The UCCE team in San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties met with Congressman Salud Carbajal and his team twice in the past few weeks. On Aug. 20, Jeremy Tittle, the congressman's chief of staff, and Erin Sandler, the congressman's scheduler, visited. The congressional staff met with UCCE advisors, office manager, and director to learn more about UCCE research and programming.

UCCE advisor Ben Faber led a tour of research and education collaborations at Cal Poly, sharing research occurring on pomegranates, blueberries and other crops. In the afternoon, UCCE advisor Mark Battany led a tour at Wolff Vineyard, discussing research on how climate conditions relate to frost and water management.

The following week, Katherine Soule, UCCE director, met with Congressman Carbajal and project collaborators to discuss the outcomes and success of a USDA Community Food Project grant. On Sept. 5, the congressman visited with the project partners at the Food Bank Coalition of San Luis Obispo County. 

Community partners described their contributions to the project, including UCCE's efforts to reduce food waste, increase awareness of local food systems, and maximize limited food resources through the UC Master Food Preserver Program. For this project, UC Master Food Preservers teach low-cost, safe, home food preservation methods to clientele receiving food at food bank distribution sites. During this meeting, the partners also discussed the San Luis Obispo County CalFresh Alliance's objective to increase CalFresh participation in the county. 

San Luis Obispo County currently has one of the lowest CalFresh participation rates in the state so the partners have been working together to identify and address barriers to participation. Carbajal shared his concerns about the low rates of participation and his commitment to working to address food insecurity in the region.

These successful visits led Carbajal's team to schedule a meeting with 4-H youth, families and volunteers in San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties in the next few months.

How do you achieve this? Communicate with all audiences throughout the year, not just during times of need. This helps form relationships as well as a deeper understanding of what it is that you do and how your work impacts the local community. This helps build a lasting relationship and a desire to support your research, programming, and services.

Many of our stakeholders know us through one program. By educating them about how our programs and academics work together – such as Master Gardener volunteers extending UC IPM information to the public or scientists with complementary expertise working together to address issues – people gain an appreciation for the value of UC ANR as a whole, not just individual programs. It's an impressive value proposition and it makes a difference in the lives of all Californians.

How should you educate elected officials?

As university employees, we may indicate our needs and ask for support with many audiences (e.g. funding organizations, boards of supervisors, donors, etc.) but we must take into consideration other factors when talking to elected state or federal officials or their staff members. 

We can, and should, educate and inform elected state and federal officials and their staff of the work UC ANR does in their districts. However, we cannot take positions on bills or ask for budgetary support without the expressed consent from the UC Office of the President. Only the regents, who have delegated authority to President Napolitano, can determine UC's official position on legislative issues.

So, what can you do if you can't ask for money? 

Share the impact of your work. Be specific! Tell a story and use UC ANR's public value statements to guide you. Sometimes a personal story about an individual who benefited from your work is easier to remember, and more moving, than total program impact to an entire community. For example, talk about your work solving a problem with a specific farmer and how it improved their bottom line, share a 4-H youth project, talk about working with a specific community partner and describe how you worked together to achieve a shared goal. Did you promote economic prosperity, develop a qualified workforce, or promote healthy people and communities? Did your partners save money? Did more 4-H youth go to college? Did participants lead healthier lives?

If we fine-tune the way we message our story and impacts, we can ensure that UC ANR will become widely known as the face of UC in communities throughout California.

For more information, see my one-pager at http://ucanr.edu/sites/Professional_Development/files/293044.pdf. Feel free to contact me at (530) 750-1218 or ammegaro@ucanr.edu.

 

 

 

University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources joined in the California Farm Bureau Federation's Centennial Celebration at the State Capitol on June 26.

State legislators visited booths where county farm bureaus displayed products from local growers and ranchers and discussed the benefits of agriculture in their county.

