- Author: Wendy Powers
Program Council met this week. We spent a couple hours Tuesday afternoon and the bulk of Wednesday reviewing budget submissions for Statewide Programs and Institutes, Strategic Initiatives, Program Team meetings, Specialist support at the campuses, the ANR Competitive Grants Programs, and salary equity programs. There might have been a couple other things in there that I have forgotten. The group the reviews the administrative units had met on Monday. The approach this year at Program Council was quite different from last year and, apparently, prior years. Different doesn't necessarily mean better or worse. Upon reflection of the meeting, most participants felt that the approach taken this year had some real advantages and we were able to identify ways to improve it for next year.
The conversation itself was quite different compared to last year, also. When the budget call was issued for FY18-19, the guidance that accompanied the invitation to submit a budget indicated that any submission needed to be cost-neutral relative to the FY17-18 submission. Therefore, any new requests had to be offset by a reduction elsewhere in the unit's budget. So the conversation focused on the mission-critical attributes of each unit rather than detailed use of allocated budgets. Those mission-critical attributes, in turn, require funding to continue.
In hindsight, I think it would have been valuable to add to the conversation a discussion about where key investments are needed, even if they need to be made in a cost-neutral manner. While it may seem counterintuitive to spend money when money is tight, hiding cash in the mattress is quite the opposite of what retirement planners recommend when the stock market falls. Instead, financial planners tell you to invest in the future. That's exactly what we need to do if we want to get out from under dependency on declining state and federal dollars. Perhaps a follow up conversation with Program Council will follow at our next meeting in early May.
Cooperative Extension actually received a call-out from Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine in the current issue. It was an article about a retired sheriff and assistant district attorney in Georgia who now supplement their retirement income with a small farm, selling meat, eggs and canned goods. Cooperative Extension helped get them started. Changing lives throughout the U.S. – that's Cooperative Extension! It was great to see that acknowledgement in somewhat of a non-traditional publication.
In other good news, on April 3 the 2018 Bradford Rominger Agricultural Sustainability Leadership Award will be presented to Rachel Surls Sustainable Food Systems Advisor in Los Angeles County @RachelSurls. Congratulations Rachel – well done! I can't wait to attend and show my support for Rachel's accomplishments! If you recall, David Lewis was the recipient last year. This is definitely a positive trend!
- Author: Wendy Powers
Almost Friday! Program Council went well this week. We heard the report from Michael Cahn who chaired the IGIS review. The committee did a great job reviewing the program and developing recommendations for Vice President Humiston's consideration. Michael and his team, supported by Jennifer Caron-Sales were quite thorough and really viewed the IGIS program through the lens of strengthening the reach and relevance of the IGIS efforts. Likewise, Maggi Kelly, Andy Lyons and the IGIS team did a great job responding to the committee comments and recommendations. I suspect these program reviews can be approached with some trepidation but my experience with this review, my first, is that the review committee and Program Council are focused on constructive guidance to lead to a stronger, more collaborative program and not criticism.
Program Council reviewed all of the feedback received about the upcoming position call process. Because Program Council is comprised of CE Specialists and Advisors that are all part of Program Teams and also serve as County Directors, Statewide Program Directors, and Institute Directors, as well as Associate Deans that are committed to the success of their departments, the members of Program Council have a vested interest in a successful position call process. We received a number of good suggestions to improve the process. Basically, the process will follow what was proposed as a new approach but with clarification that the first groups are not intended to develop positions in isolation but with extensive consultation with Program Teams that include Advisors, Specialists, program directors, stakeholders. Following those initial lists of positions, there would be opportunities to add in additional positions that are critical and not represented in the initial lists. In addition, I believe we will be increasing the numbers a bit but still remain under 140 position proposals. Finally, in early January, we will identify how to ensure stakeholders have a mechanism to weigh in. More information to come after the January Program Council meeting.
The January meeting will have some new members at Program Council. SI Leader interviews are scheduled for later this month. While time consuming, Program Council provides greater insight into the workings of UC ANR. Once decisions are made, there will be an announcement made, likely through the ANR Update so stay tuned. Similarly, conversations with Assistant Vice Provost candidates are wrapping up. Hopefully, that announcement will be out before January 1. The 2 Vice Provost searches are moving forward but no updates are available yet.
Today was Executive Council for most of the day. This is a meeting with the 4 Deans from the 3 AES campuses. It's a good chance to make sure everyone is on the same page as well as share successes and strategies to address challenges. In particular, it's an important mechanism to build connections across the campuses to the benefit of CE Specialists and Advisors.
In summary, a lot of sitting this week so I'm eager to get some yard work done this weekend. Hopefully it is a calm, wind-less weekend throughout the state.
- Author: Wendy Powers
I have to admit that there are days I miss the 9-min commute. This morning was one of those days. I slept in 30 min later than my usual Oakland day wake up because I was driving all the way to Oakland rather than taking the BART from Pittsburg and I didn't want to arrive much before 6 AM. Had I left at my usual time I would have been ahead of the crash; had I snoozed only once instead of twice I may have been right in the middle of it. As it turned out, I was behind the crash only far enough that I sat for an hour before Highway 12 closed altogether and I had to cross the center lane and return home. In my past life if there were heavy rains a small piece of one road would flood and I would have to drive 3 miles out of the way to detour. Though I have only traveled this route for about 6 months, I have no doubt the fatal crash was the result of taking unusual risks to get somewhere a mere few minutes earlier. Sometimes there is something to be said for being careful, albeit a bit slow.
