- Author: Alec Rosenberg
The Global Food Initiative's Experiential Learning Subcommittee seeks to increase, improve and make more accessible experiential learning opportunities for students at all levels (undergraduate, graduate and professional students) throughout the University of California.
Working toward this overall aim, the Experiential Learning Subcommittee has undertaken a project to identify successful experiential learning programs, practices and approaches in food and sustainable agriculture systems on UC campuses. This webpage shares the results of the first stage of this project, through the following documents:
- A ‘living' online directory of experiential learning courses and programs that have experiential components in food and agriculture systems at the UC campuses as of spring 2015. More than 200 experiential learning courses and 150 programs have been identified.
- A report titled “Learning from the Ground Up: Experiential Learning in Food and Agriculture Systems Education at the University of California,” (pdf) summarizing lessons learned, best practices and case studies in experiential learning.
The subcommittee also has released several student-produced videos that document successful experiential learning opportunities on UC campuses.
The subcommittee members hope that these materials are useful to students, educators, researchers, administrators and others interested in learning about the importance of experiential learning opportunities in food systems, and will contribute to the goals of expanding more experiential learning opportunities of this kind.
Lead collaborators:
- Kate Kaplan, Berkeley Food Institute, UC Berkeley, and Global Food Initiative student fellow
- Damian Parr, Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems, UC Santa Cruz
- Jennifer Sowerwine, UC Cooperative Extension and UC Berkeley
- Lori Ann Thrupp, Berkeley Food Institute, UC Berkeley
- Mark Van Horn, Agricultural Sustainability Institute and Student Farm, UC Davis
Nominations are being accepted for the ANR Staff Appreciation and Recognition (STAR) Program until March 31. The purpose of the award program is to recognize and reward outstanding staff individual and team performance within Agriculture and Natural Resources.
Under the STAR Program, managers are able to recognize, acknowledge and reward employees for exceptional performance and/or significant contributions related to and supportive of individual, departmental, divisional, and/or organizational goals and objectives.
Managers may acknowledge and reward individuals and teams demonstrating:
- Exceptional performance: Demonstrated and sustained exceptional performance that consistently exceeds goals and work expectations in quantity and/or quality.
- Creativity: One-time innovation or creation that results in time/dollar savings, revenue enhancement, and productivity improvement; and/or ongoing innovative/creative activities that benefit organizational systems, protocols, and/or procedures.
- Organizational abilities: Exhibiting extraordinary skills in leadership resulting in the accomplishment of significant departmental or divisional goals and objectives; effective project management, which could include developing a project and/or implementing a project with substantial success; and/or demonstrating organizational capability leading to a greater level of effectiveness.
- Work success: Significantly exceeding productivity, customer service, quality of care or similar goals, including demonstrating superior interactions with managers, peers, supervisors, subordinates, the University community, and/or clients and customers served.
- Teamwork: For team awards, the following criteria, plus the criterion above, will be considered. Acting as an exceptionally effective and cooperative team member or team leader for a team that has significantly exceeded the goals/objectives of the department/unit.
To read the STAR award guidelines and restrictions and to download the nomination form, see the attachments.
Application and selection process:
February 2016: The call for nominations is distributed to all ANR unit directors.
No later than March 31, 2016: Nomination applications submitted via e-mail to anrstaffpersonnel@ucanr.edu.
April - May 2016: An appointed review committee will review applications submitted by the due date. The committee will select up to 20 individuals and two teams to be awarded.
May 2016: Unit directors and award winners are notified of the final decisions.
ANR STAR Nomination Form 2015 2016 FINAL
2015-16 ANR Local STAR Plan Guidelines Final
UC's Sautter Award program, honoring innovation in information technology, is now accepting 2016 nominations through May 6, 2016. The award recognizes innovative technology projects that advance UC's teaching, research, health care and public service missions.
The program is open to faculty and staff from all UC campuses and medical centers, the Office of the President, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and UC ANR. Teams or individuals who have implemented an innovative IT project at UC in the last three years are encouraged to submit an application for an award.
The program presents up to three Golden Awards, two Silver Awards and five honorable mentions.
The application deadline is 5 p.m. May 6. Award recipients will be announced July 12 at the UC Computing Services Conference at UC Santa Cruz.
For more details about the award and how to apply, visit the Sautter Award program website.
Named for UC Riverside's former associate vice chancellor for computing and communications, the award program is sponsored by the UC IT Leadership Council.
- Author: Jodi Azulai
As a UC ANR employee, you automatically have membership in a top-notch professional development resource. To take your career to the next level of performance, check out CEB Learning & Development. It takes seconds to register or reset a password and participate in webinars, download job aids and participate in discussion forums.
Here is a quick list of a few CEB resources:
Resources for All Employees – Develop yourself as a high-performing employee, not only effective at your tasks, but also as someone who contributes to others' performance and uses others' contributions to improve your own performance.
On-the-Job Activity Builder – Use this interactive tool to build employee development plans with recommended on-the-job learning activities based on the competencies you select.
Manager Guide: Holding Effective Career Discussions – Guide your direct reports through identifying and progressing toward their career aspirations.
Manager Excellence Resource Center – Search the online portal (separate from the Learning & Development member website) to find manager development and employee development resources.
Visit https://www.cebglobal.com/public/learning-development to get the most out of your CEB Learning & Development membership for yourself and your program.
The following is a report by Henry Vaux Jr., director of the Rosenberg International Forum on Water.
The Rosenberg International Forum on Water Policy, a program of UC ANR's California Institute for Water Resources, commissions the preparation of papers addressed to the theme. These papers are read by participants ahead of the actual meeting and become the focus of round table discussions, which are at the core of the program. The papers are ultimately published together with a summary of the findings and conclusions reached at the advisory committee meeting of the forum.
The forum's sessions focused on: 1) the scientific bases of moist climates, 2) the problems of conserving biodiversity in humid areas, 3) the variability of climate and water availability in different realms around the world, and 4) the global implications of El Niño and drought.
To read a summary of the findings, visit http://ciwr.ucanr.edu/files/232208.pdf.
The Rosenberg International Forum on Water Policy originated in 1996 with an endowment gift from the Bank of America to the University of California. The purpose of the gift was to support a water policy forum in honor of then-retiring Bank Chair and CEO Richard Rosenberg. The forum is held every other year in different locations around the world. Participation is limited to 50 water scholars and senior water managers. Interactive discussions about the science of water management and different experiences in water management around the globe are at the heart of the forum.