Be an active participant in your performance review discussion. It will empower you and shows that you care about your work and your development.

To prepare, review your:

• Job description
• Objectives set for the review period
• Any documentation, notes, status reports you have drafted or even a self-assessment

Continue reading here.

Check out the ANR Learning and Development website to explore learning resources, training topics, and career planning tools. Use the career planning tools to:

• Learn the difference between skills and competencies
• Identify UC Core Competencies
• Fill out a self-assessment to contemplate your skill strengths and skill gaps

SiteBuilder Training

The CSIT Web Development team is bringing several SiteBuilder training sessions to several locations:

• Monday, May 7, 9 a.m.-3 p.m. in Davis
• Thursday, May 17, 9 a.m.-3 p.m. at Hopland (FULL)
• Thursday, May 24, 9 a.m.-3 p.m. at Kearney

The classes are designed for ANR people in need of proficiency in creating and maintaining websites. 

Learning topics:

• The basics to get up and running with SiteBuilder
• Best practices in web design
• Search engine optimization
• Employing images
• Social media integration
• Web accessibility
• Introduction to new designs and functionalities of the future SiteBuilder platform

Register at http://ucanr.edu/survey/survey.cfm?surveynumber=24549. A training location may be added in Southern California.

Register for the New Employee Administrative Orientation

Wednesday, May 23, 9 a.m.-3 p.m.

UC ANR Building, 2801 Second Street, Davis, CA  95618

Learn more and register here.

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 in the past. Priority will be given to those hired by ANR within the past year.

• Learn about ANR's vision and mission
• Learn about ANR structure and individual programs and units
• Interact with ANR leadership and directors
• Meet and network with new colleagues from around the state
• Get answers to burning questions about health benefits, AggieTravel, and more!

You bring the coffee, tea, or beverage and we will bring you the first virtual WebANR Café Thursday on May 17 at noon: Planning makes Perfect: Best Practices for Engaging Webinars.

During this webinar, Brook Gamble, community educator specialist with the California Naturalist Program, and Steven Worker, 4-H academic 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 e-mail

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

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

Webinar ID: 963 167 636 

WebANRs will be recorded and linked to the WebANR Café Thursday page.

Use Your Subscription to Corporate Executive Board Learning & Development

As a UCANR employee you have automatic membership to a top-notch professional development resource. Interested in cultivating your career to the next level of performance? If yes, check out Corporate Executive Board (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  – Find manager development and employee development resources at this online portal (separate from the L&D member website).

A UCSD student discussed a closed-circuit aquaponic system created at Roger’s Garden. Multiple UCSD students as well as GFI fellows conduct research projects in the garden with the goal of replicating and scaling to gardens outside of UCSD and in the community.

Sustainability. Food justice. Research to action. These were the themes discussed April 13–14, 2018, as emerging food leaders throughout the UC system gathered in San Diego for a tour titled “The Rooted University: Bridging food system changemaking on and off campus.”

The trip brought together nearly two dozen 2018 Global Food Initiative Fellows, all of whom are working on projects that advance the mission of the UC-wide Global Food Initiative, including Nutrition Policy Institute GFI fellow Kristal Caballero. Caballero wrote the following story about the event.

This strategic initiative was started in 2014 by UC President Janet Napolitano to align the university's research to develop and export solutions — throughout California, the United States and the world — for food security, health and sustainability. The initiative funds student-generated research, related projects or internships that focus on food issues. All 10 UC campuses, plus UC Agriculture and Natural Resources (UC ANR) and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, participate in the program.

“We need to start thinking of the interconnectedness of our research, and begin to implement place-based solutions that take into account the environment, food-security, and sustainability,” said UC San Diego professor Keith Pezzoli as he welcomed the GFI fellows. Pezzoli, who leads the UC San Diego Bioregional Center for Sustainability Science, Planning and Design, hosted the GFI fellows for the weekend. Pezzoli and his team led the fellows to multiple campus and community-based projects that are implementing collaborative, innovative solutions that advance food security, environmental sustainability and economic prosperity. GFI fellows were tasked to think of their projects critically and use the trip to gather ideas and inspiration for their own projects and in their work as future food leaders.

This year's GFI Fellows are working on projects that range from addressing food security and basic needs on UC campuses, to capturing the culture of eating through film, and from efforts to connect water salinity to crop yield, to creating energy-generating agricultural covers.

Dinner with UC Agriculture and Natural Resources - advising California for 150 years

The first day of the trip ended with a presentation by and dinner with advisors from UC's Agricultural and Natural Resources. Ramiro E. Lobo, small farm and agricultural economics advisor for UC Cooperative Extension in San Diego County, gave the GFI fellows basic information about the farming landscape in San Diego County and introduced the five UC ANR Strategic Initiatives. Lobo, who specializes in agricultural economics and marketing, talked about the challenges of farming in San Diego and the future of agricultural economics.

“San Diego,” Lobo said, “has the one of the highest prices of agricultural water in the world. The majority of our farms are small, specialty crop farms. So now, many growers and shutting off the water and letting their land dry up.”

In order to combat these issues and drive sales, Ramiro helps farmers market their products and share their stories.

“We're moving towards a ‘value-based' model of marketing,” said Lobo. “I help farmers figure out what their personal farming stories are and help share those stories with the public, a model that's really helping to drive sales.”

