- Author: Jodi Azulai
Visit ANR Learning & Development for developing skills in: Extension Delivery, Office, Team, and Personal Development, and Building Support. Webinars are recorded and archived here.
Call for WebANR Topics and Presenters
Survey link
Do you have a WebANR Cafe Thursday topic and/or presenter to recommend? WebANR topics are based on the areas of Extension Delivery, Building Support, and Office & Team Management. Our targeted audience members are ANR advisors, community educators and others. Depending on your feedback, we will consider adding your recommendation to our WebANR planning process. Please share your recommendations here.
- Save the dates & events with registration deadlines -
SAVE THE DATE: Action Collaborative for Enhancing STEM Success 2020 (ACCESS 2020)
Sun.-Tues. April 5-7, 2020
San Diego State University
Registration open until Feb 28 or when all slots are filled.
San Diego State University is hosting ACCESS 2020, a workshop that convenes a diverse collaboration of practitioners at Hispanic-Serving Institutions throughout the country. The workshop is an innovative and novel contribution to the national conversation on HSI climate and culture for faculty and student success. The goal of the convening will be to form an Action Collaborative that reflects the critical goals associated with leveraging HSI research enterprises in developing a diverse STEM workforce at HSIs. For more information, access the website.
SAVE THE DATE: Coming Together for Racial Understanding Workshop
This workshop is scheduled to take place TBD in July 2020.
Apply to attend by April 3, 2020.
Here is an opportunity to engage in democratic dialogues that address racism and inequities and learn how to engage your community in those dialogues. This workshop is not meant to be an end to your thoughts and feelings about historical or present-day racism and inequities nor is it meant to be a single experience of addressing internalized, interpersonal, institutional, structural and systematic racism and inequities. Rather, the workshop aims to serve as part of your process in addressing the power of language, our commitment to inclusion, our understanding of past and present policies and practices of inequality and how to begin the work of dismantling racism and inequities within UC ANR and within our communities. The workshop will be capped at 20 people.
Perform GIS Analyses Using GIS Software
Tues & Wed April 14 & 15, 2020, ANR Building, Davis
Register here
Have you ever wished you knew how to perform GIS analyses with spatial data using GIS software? Have you ever wished you could create a -
- Map of where your constituents live?
- Web app to share your activities with others in UCANR and the public?
- Data collection apps to gather data from citizen scientists?
- Data collection apps to gather data for your own research in the field?
Note to potential participants, ArcGIS Pro requires a computer that is running 64 bit windows. ArcGIS Online runs in a web browser and does not require any special hardware or software requirements for this workshop. To register for this workshop please complete the following form.
Save the Date: Administrative New Employee Orientation
Wednesday May 13, 2020, ANR Building, Davis
More information here.
Who should attend? - All UC ANR employees (academics, staff and affiliated staff on campuses, counties and RECs) who have not participated in a past administrative orientation. Stay tuned for the registration notification.
- Anytime learning -
Everyone can learn something new.
ANR Learning & Development
Office: (530) 750.1239
jlazulai@ucanr.edu
- Author: Kara Manke
The College of Natural Resources at the University of California, Berkeley, has been renamed the Rausser College of Natural Resources in honor of a landmark $50 million gift by Gordon Rausser, former dean of the college and the Robert Gordon Sproul Distinguished Professor Emeritus of agricultural and resource economics at UC Berkeley.
The gift, the largest donation ever received by the college and the largest naming gift of any academic unit at UC Berkeley, will support the school's land-grant mission to take on key economic, social, environmental and health challenges facing the state and the nation. Major initiatives led by the college include mitigating and adapting to climate change, accelerating the clean energy transition and improving food security and nutrition for all.
“The state of California, and the nation as a whole, face enormous environmental risks today that didn't exist 20 years ago, and we as a society haven't found the will to address them squarely,” Rausser said. “Rausser College has some of the best economists in the world and some of the best scientists in the world, and by working together, as they must, they uniquely position the college to provide not only the fundamental science, but also the practical solutions, needed to tackle these challenges.”
Rausser's gift is a major component of UC Berkeley's landmark $6 billion “Light the Way” fundraising campaign, which officially launched Saturday, Feb. 29.
“Gordon Rausser's incredible contribution of his own personal resources to support the mission of UC Berkeley and Rausser College is an unparalleled vote of confidence in the college, the university and our mission,” said Chancellor Carol Christ. “Gordon's legacy of outstanding leadership at the college in and of itself left an indelible mark on our campus and community. His willingness and ability to now provide a strong financial foundation for the college's future is a contribution whose true value is beyond measure.”
The majority of the funds will create an unrestricted endowment that can be used at the direction of the dean, in consultation with faculty leadership, to support a variety of needs across the college's five departments — from supporting graduate students to launching new interdisciplinary research programs.
In addition, a portion of the gift will be used to establish the Gordon Rausser Endowed Chair in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, where Rausser served for over four decades. Another portion will help set up a Rausser-Zilberman Program Endowed Fund for the Master of Development Practice (MDP) Program, which will support students, curriculum enhancements and field opportunities abroad.
“An endowment gift of this size and nature provides the college with a permanent funding source that will fuel innovation and creativity, enhance the quality of our programs and help us stay competitive — it is truly extraordinary,” said David Ackerly, dean of Rausser College. “We will invest in graduate student support to recruit and train the world's best scholars and support innovative interdisciplinary research to tackle major problems at the state, national and global levels.”
Other priorities include faculty recruitment and retention, equity and inclusion programs and curriculum innovations, Ackerly said.
More than 40 years of commitment to Berkeley
Rausser first joined the Berkeley faculty in 1978 after leaving his faculty position at Harvard University. He went on to serve as chair of the Department of Agriculture and Resource Economics on three separate occasions before being appointed dean of the College of Natural Resources in 1994. As dean, Rausser oversaw a massive expansion and reorganization of the college, growing the number of faculty at the college by approximately 20%.
