- Author: Wendy Powers
It turns out that I didn't need to attend the meeting in Denver this week. I suppose for some states it is important Director or Associate Director to attend this meeting, to learn more about reporting requirements, USDA guidelines for capacity fund acquisition, or want to expect during a NIFA review. But UC ANR is fortunate to have Joni, Katherine, Deb, and Jennifer who know the ‘ins and outs' of all of these things, freeing up the senior leadership team from needing to know the last detail of how to navigate the systems.
I attended sessions about capacity funds – these are the federal funds that result from, primarily, the Hatch Act and the Smith-Lever Act (the McIntire-Stennis Act to a much lesser extent). In short, these are funds that primarily pay salaries and benefits of academics, support staff, and a few program staff. While I've known for some time that the capacity funds aren't the ‘safe' support it once was, the conversation this week reinforced the concern. Beginning FY20/21, we will need to submit a funding proposal, much like that provided for competitive grant programs, though hopefully in a more aggregated manner. The rationale is that USDA needs to show how their federal funds are spent, across the land-grant system, on people, on program, or used as match. The devil will be in the details.
During one of the other sessions, we talked about the Pygmalion Effect whereby our beliefs influence our actions that impact the beliefs of others causing the actions of others to reinforce our beliefs. In a sense, a self-fulfilling prophecy occurs. I had been thinking about this concept earlier this week but in a different context. I had no idea there was a term for it. Beyond that awareness, I have to admit that I didn't get much out of the session.
Perhaps during my newly found ‘free week' next year, I will attend a programmatic event. I wasn't able to attend the Fire Summit, but I have heard only good things about it from Glenda and Mark Bell, both of whom attended. It was a full house with a waiting list. Congratulations to Yana, David, Lenya, and the rest of the team that put so much effort. Maybe, I will have a chance to attend the next Climate Summit; I've wanted to attend the last two, but the schedule hasn't allowed.
In the meantime, I will keep working on dossiers.
- Author: Wendy Powers
Have you ever heard of Reggie Rivers? I suspect you are most likely to be familiar with that name if you are a Broncos fan. Reggie was the keynote speaker at a conference that a number of us are attending in Denver. I must say, he gave the best keynote I've heard in probably the last 12 months. He was funny, engaging, educational, and was able to relate to every person in the room, football fan or not. Even the AV support staff were engaged (I sat in the back of the room, right in front of the AV staff so I could hear them responding to questions and laughing throughout the talk).
Reggie talked about leadership and teamwork concepts that we've all heard before. What was novel was how he used his experience as a Denver Bronco to illustrate concepts. He talked about innovation, trust, consistency, and effectiveness as the attributes that contribute to one team standing out above all others. Reggie described the need for all players to feel empowered to act, not only owning the problems but recognizing the responsibility to provide solutions rather than waiting for someone else to do so. I learned about the importance of the powerless position coaches who lead without authority and coach things that cannot be achieved with natural talent, alone. As a Gator, it was particularly interesting to get the insider scoop why it is that Tebow, perhaps the greatest college player of all time, didn't make it in the NFL. Despite his incredible talent as an individual, his ‘scrambling' translated into an unpredictability that prevented other team members from doing their job.
The rest of the sessions, well let's just say I must have done a poor job selecting from the options. But I managed to complete one merit review this evening, and I am optimistic that I will make better selections tomorrow. I plan to spend much of the day talking about capacity funds – those are the federal funds that are the source of salary and benefit funds. While it is exciting that NIFA competitive funding appropriations increased for FY19/20 (appropriated, not allocated), if the tradeoff is reduced capacity funds, we have a problem. We'll see what I learn.
Katherine Soule is a speaker on Wednesday! I head back to Sacramento Wednesday and don't plan to be back in Denver any time soon.
- Author: Wendy Powers
It is snowing in Denver. I was planning to get out of here before the snow started. As a result, I did not pack closed-toe shoes or a coat. And rather than ‘standby' all day tomorrow in hopes of catching a flight, I decided to just give in to a Friday morning flight. Fortunately, Kathryn worked her magic and found me a hotel room! Believe me, there are many, many weary travelers in Denver who were not so lucky.
As a result, I am missing out on a chance to formally thank Mandy Parks and the Inland Empire Resource Conservation District for being such amazing partners. I have no doubt that Janet and Chris will express our gratitude on my behalf but I was really looking forward to seeing Mandy again but it just doesn't seem to be in the cards; we had already rescheduled once due to a conflict the IERCD had with a previous date.
I plan to make the most of my time at the hotel. Zoom makes it easy to proceed with most of my scheduled meetings and I fully expect to get through 6 to 8 dossier reviews! The Peer Review Committee seems to be completing their reviews, which only serves to make me feel further behind so I like the idea of completing a few more reviews than planned.
I was in Denver for a meeting where the conversation focused on finding ways to convey the benefits to the broader land grant campus of working with Cooperative Extension to engage with communities; bringing the science and solutions of the entire campus out to the state. My sense of the discussion at Monday's UC ANR Governing Council meeting is that the entire 10-campus UC system is interested in working with UC ANR to do exactly this but may not know how or when nor that UC ANR has finite capacity to achieve all wants with our current resources. There's more work to do on this front but I believe we are making progress.