GFI fellows discussed future food systems with UCCE advisors. From left to right: Oli Bachie (Imperial County); Chutima Ganthavorn, (Riverside and San Bernardino); Laurent Ahiablame, (San Diego); Natalie Price (Los Angeles) and Ramiro Lobo (San Diego)

Fellows then enjoyed dinner with ANR advisors from throughout Southern California and discussed student-led topics related to food security, water quality, federal food programs and research ethics. With areas of work ranging from water quality to crop science, and from federal food programs to agricultural tourism, conversations were rich and varied as ANR advisors answered students' questions and shared their expertise.

“It was so interesting to hear the ANR advisors' perspectives on their particular issues. Also, I was really inspired by the wide range of expertise and backgrounds present among the advisors. Each one brings their own unique perspective to the work, and I enjoyed learning how each of their focus areas connected,” said GFI fellow Mackenzie Feldman, an undergraduate student at UC Berkeley. 

“After this trip, I am full of new ideas, energy and confidence that can I make a difference. I now know I need to find the right partners and keep believing that solutions to food justice and environmental sustainability are possible,” said Holly Mayton, GFI Fellow and PhD student at UC Riverside. “My thoughts and ideas are really falling into place, and I am creating a new framework for action and results.”

Read more about the GFI tour at http://ucanr.edu/?blogpost=26971&blogasset=99473.

Whitney Brim-DeForest plans to use the endowed chair funds to study weedy rice.

The $1 million UC Cooperative Extension Presidential Chair for California Grown Rice has been awarded to Whitney Brim-DeForest, UCCE rice advisor for Sutter, Yuba, Placer, Sacramento and Butte counties.

Brim-DeForest said she will use the funds generated from the endowed chair to hire a full-time technician to monitor a research study at UC Davis on weedy rice. Weedy rice is the same species as cultivated rice and it produces rice, however the grain falls off the plant before harvest.

She is part of a team of UC scientists that includes UCCE advisors Luis Espino and Michelle Lindfelder-Miles, and UCCE specialists Bruce Linquist and Kassim Al-Khatib who are conducting the five-year demonstration project to help farmers manage the problem.

“We don't know where weedy rice came from,” Brim-DeForest said. “It's a weed in every major rice growing area around the world. We were among the last areas to see it.”

In the UC Davis experiment, the scientists plan to demonstrate two potential weedy rice management strategies: rotate the rice crop with sorghum and create a “stale seed bed,” in which the field is irrigated and plants allowed to germinate, and then killed with an herbicide before the desired rice is planted.

“We want to demonstrate this in the field,” Brim-DeForest said. “In theory, it works. We want to show growers how long it will take to get weedy rice out of their fields.”

Half the funds for the endowed chair was provided by UC President Janet Napolitano; the other half was donated by the California Rice Research Board.

“The establishment of this endowed chair strengthens the long-standing public-private research partnership UC Cooperative Extension has had with the California rice industry,” said UC Agriculture and Natural Resources associate vice president Tu Tran, when the endowment was announced in 2016. “Continued research advancements will help the rice industry maintain its reputation for supplying a premium product for domestic and world markets.”

The chair appointment will be for a five-year term, and then reviewed and renewed or offered to another specialist or advisor working on California rice.

Brim-DeForest joined UCCE in 2016 after serving as a graduate student researcher in the Department of Plant Sciences at UC Davis, working at the California Rice Experiment Station in Biggs. She managed the UC Davis Weed Science field and greenhouse trials, and worked with industry and academic scientists to design field and greenhouse trials for weed management in rice.

California State Senator Ben Hueso honored California and Baja California 4-H with a resolution in the State Senate April 2 to recognize the cross-border team that established a 4-H Club in Mexicali, Baja Mexico, in January 2017.

The event, held in the Senate Chambers, was attended by Manuel Vallodolid Seamaduras, secretary of Agriculture Development in the State of Baja California, Mexico (Secretaría de Desarrollo Agropecuario del Estado de México - SEDAGRO); Hortencia Medellin Acosta, director of Rural Entrepreneurship, Mexicali, Baja California; Carlos Orozco Riesgo, member of the UC ANR 4-H Multicultural and Community Engagement Advisory Committee and former undersecretary of SEDAGRO; Belem Avendaño Ruiz, director of Inspection, health and safety SEDAGRO; Guillermo Gonzalez Rubio, director of the Livestock Health Department SEDAGRO; Agustin Manuel Velazquez Bustamante, legal advisor SEDAGRO; Mark Bell, vice provost of Strategic Initiatives and Statewide Programs; Shannon Horrillo, 4-H Youth Development Program director; Lupita Fabregas, 4-H Youth Development assistant director for diversity and expansion; and Claudia Diaz Carrasco, 4-H Youth Development advisor in Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

Last year, UC ANR Vice President Glenda Humiston signed a memorandum of understanding with Baja California Secretary of Agriculture Development Manuel Vallodolid Seamanduras to offer UC's 4-H expertise to youth south of the border. The agreement increases the academic, scientific, technological and cultural cooperation that are part of UC President Janet Napolitano's Mexico Initiative.

Hueso's resolution attests to the value of building relationships as a means of cooperative engagement between Mexico and California on shared concerns, such as drought and global climate change. The resolution notes that the creation of a 4-H Club in Mexicali is an inspiring reminder that the need for education doesn't stop at the border. 

Hueso represents the 40^th District, which includes parts of San Diego County and all of Imperial County, running along the entire border between California and Mexico.