UC ANR was represented by Jim Farrar, UC IPM director; Michelle Leinfelder-Miles, UCCE Delta crops advisor for San Joaquin, Contra Costa, Sacramento, Solano and Yolo counties; Sarah Light, UCCE agronomy advisor for Sutter-Yuba and Colusa counties and Katherine Jarvis-Shean, UCCE orchard systems advisor for Sacramento, Solano and Yolo counties. They answered questions about pest management and crop production and discussed their research and outreach.

4-H volunteer Julie Farnham and Nicole Jansen and members of the Esparto/Capay Valley 4-H Club brought a small petting zoo consisting of three dairy calves and two exotic sheep and talked with legislators about the benefits of participating in 4-H.

“The California Farm Bureau Federation's Centennial at the Capitol was a great opportunity to talk with legislators about how UC is present in their districts and helping their constituents,” said Anne Megaro, director of government and community relations, who coordinated ANR's participation in the event.

UC Cooperative Extension has partnered with the Farm Bureau for more than a century. As UC Cooperative Extension was being organized in 1913, UC leaders required each county government that wanted to participate in the partnership to allocate funding to help support extension work in that community. It was also required that a group of farmers in participating counties organize into a “farm bureau” to help guide the UCCE farm advisor on the local agriculture issues. These grassroots groups later evolved into the California Farm Bureau Federation.

University of California staff are an integral part of a system with a high purpose. Every staff member plays a role in supporting the University's mission: Educating the best and brightest from all backgrounds, ethnicities and incomes, conducting research that touches the lives of people across the globe, and providing critical public service across California in areas such public health, agricultural science, nutrition and youth development.

Our future depends on the support of the elected leaders in the state and our nation's capital. This is an area where you, with your first-hand knowledge of the University's value, can play an important role.

In addition to being a UC staff member, you are a constituent of your government representatives. They want to hear from you. You have a unique perspective of UC ANR and your community. You can share honest communications with these leaders to gain support that is crucial to the future of the University of California. If you would like to add your voice to the voices of many others in support of UC, join the UC Advocacy Network, UCAN. (https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/support-uc/ucan)

UCAN was launched last year to engage staff, faculty, students and alumni who want to advocate for the future of UC. More than 17,000 people have already chosen to get involved, and there is significant room for growth, said Meredith Turner, associate director of Advocacy and Institutional Relations.  

“We have hundreds of thousands of employees, nearly 2 million alumni, and thousands of students,” Turner said. “There is a huge group of people who could join this community.”

When you “opt-in,” you will occasionally receive email alerts about issues vital to UC. The emails provide basic background on the topic. You choose whether to click “take action,” which brings you to a webpage with more information and a form where you can fill in your name, email and home address. The form contains a suggested message for your local government officials, but you can edit the message and personalize it, if you wish.

The UC Advocacy Network was recently engaged in the debate over the federal “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act,” which passed Congress and President Trump signed into law in December 2017. The proposal contained provisions that could have harmed the financial security of UC students and their families and threatened the university's ability to carry out its research, education, health care, and public service missions. The issues in question were a proposal to repeal the Student Loan Interest Deduction and the Qualified Tuition Reductions (Section 117(d)). The latter makes it possible to provide graduate students with a non-taxable tuition reduction while they pursue their degrees and work as research or teaching assistants.

UCAN issued a call to action, asking its network of advocates to tell their representatives in Congress how damaging such provisions would be to higher education in the U.S.

“The issues are so complex, it can be hard to see how it will translate in your life,” Turner said. “We break it down and explain how the law will impact the University's mission directly.”

The final bill preserved both the Student Loan Interest Deduction and the Qualified Tuition Reductions.

Each year, UCAN participants are called to amplify UC's governmental relations staff communication with state senators and assembly members about the state budget.

“We advocate  greater state investment in the University,” Turner said. “This truly affects everyone connected to the University – it impacts staffing levels, the resources staff have to work with, the ability to hire faculty, repair classrooms. This is the perfect opportunity for people to participate in advocacy.”

The UC ANR Staff Assembly encourages all staff to visit the UCAN website and join the movement.

 “Advocacy is most impactful when you're passionate about an issue,” Turner said. “We let people pick what they are most concerned about and have them advocate for it.”