit http://ucanr.edu/sites/orientations/Administrative_Orientations.  

Performance Appraisals: Empower yourself with career planning tools

Performance appraisal season can be stressful for many of us and receiving performance feedback can trigger negative feelings. Understanding that these feelings are normal, and preparing yourself in advance, whether you're a supervisor or an individual contributor, can help reduce the stress and make it a positive experience.

You have many tools available to guide you through the appraisal process, starting with the ANR Learning & Development Career Planning Tools page.

Use the Self-assessment Worksheet  to help you identify your strengths, skill gap areas, career goals, interests and values.  You can share it with your supervisor or use your responses to help draft your Individual development plan (IDP).  You can also find help from UC Davis with writing your Summary of Accomplishments.

If you struggle with feedback, here are some additional resources to empower you:

• UC Learning Center (UC Davis): Receiving Feedback and Criticism; for People Managers UC Performance Management: Giving and Receiving Feedback
• Corporate Executive Board Learning & Development Leadership Council (CEB register or reset a password): 3 Tricks Your Brain Plays When Receiving Feedback and Manager Guide: Improve Employee Performance through Informal Feedback
• TED Talk: How to use others' feedback to learn and grow, with Sheila Heen, Harvard University professor (19:28 minutes)

LYNDA FEATURES

Option B: Building Resilience

We have all experienced loss and grief. Even our ANR Report includes In Memoriam pieces to recognize the passing of our ANR colleagues and retirees. Psychologists state that when we experience a primary loss, we often experience secondary losses, including self-confidence at work. Maybe you, the reader, can identify with this. In this 2+ minute video The Importance of Resilience, Facebook COO and author Sheryl Sandberg explores this subject with Wharton psychologist Adam Grant. They share:

• How to talk to friends and colleagues who are hurting, when you're not sure what to do
• How to fight the idea that your hurting is permanent
• How to give yourself permission to experience happiness again

New implicit bias modules: UC People Management Certificate Series

Elevate your people-management skills by completing the UC Systemwide People Management Series and Certificate. This course is for all ANR people managers consisting of core and elective courses, which include local and systemwide programs and eCourses. Earning this certificate aligns you with ANR's Strategic Plan Goal for people managers!

The following topics are included in the People Management Series and Certificate: Performance Management, Managing Implicit Bias, Managing People, Administration & Operations, Change Management and Communications.

New for 2018 is the addition of the UC Managing Implicit Bias Series, which is made up of six self-paced, online interactive courses, ranging between 15 and 20 minutes each in length. The series is designed to increase awareness of implicit bias, reduce its impact at the university, and further reinforce the university's commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion. 

1. What is Implicit Bias?
2. The Impact of Implicit Bias
3. Managing the Influence of Implicit Bias: Awareness
4. Common Forms of Bias
5. Managing the Impact of Implicit Bias: Mindfulness and Conscious De-biasing
6. Managing Implicit Bias in the Hiring Process

These courses can be completed individually or together as a series to earn the UC Managing Implicit Bias Certificate. As a UC People Manager, being aware of implicit bias and how it impacts the way we work and interact with others is especially important. Therefore, this series is now a part of the 2018 UC People Management Series and Certificate core requirements.

If you are a formally designated supervisor/manager, completing the 2018 UC People Management Series and Certificate will make you eligible to attend the UC People Management Conference held later this year.

 

 

The Research and Extension Center (REC) System is a key component of UC ANR (Cooperative Extension + Agricultural Experiment Station + Research and Extension Centers + Statewide Programs). Each of the nine RECs is unique and offers a wide array of opportunities to research and extension personnel within the University of California, and to our external partners. UC ANR will continue to deploy funds to support research projects. However, these funds do not go as far because salaries, benefits, and infrastructure expenditures continue to rise, while state and federal support for the Land Grant systems declines or remains flat.

To address these budgetary issues, cost increases must be offset by increasing the proportion of research costs covered by research projects. We project that approximately 25 percent of today's central funding will need to be redirected to cover increases in personnel salaries and benefits, deferred maintenance, strategic investments to ensure long-term operation of the REC system for generations to come, and increases in operating expenditures that are not included in research expenses. Increased expenses will be covered over time through a combination of fund development, increased revenue generated through increased programming and services, increased efficiency of business operations, and a reduction in the current level of research funding by UC ANR which, at present, averages approximately 80 percent across all REC supported projects.

For over a year now, we have been working to secure a bright future for the REC system by looking at the research that is conducted at each REC and considering how we do business now and in the future. In addition to the current work and programming that occurs at each REC every day, there is incredible untapped potential for new research and programs. Improved understanding of the cost to conduct research has been a key part of the review process undertaken at each of the centers over the past year. A deep dive into the accounting and cost structure has occurred at each facility; identifying the lines of service at the facility and the costs to provide those services. The FY 2018-19 cost structures for each center have been submitted to the UC ANR Rate and Recharge Committee for review this past week. Following review, the REC system will receive feedback and recommendations for changes to be made prior to rate approval.

We aim to have the full cost structures approved by late April 2018. Concurrent with the effort to identify costs for each line of service is work by each REC director to identify the level of funding that will be available in their individual budgets to reduce those costs to support research projects at each facility. We anticipate these rates will be available in late April for projects conducted in FY 2018-19 and with estimates for FY 2019-20 available at the same time.