Rausser foresaw the need to increase the college's fundraising enterprise, and under his leadership the college greatly expanded its philanthropic activity. During his time as dean he worked in partnership with the alumni community to create eight new faculty endowed chairs. Today, these endowed chairs are a crucial tool for recruiting and retaining the highest-quality faculty. He also spearheaded the Berkeley-Novartis Agreement, a creative research and development agreement between the College's Department of Plant and Microbial Biology and the Novartis Agricultural Discovery Institute to advance fundamental research in plant biology and genomics. The Berkeley-Novartis Agreement was novel at the time and laid the groundwork for future public private partnerships.
Outside of Berkeley, Rausser has distinguished himself as an economic and policy adviser to the U.S. government and the state of California, as a business consultant and venture capitalist and an entrepreneur. While on academic leave, he served as senior economist on the President's Council of Economic Advisors (1986-1987) under Ronald Reagan and subsequently became chief economist of the U.S. Agency for International Development (1988-1990). His accomplishments also include co-founding Emeryville-based OnPoint Analytics, which provides business consulting services specializing in expert testimony in economics, data analytics, finance and statistics, and co-founding with Berkeley colleagues the Law and Economics Consulting Group.
He is the recipient of 29 academic research, teaching and leadership awards. The most recent of which is having his professional society — the Agricultural & Applied Economics Association (AAEA) — honor his work by naming the conference keynote, in perpetuity, in recognition of his lifetime research achievements and exceptional intellectual leadership of the profession. The first Rausser Keynote address will take place this year at the AAEA annual society meetings.
Rausser said the gift is a continuation of his more than 40-year commitment to the campus and its public mission — and that his success as a business leader and entrepreneur enabled him to make it happen.
“Personally, I can think of no institution in California that's had a greater impact on our past, or has a greater power to shape our future, than Berkeley has, and I take great pride in the fact that Rausser College is one of the cornerstones of this remarkable institution,” Rausser said. “I know what the college is capable of, given the right resources, and I want to ensure that the college achieves an unparalleled level of excellence.”
- Author: Pamela Kan-Rice
Training on the staff hiring process is being offered by Human Resources for anyone who is involved in employee recruiting and hiring, including supervisors and office staff who assist in recruitments.
The new HR systems for hiring have been in place for a few months now. Do you have any questions or need a refresher now that you've had a chance to navigate it a bit?
Please join HR on Thursday, March 5, at 10 a.m. to review some staff recruiting-process slides and get your questions answered. Please register at http://ucanr.edu/survey/survey.cfm?surveynumber=29644.
For more information about the training, contact Patricia Glass, HR business systems analyst, at (530) 750-1324 or pglass@ucanr.edu.
- Author: Mary Vlandis
The Annual Staff Performance Evaluation process will begin on March 6, 2020. As part of the recent transition to UC Path, we are implementing ePerformance, an electronic process for completing staff evaluations. UC Path ePerformance will replace the PDF-based Employee Performance Evaluation Report (EPAR). This program will provide a more streamlined process for both the employee and the supervisor.
(Please note: ANR staff based at the Office of the President will follow the UCOP-HR performance process with separate trainings, timelines and forms.)
On March 6, all staff employees and their supervisors will receive an email notification that evaluation documents are available in UC Path ePerformance. The email will contain a link to take you directly to the electronic form. You may also locate the form by accessing your Dashboard in UC Path, and selecting Performance Work Center. The UCPath log in page may be found at http://ucpath.universityofcalifornia.edu/.
In March, Human Resources will host a series of webinars for employees and supervisors. The webinars will provide training on how to use the ePerformance program. If you are a supervisor, you only need to participate in a supervisor session.
Please hold one of these dates/times on your calendar:
Employee Role: March 5, Thurs., 3 p.m.–4 p.m. Supervisor Role: March 12, Thurs., 10 a.m.–11:30 a.m.
Employee Role:March 10, Tues., 2 p.m.–3 p.m. Supervisor Role: March 31, Tues., 10 a.m.–11:30 a.m.
Zoom login: https://ucanr.zoom.us/j/5307501321
Meeting ID: 530 750 1321
Call-in number: 669 900-6833
More details about the annual process, including guidelines, a detailed timeline and FAQs, are available on the ANR Human Resources website http://ucanr.edu/sites/ANRSPU/Supervisor_Resources/Performance_Management.
If you have any questions regarding the process, please contact Mary Vlandis at maryvlandis@ucanr.edu or Jodi Rosenbaum at jrosenbaum@ucanr.edu. For system related questions, please contact Patricia Glass at pglass@ucanr.edu.
- Author: Pamela Kan-Rice
Applications are being accepted through March 30, 2020, from UC Cooperative Extension specialists and advisors who wish to be considered for the position of director of UC ANR's California Organic Institute. This opportunity will provide a dedicated source of funds (income from the endowment) to support scholarly activities and outreach focused on improvement of California organic agriculture production.
Through a funding partnership between Clif Bar & Company and the UC Presidential Endowment program, UC Agriculture and Natural Resources has established a $1 million directorship for the UC ANR California Organic Institute.
Through a competitive selection process, a director will be chosen to hold an initial seven-year term.The directorship will be awarded by UC ANR to a distinguished UC Cooperative Extension specialist or advisor currently working in the area of organic production in California.
Application and selection details, including timeline and submission guidelines, are available at http://ucanr.edu/sites/StrategicInitiatives/files/318017.pdf.
For any questions, please contact Mark Bell, vice provost for strategic initiatives & statewide programs, at mozbell@ucanr.edu.