Dear Colleagues,

In August 2016, President Napolitano requested a five-year strategic plan for UC ANR by December 2016. To meet that ambitious deadline, the Senior Leadership Team worked closely with the strategic planning resources at UCOP and UC ANR to guide us through a rigorous process. We enlisted the assistance of representatives of programs and administrative units and drew upon strategic plans that already existed within the statewide programs, strategic initiatives, research and extension centers and budget plans. We also consulted UC ANR advisory groups and committees. When I presented our draft plan to President Napolitano in November, she was clearly pleased with its goals and key strategies for achieving them. The final plan was submitted to the President in late December.

I am now very excited to share the strategic plan with you; it is available at http://ucanr.edu/stratplan1.10.2017. This plan will guide us in a thoughtful and timely manner as we “operationalize” our Strategic Vision 2025. As you read through the strategic plan, please think about how your work aligns with the goals in the plan. I consider this to be a living document that we will modify, add to, and improve upon over time, so your feedback is not only welcome, it's vital.

The five-year plan calls for an estimated $54 million in one-time new costs, including approximately $40 million for capital investments in UC ANR facilities and system infrastructure. To fund the one-time costs, we will finance debt, expand our fundraising capacity and deploy some of our reserves. Ongoing annual costs for the five-year plan are estimated at $6.5 million and will be funded from projected revenue increases of $12 million, which will leave us an estimated annual net operating increase of $5.5 million.

The plan defines 15 goals to enhance UC ANR's research and extension mission, support employees and volunteers, address financial stability and administrative excellence, and increase awareness of UC ANR's value. As you can see on page 30 of the attached plan, each goal has been assigned an “owner,” who will be responsible for overseeing our progress toward its attainment. Our next step is to develop specific action plans with point people, metrics and target dates to reach our goals.

To move the strategic plan from paper to action, I have invited 22 people representing campuses, counties, research and extension centers, administrative units and more to meet at the end of this month. At the two-day meeting, we will begin developing action plans to achieve the 15 goals in the strategic plan. We will also explore how best to engage all UC ANR members in this process because everyone's contribution is critical to the UC ANR mission.

As we map out the paths to our goals, we will be soliciting feedback and engaging different people within UC ANR and external stakeholders. We will keep you apprised of our progress via ANR Update, social media, our website and other reporting. In addition to those regular communications venues, Wendy Powers, associate vice president, will provide informal updates through a new blog she recently launched at http://ucanr.edu/ANRAdventures.

You can offer feedback and collaboration via our many workgroups, advisory committees and public forums, or by sending a comment here.

By identifying and taking specific steps that lead to our goals, we will successfully achieve our Strategic Vision. If you have comments or suggestions for this process, I would love to hear from you. Please submit them to me using this link http://ucanr.edu/5yearplancomments.

Best regards,

Glenda Humiston
Vice President

Editor's note: This is an excerpt from AVP Wendy Power's new blog “ANR Adventures.” For news about the recruitment process for the Vice Provost – Statewide Programs and Strategic Initiatives and Vice Provost – Cooperative Extension positions, read her blog at http://ucanr.edu/blogs/Adventures.

Wednesday (Jan. 18) was the Town Hall meeting to provide an overview of the UC ANR strategic plan and answer any questions. At one point, 177 participants joined the conversation via Zoom and approximately 50 of us were in the UC ANR building in Davis.

VP Glenda Humiston provided overviews of the goal of the strategic plan, the process used to gather input and the resulting goals in the plan. The remaining 45 minutes or so of the hour-long meeting was focused on questions.

Several questions were related to fundraising (plans and strategies to raise funds, intended uses of the funds). Other questions were around communicating progress on reaching the goals set forth in the plan. This is a great question and one that one of the strategic initiative leaders got me thinking about late last week. Somehow we want to be able to share the division's progress on attaining the goals without getting bogged down with details about where we are in the process. Any suggestions? If you have some, I'd love to hear them! One of the Zoom participants suggested a graphic or visual representation – maybe something like the thermometers that organizations use to show status of fundraising targets? Give this some thought and I will give it some more thought, too.

One of the questions was about the program prioritization process (Goal #5). Like pretty much all of the goals, we don't know what the result of this will look like and haven't formulated a plan to go about gathering information and making any decisions needed to reach this goal. This will be a portion of the agenda for a two-day retreat to take place at the end of the month. As the “goal owner” for Goal #5, I have to admit that I was perfectly comfortable early on in the strategic plan development process to leave this as a strategy under another goal. But I understand and “buy in” now to the idea that this is so important to who we are and the value we bring to California that it makes sense to have this as a stand-alone goal. As I said at the town hall, it is a good business practice to review what you do and how you do it. But this is no easy task for such a large organization with so many different programmatic efforts, all of which make a difference in someone's life. And key questions to think about as we undertake the process are what, if any, programming is needed to realize the 2025 Vision and how do those needs align with current efforts? Still a huge task and, as a result, a few of us have met with someone who I think can help all of us work toward answers.

Following development of a draft plan at the retreat, I intend to share the plan with strategic initiative leaders, statewide program and institute directors and county directors, then finalize a process and approach for having these big conversations so that they are inclusive, not overly time-consuming and lead to information that furthers us in our goals. No doubt success will take time and will benefit from the collective brainpower of everyone at UC ANR. I suspect it's one of those things that you get out of it, what you put into it.