Continuing a long tradition of supporting impactful research at each REC to solve agricultural and natural resource issues remains our highest priority. Ramp up of fund development efforts and identification of new or additional income opportunities at each REC will take time as will the ability for these strategies to offset research costs. In the meantime, the REC directors have identified that providing extra financial support to UC academics who have been in their jobs six years or less is critical to the success of new and early-career UC academics. To the extent that UC ANR funding permits, extra financial support may also be provided to support exploratory or high risk/high reward projects, projects that extend critical, under-funded, long-term research, and projects conducted by PIs who are first time users of the REC.

While the current budgeting efforts come with uncertainty and discomfort in the short-term, change is needed to secure long-term success. The leaders of each REC and UC ANR senior leaders are committed to transparency of research costs, exemplary customer service and investment into facilities and infrastructure that further our ability for sustained growth of the REC System.

Sincerely,

Glenda Humiston, vice president

Wendy Powers, associate vice president

Tu Tran, associate vice president, Business Operations

Jeff Dahlberg, director, Kearney Agricultural Research and Extension Center

Jairo Diaz, director, Desert Research and Extension Center

Jose Fernandez De Soto, director, Hansen Agricultural Research and Extension Center

Beth Grafton-Cardwell, director, Lindcove Research and Extension Center

Darren Haver, director, South Coast Research and Extension Center

Bob Hutmacher, director, West Side Research and Extension Center

Jeremy James, director, Sierra Foothill Research and Extension Center

Kim Rodrigues, director, Hopland Research and Extension Center

Rob Wilson, director, Intermountain Research and Extension Center

 

View or leave comments for ANR Leadership at http://ucanr.edu/sites/ANRUpdate/Comments.

This announcement is also posted and archived on the ANR Update pages.

The UCANR IGIS team will hold its next DroneCamp training June 18-21, 2018, at UC San Diego.

This bootcamp-style workshop will cover the full suite of steps and skills for using drones for mapping and data collection, including:

• UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) and sensor technology 
• Principles of photogrammetry and remote sensing 
• Safety and regulations 
• Mission planning 
• Flight operations including hands-on practice 
• Data management, processing, and analysis 
• Visualization 

The fee for this three-day workshop is $500 for University of California employees and students, and $900 for everyone else. A limited number of fee waivers are available based on need.

Additional information and registration information can be found at http://igis.ucanr.edu/dronecamp. Registration requires a short application (no fee) about your background and learning goals. Anyone interested in attending is encouraged to submit an application by April 15 for guaranteed early registration.

Douglas DeWitt McCreary, UC Cooperative Extension natural resources specialist, died on Feb. 15 in Grass Valley. He was 72.

“Doug was the epitome of what a CE specialist should be - a world-renowned researcher, a first-rate teacher, and an attitude that could bring people from diverse backgrounds and philosophies together,” said Richard B. Standiford, UC Cooperative Extension forest management specialist emeritus and long-time colleague of McCreary.

Born in San Mateo and raised in Berkeley, McCreary earned a bachelor's degree in economics at UC Riverside. After graduating from UCR, he studied at the London School of Economics for one year, then traveled throughout Europe. He earned his master's degree and Ph.D. in forestry at Oregon State University.

In 1986, McCreary joined UC ANR as part of its statewide Integrated Hardwood Range Management Program, newly created in response to public concern that oaks, the most common tree species in California hardwood rangelands, and their habitats were declining through neglect.

McCreary's research and extension work revolutionized oak regeneration in the state.

“Prior to Doug's work, oak planting on rangelands was a costly and low-success enterprise,” Standiford said. “Natural oak regeneration of white oaks was lacking in many areas, raising concerns about the long-term sustainability of oak woodlands. Doug developed low-cost, practical techniques for planting oaks, predominantly blue and valley oaks, on rangeland sites. This work was widely adopted throughout the state.”

McCreary introduced the use of tree shelters from Europe, and found that they increased survival of oak seedlings in California's Mediterranean climate. He also developed the timing for successfully gathering acorns for regeneration. After the 49er Fire, which started near Highway 49 in Nevada County in 1988, he organized Project Acorn, a county-wide effort with dozens of volunteers who collected and planted acorns in areas devastated by the fire. In 1990, McCreary was honored for Project Acorn with the Take Pride in America Award from the U.S. Department of the Interior in Washington, D.C.

McCreary, who was based at the Sierra Foothill Research and Extension Center, worked with state, federal and private nurseries to produce high-vigor bare root and containerized seedlings. He also developed silvicultural techniques to encourage natural seedlings to recruit into larger size trees.

“Doug was not content to just produce voluminous scientific journal articles on oak regeneration, but organized countless oak regeneration field days, workshops and symposia throughout the entire state,” Standiford said. “His biannual oak regeneration field days at the Sierra Foothill Research and Extension Center were must-attend events for the restoration and conservation community.”

The ANR publication, “Regenerating Rangeland Oaks” written and updated by McCreary in 2009, Standiford said, “is the bible for oak restoration, and provides a practical guide for all parts of the regeneration cycle for landowners and professionals.”

McCreary retired in 2011.

“We will all miss Doug very much. He was a wonderful colleague and friend,” Standiford said.

“I concur with Rick,” said Mel George, UC Cooperative Extension rangeland management specialist emeritus.

McCreary is survived by his partner, Therese Hukill-DeRock, his children Tyson McCreary and Megan Cielatka, and his grandchildren Hazel, Sybil, Ian and Isaac.

A celebration of McCreary's life is planned for June 10 in Grass Valley.

Read more about McCreary at https://www.theunion.com/news/obituaries/obituary-of-douglas-dewitt-mccreary.