- Author: Wendy Powers
A couple times over the last few weeks the term ‘excellence' has come up, in the context of an aspirational goal. I'm not sure one ever achieves excellence. After all, who defines what excellence is? I wonder if, instead, the quest for excellence is really more about providing the motivation to keep one on a path of continuous improvement.
There's no doubt UC ANR is comprised of many on that quest to achieve excellence. And many are fortunate to have their accomplishments recognized. John Kabashima, Emeritus Environmental Horticulture Advisor was recently selected as just the third of the Urban Tree Legacy Award by the California Urban Forests Council. John will be honored in San Diego on October 26th. Congratulations John!
The UC Cooperative Extension Department in San Luis Obispo County and the Agriculture Department (UCCE's home department) in Santa Barbara County received a joint merit award for the UCCE Youth, Families, and Communities Program's Co-Creating Youth Advocacy for Healthy Communities. This award from the California State Association of Counties recognizes UCCE's unique programming and impacts, as well as the meaningful partnership with county government. Congratulations UCCE in SLO and Santa Barbara Counties!
Striving for excellence is a full-time job and then some. Many, if not most, of us don't turn off on Friday. Take the group who spent a Saturday morning helping Governor Brown and his wife troubleshoot their olive orchard. Franz Niederholder, Allan Fulton and Dani Lightle met with Gov. Brown and his wife Anne who had transplanted olive trees in hopes of producing olive oil. The team identified an appropriate irrigation schedule. Allan was able to calculate the approximate water use required by the planting and help determine the system run time per week. A few trees weren't thriving, possibly a result of transplanting the trees in the heat of the summer last year. Franz and Dani came up with a management game plan to help baby the trees along and give them the best shot at survival. Way to go team!
It was hard to be motivated to get much work done this weekend given how nice the weather was. I certainly appreciate that a few took the time out of their fun to send me photos of what they were up to. I didn't see any indication that the photos were shot from the Lodi Grape and Wine Festival though there was clearly a big crowd in attendance. But now it's time to get back to the work week. I hope it's an excellent week.
- Author: Wendy Powers
I spoke with a UC ANR academic last week who was struggling to find time to work on a manuscript. I'm faced with the same challenge and have the same 2 manuscripts in my backpack that were there last week. I need a transcontinental flight (roundtrip) to work through them. These short Southwest flights don't seem to translate to getting any work done. In order to make progress on the manuscript I need to write, I first need time to think. Know the feeling? But it continues to amaze me how those across UC ANR do find time to publish their work. I received a new letter from the Journal of Extension congratulating the UC ANR authors published in the current issue. I say ‘new letter' because it seems we have authors in just about every issue – quite impressive!
When I arrived at the office this morning, I found a Western SARE newsletter. In it was a welcome to Jeff Stackhouse and Sonja Brodt, the new co-coordinators for the California SARE Professional Development Program, replacing Morgan Doran. Congratulations to both Sonja and Jeff and thanks to Morgan for all of his efforts in the role! The issue also contained a list of grants that were approved back in February. California received 6 of the 34 grants awarded, 2 of which went to UC Davis for a nice portion of the $2 million total award. Professional Development, Professional + Producer, and Farmer/Rancher grant programs are open if you have an idea that would fit the Western SARE program. Given the range of topics in the recent newsletter (medusahead, birds as pests on dairy farms, soil health, ag biodiversity, technical skill development of academics) many of our programs could be a good fit.
Today really seemed to focus on academic excellence. I spent much of the day in a workshop attended by administrators throughout the UC system (mostly Vice Chancellors for Research) to talk about how best to achieve collective excellence in undergraduate research. President Napolitano laid out the goal which is to engage every undergraduate student in the UC system in research. One of the quick themes to emerge was finite capacity to do this on the campuses because of student to faculty ratios. That's where UC ANR and other research units within UC but external to campuses can play a large role. Undergraduate students represent the future academics of UC ANR not to mention recipients of and advocates for our programs. It would be nice to see a greater portion of the UC undergraduate students familiar with what UC ANR does in their communities and there was strong interest at the meeting to develop some sort of formalized program across UC whereby UC ANR is involved in providing applied research experiences to undergraduate students. A summer internship program at my former institution proved a successful method of providing summer research support to projects around the state, for-credit research experiences for students needing those credits, paid employment for the students in their home areas and a cadre of Extension supporters, most of whom had never heard of it previously. A few even continued on to earn Master's degrees for future employment in Extension. I'd be curious to learn if there was interest in UC ANR in mentoring undergraduate students engaged in our research efforts.
Now it's off to San Diego for the first of the 5 information sessions. I believe this one has checked in full. I am looking forward to the conversations and meeting more of the people that make UC ANR all that it is.