 

Dear Colleagues,

As we wrap up 2016, I want to take a moment to thank you for everything you've done on behalf of UC ANR this year. Whether you are conducting research, organizing extension programs, teaching nutrition, leading volunteers or quietly working behind the scenes to support our various activities, your work makes a huge difference in the lives of all Californians.

In addition to those activities, many of you also took the time to give feedback to the recent strategic planning exercise, gathered to exchange ideas at the Research to Policy conference, or contributed to enhancing the UC ANR mission in many other ways.  A special thanks to the folks who chaired a committee, led a program team or served as county director – having strong, passionate leaders at every level of this organization is what makes us effective.

We are continuing to grow in numbers as hiring outpaces retirements. In 2016, 29 academics joined UC ANR and three more are poised to start in 2017. We also established four new endowed chairs with matching funds from UC President Janet Napolitano, the California Rice Research Board, the California Pistachio Research Board and, recently, the Orange County Farm Bureau. Thanks to the hard work of many stakeholders – both internal and external – we identified 26 academic positions (http://ucanr.edu/sites/anrstaff/files/253192.pdf) for a new round of hiring priorities over the next two years. 

At the request of President Napolitano, we've submitted a five-year plan for UC ANR that will help us operationalize the Strategic Vision 2025 in a very thoughtful and timely manner. The next step is to further develop specific action plans for implementation and ensure the financial stability to support our vision. After the winter break, we will share the plan with the UC ANR community, as well as external stakeholders, and invite additional input as we move forward.

I'm very excited about 2017!  Some great groundwork has been laid this past year to further enhance our ability to deliver the UC ANR mission and enjoy new partnerships. I hope you will have a chance to relax and enjoy the holidays with friends and family and return refreshed to tackle the challenges that await us in the new year.

Happy Holidays!

Glenda

Glenda Humiston
Vice President

 

VP Humiston announced on Dec. 14 the release of 26 new academic UC Cooperative Extension positions (see list below) for hiring over the next two years. 

The positions from the 2016 process will be released for recruitment in phases as Human Resources continues recruiting for more than 25 specialist and advisor positions yet unfilled from the 2014 process.

“This new release continues our commitment for hiring to exceed projected turnover, thus achieving our goal of academic growth. And, as funding becomes available, we will consider additional positions,” Humiston said.

“At present, we are also exploring the opportunities to expand academic numbers using non-traditional funding models, such as sharing positions and leveraging resources with public and private partners,” she said. “Furthermore, given that needs change and new challenges emerge that must be addressed quickly, we are optimistic we have some flexibility to react to new needs.”

Humiston thanked Program Council, UC ANR academics, county and REC directors, program directors and ANR stakeholders for the time and effort they put into the 2016 positions process, identifying position needs for the future and helping to prioritize those needs.

UC ANR Cooperative Extension positions approved for release FY2017-2018 (If more than one county is listed, the position is headquartered in the first county.)

Round 1 (Winter 2017)

CE Advisor - 4-H Youth Development: Orange County

CE Advisor - Area 4-H Youth Development: San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties

CE Advisor  - Area Forestry/County Director: Mendocino, Lake and Sonoma counties

CE Advisor - Area IPM: Sonoma, Napa, Lake and Mendocino counties

CE Advisor - Nutrition, Family & Consumer Sciences: Kern County

CE Specialist - Antimicrobial Stewardship: UCD

CE Specialist - Pathology of Vines, Berries & Fruit Trees: UC Davis

CE Specialist - Small Scale Fruit and Vegetable Processing: UC Davis

CE Specialist - Subtropical Fruit Crop IPM:UC Riverside

Round 2 (Spring/Summer 2017)

CE Advisor - Area Agronomy and Weed Management: Merced and Madera counties

CE Advisor - Area Forestry/Natural Resources: Plumas, Sierra and Lassen counties

CE Specialist - Forest Ecology/Silviculture: UC Berkeley

CE Specialist - Soil-Plant-Water Relations/Deficit Irrigation: UC Davis

Round 3 (Fall 2017)

CE Advisor - Area Urban Forestry/Natural Resources: Los Angeles and Orange counties

CE Advisor - Area 4-H Youth Development: Shasta, Trinity and Tehama counties

CE Specialist - Water Resources Economics and Policy: UC Riverside

CE Specialist - Citrus Horticulture: UC Riverside/Lindcove REC

Round 4 (Winter 2018)

CE Advisor - Area Orchard Systems: San Joaquin County and Northern San Joaquin Valley

CE Advisor - Vegetable Crops: Kern County

CE Specialist - Orchard Systems, Southern San Joaquin Valley: UC Davis/Kearney REC

CE Specialist - Sheep and Goat Herd Health and Production: UC Davis

Round 5 (Spring/Summer 2018)

CE Advisor - Area Livestock/Natural Resources: Tuolumne, El Dorado, Amador and Calaveras counties

CE Advisor - Area Rice Farming Systems: Butte and Glenn counties

CE Advisor - Area Specialty Crops: Contra Costa, Alameda and west San Joaquin counties

CE Specialist - Feedlot Management: UC Davis/Desert REC

CE Specialist - Economics of Sustainable Agriculture Management: UC Davis