This month we made real progress on the strategic plan goal to improve the competitiveness of CE Advisor pay. It took quite a bit of time to make these strides because of the need to ensure we could achieve our goal of increasing salary competitiveness without compromising our goal of increasing the academic footprint. VP Humiston approved a four-year plan to increase annual pay for CE Advisors, and all CE Advisors are receiving increases effective October 1. CE Advisor pay has been a long-standing concern for ANR, and the four-year plan represents a significant investment in our people. The CE Advisors are essential to everything we do at ANR, and this plan recognizes their critical role. More background information is linked from the Strategic Plan website.
The CE Advisor salary plan was only a small part of the agenda of last week's Academic Assembly Council. Other topics that ensued during the time I attended included the position call process, Professional Development Fund uses, and REC recharge rates. We also discussed making a change to the bylaws to provide for election of a member to serve on Program Council. It was a full agenda for the AAC.
One thing that is not progressing slowly is the calendar. Can you believe tomorrow is Halloween already! And it seems dark so early now – next week that condition only worsens! With the end of the month near, this also means that some important leadership opportunity deadlines are fast approaching. If you have ever thought about serving as a Strategic Initiative Leader, be sure to consider throwing your name in the hat before the November 6 deadline. Application information is available the three Strategic Initiatives that have leadership openings. If you have County Director or REC Director experience, consider devoting a portion of your time towards serving as an Assistant Vice Provost. These are 2-yr appointments, 10 hours per week on average, and won't result in a greater number of direct reports, relocation or increased travel. An email was sent to all academics on October 12 with information about how to indicate your interest.
Looking at this week's calendar, I clearly need to wrap up my UC ANR Competitive Grant reviews. And the reminder from Katherine Webb-Martinez that Program Council members owe her something before Friday only reinforces the looming deadline.
- Author: Wendy Powers
How did it get to be Thursday? It must be the Monday holiday that is throwing me off. I spent the weekend driving from Michigan to California for what I believe to be my last time doing that! It was far cooler in Michigan, quite nice actually, and I had a chance to see a graduate student who is moving on to her career and my former technician who is doing quite well in her new position. I have 1 graduate student to complete who should finish in December and he just had one of his 3 dissertation manuscripts accepted for publication. I am hoping a second is accepted before his defense as that usually makes for an easier defense exam. This reminds me that I need to check in on him and prod a bit for the draft of his next manuscript. Of course I still have one from my other graduate student and one from my technician to get off my desk but perhaps this weekend. You would think now that I have completed the review of dossiers for faculty seeking promotion at other universities and turned down requests to review a few others, I would see time in the near future to get to these manuscripts. But with a few other 'must dos' on the docket and a half dozed to dozen UC ANR competitive grant proposal reviews in my near future there isn't an obvious weekend to knock these out. I promised something to Jim Downing in the next couple of weeks as well - clearly didn't think that one through.
Tuesday MatthewShapero started as the Assistant Cooperative Extension Advisor, Area Livestock and Range Advisor in Ventura, with programmatic responsibilities in Ventura and Santa Barbara Counties. We are excited to have Matthew in that position. Please be sure to welcome him to UC ANR.
This week Program Council met and we had some really great conversations about communications as well as updates from the Communications Advisory Board and CSIT. We also had some updates about the UC ANR Archive project that is run out of UC Merced and the UCB Graduate Students in Extension pilot project. Program Council also discussed the next steps for completing reviews and making funding recommendations for the UC ANR Competitive Grant submissions, the upcoming position call process, and status of strategic plan goals, particularly Goal 5.
Today is VP Council and Executive Council. Between those two meetings the day is just about full. I had better get started on some things. I need to review proposed edits from the REC directors about a message regarding the research rates at the RECs and then think through yesterday's conversations about how to move forward with upcoming vacancies in leadership positions. Good thing I have some commute time to try to sort through these topics and more.
- Author: Wendy Powers
Time just flies by – and I seem to get further and further behind on things, despite my best efforts! Sound familiar? I consider myself proficient in time use but am always open to ideas how to become more efficient in accomplishing tasks. If anyone has some tips, I would love to hear them.
At Program Council this week we had a presentation from Brad Hanson about the Research and Information Centers. After almost a year at UC ANR, I have only recently been exposed to these information hubs. What a great platform to pull together expertise across UC ANR (multi-campus, multi-county, UCCE, AES) and lead delivery of on-demand, science-based information to clients everywhere. I'm looking forward to some plane time so that I can dig into the 2016 annual report Brad provided and learn more about the reach and impact of the RICs. The discussion hit on topics that are likely pervasive throughout UC ANR; that is, keeping content current, resource allocation to manage content, and making information easy to find. At the end of the day it's all about the end-user – determining how best to make it easy for that end-user to find trusted information and tools that translates to making a difference. And the greater our reach, the bigger the difference we can make. Efficiency is at least a piece of the equation. Competition doesn't have to be.
Program Council discussed the differences between academics with and without equivalent status. Not surprising there was strong commitment to the fact that the work of UCCE academics is as important as that of academics with professorial and agronomist titles. We talked through a matrix that outlined differences and similarities between different titles and I think we all learned some things. We also talked about the 2018 position call process and affirmed the value of broad input to identify position needs as well as thoughts around providing some guidance about broad based groups vetting ideas early as a means of helping Program Council prioritize the many needs within the division. The Program Council will also look at ways to gain more of a statewide perspective and assessment of strengths and gaps as part of the upcoming process. More discussion is needed on this topic. Other topics were identified for upcoming meetings. Each month it seems like we should end early on the second day of Program Council – we start out ahead and then slowly lose time as the day progresses. But the discussions are robust and there doesn't seem to be a shortage of topics. It leaves me with a long list of ideas to ponder for action.
It's time to look forward to rain now; quite a change from a few months ago. If it doesn't rain soon I am going to have to find a car wash before it is impossible to tell that the license plates are finally changed.
