- Author: Wendy Powers
I didn't get as much done las week as I had hoped. I had planned to find some time during the conference to sneak away and check some items off my 'to-do list.' I couldn't find a session I could or wanted to miss. Weather in Houston delayed my return on Friday but, I was able to get some things done in the airport. Then I spent Friday night in the ER with a family member. So much for getting up early on Saturday. Somehow things worked out, and I'm not too far behind where I had hoped to be on tasks. Funny how that goes.
While in the ER, I recalled the story that one of the presenters, Kathryn Segovia, told us on Tuesday, a story about Doug Deets. I recommend you look into his TED talk. Much of Tuesday' meeting last week revolved around Design Thinking. The presenter, Kathryn Segovia, a former 4-Her from Nebraska, is a faculty member at Stanford. While the day was much like a day we spent two years ago when we worked with the Adobe Kickbox and talked about Ideation, Kathryn's interpretation of Design Thinking has an added component of empathy. Doug Deets discusses how the addition of empathy in his creative process improved the success of his design.
This week is Program Council week. We will review the nominations for the two open at-large positions on Program Council. I haven't seen the list yet. I hope several people have indicated interest, but given the time commitment that Program Council requires it is understandable if few can make the time. Friday is the monthly call with County Directors and REC Directors. It's good to be out of airports for a couple of weeks.
On Tuesday, Mohammad Safeeq starts as a CE Specialist in Water and Watershed Sciences Specialist at UC Merced. Please join me in welcoming Dr. Safeeq.
It sounds like things are going well so far with UC Path. The Beehive Team has worked hard to make sure things go smoothly. They have spent many hours preparing for this week, designing the system and thinking through any problems that might arise. Please be sure to thank them for their efforts.
- Author: Wendy Powers
Congratulations to Georgios Vidalakis who has been named the Citrus Research Board Presidential Researcher for Sustainable Citrus Clonal Protection. This is all the result of the generosity of the Citrus Research Board in providing the endowment that was then match by the UC President! What this all means is that Georgios will have more funding to carry out the great work he does!
In other good news, ZoAtopia (a combination of 2 of the teams that participated in a November Ideation workshop that UC ANR held with eXtension) recently attended an eXtension Impact Collaborative and walked away with an invitation to apply for a $5000 grant to bring new capacity to your project. If that's not enough, the team had the second highest score at the LaunchFest, and won additional consulting support to launch their project. Team members that attended the Atlanta Impact Collaborative included Shane Feirer, Vanity Campbell, John Bailey, and Megan Marotta. Feel free to contact any of the group to learn more about their project. Congratulations ZoAtopia!
I continue to learn about more artists among us. After learning about Ricardo's talent last week, I had a chance to see some of the work from the son of our newest CE Specialist. What amazing talent! As someone who can't draw two straight lines, I am in awe. That's a fairly common sentiment as I make my way around the division, learning about the academic and non-academic talents of the UC ANR team. While I have completed my first review of this year's merit and promotion documents, I have 5 in my Inbox now from other institutions (2 advancement to full professor, 1 advancement to associate professor, and 2 CE Advisor advancements to full title). I won't get to those right away though they are a good opportunity to learn something.
I spoke to someone last week who shared with me that the perks of his position was that he 1) learned new things regularly, 2) often was challenged by something, and 3) was frequently able to help someone with their problem. The perfect day was one where all three of those scenarios occurred. As many of you know, I track how I use my time every day (just my work time). I've decided to add those three items to my daily routine. Now, in addition to recording what I did and how long I spent on various tasks, I will check a box if I learned something, if I was challenged by something, and if I helped someone. These are great metrics. It will be interesting to see how the time is categorized on those days when all three boxes are checked and compare that to how time is spent on days when no boxes are checked.
Don't forget about Big Dig Day! Normally in June I focus on The Longest Day. I've added Big Dig Day to my list of ‘dates to remember'. Here's hoping Riverside County counts us in for the Big Dig.
- Author: Wendy Powers
I stand corrected; only a couple of SI Leaders pulled together the information for the Federal report. Thanks go out to Cheryl Wilen, Doug Parker, Clare Gupta, Neil McRoberts, David Lile, Chris Greer, and Yana Valachovik for their work! I met with Katherine Webb-Martinez, and we talked about all the many uses for the information provided. It is exciting to think about the opportunities to share your stories and successes.
Now that Cheryl Wilen has rotated off serving as an SI Leader, I don't see her every month for Program Council. She made a special appearance this month to attend a musical performance by Carl Winter, following the Program Council meeting last Tuesday. Carl shared with the Davis ANR building some of his parodies that he developed as a novel method of teaching food safety principles to students. A few years ago, he was awarded a USDA competitive grant to create and deliver the songs. I suspect he may have been disappointed a bit in his stoic audience, but everyone enjoyed the performance and our opportunity to experience both his musical talent and his creativity. We can talk about Mark Bell's dancing in a different post.
Carl's demonstrated his creativity following a Program Council ideation activity. Program Council members worked in small teams to brainstorm ideas that would position UC ANR for the future. Then we slept on it and reconvened on Wednesday to share out our thoughts and think about ‘who would get behind the idea' and ‘what would make the idea work'? The goal wasn't to move forward with the ideas themselves but to get to the development of guiding principles for making decisions going forward. This would include program reviews and resource allocation decisions. It had been a while since the guiding principles had last been reviewed (2009, I think). Like many of the Program Council members, I left thinking as much about the ideas I heard and ‘what if' as I did thinking about the guiding principles. What sunk in with me was that any single idea might be a challenge to implement but the combination of several of the concepts, while identified independently, could come together and forge a path forward. The other thing that stuck out was that those ideas that were the most innovative tended to be the ones that would be the most difficult to implement, often due to internal or external resistance, reinforcing the sentiment that change is hard. Carl commented that one of the challenges he continues to face is that often colleagues don't see him as a serious scientist. And yet, his approach to teaching is not only evidence of his scholarship and creativity, but far more impactful as far as learning and behavior change adoption, than most peer-reviewed journal publications could ever achieve.