A couple of the other states represented at the meeting shared some numbers that I took note of. In Wisconsin Extension, who has undergone a recent restructuring, county-based academics are funded half by the county and half by the university. Oregon Extension has seen a 117% increase in county support since 2010. They offer an outdoor experience to over 70% of 5th graders throughout the state and are offering the Juntos program in 22 locations! In Minnesota, counties fully fund educators they wish to have located in the county but central funds pay for regional educators; Iowa uses this model as well. One thing that really stuck out was that all of the states represented at the meeting (9 total), with the exception of California, have recently restructured in efforts to position the organization to meet future needs. I was reminded of a quote that Mark Bell used the other day: "I'm in favor of progress; it's change I don't like." Mark Twain. I haven't fully concluded if my travel changes represent progress or not; time will tell.
- Author: Wendy Powers
Yard work season is in full swing. That means research agricultural field research is underway as well. It doesn't look like water will be a big concern this year. I'm hoping my yard is ‘under control' by Memorial Day to avoid weeding, pruning, and tree trimming during the heat. In spite of yard work, I made progress on the dossier reviews. I am halfway through with 39 packages left to undergo my first review.
Today was the first meeting of new UC ANR Governing Council. The 6-hr long session was intended for the Council to get to know each other and UC ANR. Both Glenda and Tu gave overviews of our high-level goals, programs, funding sources, and expenditures. While all, or most, of the Council members know a fair bit about UC ANR, the details were likely informative to all. The fact that Cooperative Extension is a 3-way partnership between federal and state governments and the local community (county) may be a detail that was unknown to some of the Council members before today. Numbers of academics and staff largely depends upon the level of support provided by each of the three partners. Should one partner step away, the entire partnership is compromised.
During the Western Extension Directors Association meeting last week in San Diego, I learned that the Extension Director in Nevada had made tremendous progress demonstrating the value that Cooperative Extension brings to the state. Though Cooperative Extension was slated to receive a 72% cut to its state funding back in 2011 (proposed by the Provost; a 33% cut proposed by the Governor), it appears that things have turned around mainly due to County support for programs. Clark County (Las Vegas) is partnering with Cooperative Extension to address youth violence by providing Cooperative Extension a $60 million contract to solve the problem through its 4-H program and sub-contractors on an as-needed basis. Also, the Director requests a $4.7 million increase from the State. I grabbed a copy of the 1-page ask to review and share with others.
Other states are in a very different position. The University of Alaska is merging Cooperative Extension and the Ag Experiment Station. That by itself isn't a problem. It is the intent to downsize both that causes concern. One of the three campuses plans to close, and while Fairbanks has not declared exigency, some speculate that tenured faculty may lose their jobs. The thought that field-based academics may be released when their communities need them most is of great concern.
These conversations as well as others throughout the 2-day meeting reminded me that while we may not have the density of positions per capita or square mile as other states, we do support our people very well, offering travel funds, grants support, program evaluation support, and many training opportunities.
Tomorrow I head to Denver for an Extension administrators meeting before visiting with the team in San Bernardino County.
- Author: Wendy Powers
There is still time to raise your hand in support of California's 4-H program! It's easy. It's free. And if can result in a $20,000 award to the state program to support youth development in California.
I'm in San Diego at the spring meeting of Extension program leaders, Extension directors, and Ag Experiment Station Directors. The views are great and the water really close. Yesterday we spent the afternoon talking about increasing cultural competency in our states. The discussion had quite a bit of focus around increasing partnerships with the 1994 institutions and increasing capacity funding through the Federally Recognized Tribal Extension Program (FRTEP). The whole conversation had me thinking about our one of our public value statements: Developing an inclusive and equitable society. When that statement was first developed there was considerable discussion about the principles as a component of everything we do; the act of inclusion without giving it any thought because it is second nature is the indicator that one is culturally competent. Admittedly, I questioned why, as a core value, we would have a stand-alone public value statement around inclusion. However, as I listened to the conversations yesterday and this morning, it became clear to me that by calling this out as a one of our UC ANR statements, we make the commitment to move the needle.
A portion of the conversation centered on the need for the academic review system to reward for impact and teamwork. I honestly don't remember how we moved to such acknowledgment when the topic was cultural competence, but that's how meetings go. I do know that at UC ANR we are doing exactly this; questioning the ‘so what' of our work and the change in conditions that resulted as opposed to focusing on evidence of scholarship (i.e. the number of publications and grant dollars secured). We've seen the value of our impact stories when we've made visits to offices of our state and federal elected officials. The impacts, not the activities, cause people sit up and take notice. Fortunately, we have many stories to tell, ranging from work with the Fresno Street Saints to efforts to improving water use efficiency.
Some of the conversation addressed the problems of using an ‘expert model' in community work. I think framing about our work, even if only in our internal conversations, under knowledge areas serves to perpetuate the expert model. Framing our work around condition changes and/or public value statements avoids said problems.
If put to a vote today whether to leave ‘Developing an inclusive and equitable society' as its own public value statement or to consider it inherent within the others, I believe I would raise my hand to leave it as is.