/span>- Author: Wendy Powers
Need some good news? Despite the recent disappointing news that we will need to slow hiring, we are steady or ever-so-slightly increasing in numbers in all but one of the academic title codes! Even slow progress is progress.
Headcounts |
Oct 2017 |
Jan 2018 |
Apr 2018 |
Jul 2018 |
Oct 2018 |
CE Advisors |
169 |
170 |
173 |
169 |
175 |
Academic Administrators |
7 |
7 |
7 |
6 |
7 |
Academic Coordinators |
34 |
31 |
31 |
31 |
31 |
CE Specialists |
112 |
112 |
112 |
111 |
115 |
Other ANR Academics (Researchers, Project Scientists, non-CE Specialists) |
8 |
6 |
6 |
9 |
11 |
AES |
579 |
576 |
577 |
568 |
565 |
I thought the 11 ideas that emerged as pitches as the Ideation Workshop were fantastic. I glanced at the aggregated list of the remaining 200+ ideas thrown on the wall during the workshop and, I believe, many of those may 'stick' as ideas to pursue as we think about different ways of doing business. We will see after the participants complete the survey identifying those ideas they would like to see remain under consideration for development. Given that we are all in this together, at some point the entire division will need to weigh in on current ideas and propose new ideas.
Earlier this week Igor brought me up to speed on his work to evaluate the incorporation of trees into bioswales used for urban runoff in areas without combined sewer overflow infrastructure. Admittedly, I have not paid much attention, but I'm pretty sure I haven't seen these on city streets before. Also interesting, I learned about wax motors as a carbon-friendly way opening and closing greenhouse ventilation. Who knew? Sheila gave an excellent overview of her program looking at the role of grazing in working landscapes. So much great information during a trip to San Mateo County/San Francisco.
The fruitcake I brought to the Davis ANR event was far from a hit. Fortunately, fruitcakes last forever so I can bring it back next year. Moreover, while I was physically present for 2018, based on the trivia questions, I was apparently not fully engaged. I am unsure how many questions the winning team had correct, but I heard from a couple of other people that I was not the only one who had completely forgotten that there was a 2018 Winter Olympics. Better luck next year. I am more of a New Year's Eve person - focused on the future and looking back only as a mechanism to better see forward.
Today I am visiting the California Pear Advisory Board to hear what is on their minds and provide an update on UC ANR. That follows a call with our commodity group liaisons to confer and see if there are any pressing issues to address. These calls are new and intended to keep lines of communication open. Similarly, the new REC User's Committee meets for the first time on Friday, again as a step to improve communication, share ideas, and gather feedback. Things are never dull! I hope we all have some quiet, creative time this weekend.
- Author: Wendy Powers
Wow – this week and next seem to be a mad rush to get everything done before the winter break. The result will be even greater need for a break that will only happen if I get everything done in time. Truth be told, the ‘break' is shaping up to be far more hectic than the norm so I will be glad to get back to work.
Today I met with the UC Davis Specialists and some of the AES faculty. It was great to hear what the Specialist Advisory Committee has been working on and hear a college update from Dean Dillard. The conversation throughout the meeting was positive despite the difficult nature of the topics (REC recharge rates, the recent outcome of the 2018 Position Call Process). Perhaps there is never gain without some pain. What really stuck with me was the statistic that Helene presented indicating that over 50 of the 67 UCD CE Specialists received an award in FY2017-2018! That is impressive! No wonder it is so easy to love the work of UC ANR. And no wonder UC Davis is top ranked in so many fields!
I spent some time over the weekend getting notes out to the last of the Ideation Workshop teams. I remain hopeful that most of the teams continue to develop their ideas. The teams had great ideas; my abbreviated summary of the ideas are below. Teams are open to additional membership and expertise. If you know someone who attended the workshop, be sure to ask the participant about the projects listed below. If any titles interest you, I would be happy to connect you to the teams for further discussion.
Synergists – Developing credit-based internship courses for UC students
Bond's Beach Party – Incentivizing and rewarding revenue generation by academics
Wolf Pack – Creating ANR stories to foster donor support
HAKZ Inc. – Building a food waste collaborative
Insight Out Explorers – Development of a platform for peer sharing of best practices to enhance fund development efforts
Zootopia – Fee-based adult learning opportunities as part of the UC ANR portfolio of offerings
Impact A-Team – Creating a Consumer's Report system for ag tech
A-Team – Developing a subscription service for online learning
Girl Party – Establishing scientists in residence within county-based Cooperative Extension
Flying Squirrels – Offering farm-to-dinner with a scientist events as a fundraising opportunity
ANR 3.0 – Expanding evaluation service offerings within UC ANR
Tomorrow I am visiting San Francisco and San Mateo County offices. Tomorrow will be my first time to visit the San Francisco space that we now rent a couple of days each week. Igor was successful in negotiating use of the space, and while it may seem a small step, it represents a door opening that could lead to an even stronger partnership and presence in San Francisco. Maggie Gunn attended the Ideation Workshop so I had a chance to meet her then but this visit will be my first chance to talk to her about her goals and challenges in her new position as 4-H Advisor and co-County Director. Given traffic, tomorrow promises to be a long, but exciting day.