- Author: Wendy Powers
While it was nice to see rain Tuesday night, now I can't help but wonder if it's rain that is delaying my flight home.
This week I seem to have been involved in a number of conversations around service and leadership. In part, it is because we are getting feedback on a proposed reorganization of the leadership structure to better meet needs of academics. At the same time we want to offer greater opportunity for people to give a leadership role a try, without needing to quit their current role cold turkey. As someone who found myself in a leadership position as a result of my distrust that the current leaders would make good decisions, I can honestly say that even I am surprised by what I currently do on a day-to-day basis. Who knew I would ever completely walk away from the real manure! But I remember once asking a mentor who was a faculty member, moved into administration, was at the time back in a faculty position, and then eventually retired as a university president why he liked administration and he responded that as a faculty member his research made a difference but it was on a much smaller scale than the change he could affect as an administrator. And more importantly, he continued, the administrative positions provided the platform for him to cultivate the next generation of scientists on a scale much larger than his own program could ever achieve. This conversation has come back to me this week as the County Directors talked about developing new County Directors through a CD Institute and discussed a proposed leadership position focused on academic personnel policies, recruitment, promotion and professional development. Those subjects are important to so many of us and offer service opportunities that may be some of the most impactful one could undertake.
Other conversations included the need to help others identify where service opportunities exist as well as leadership opportunities. There are no doubt many throughout UC ANR but I suspect it is not obvious where and when they are available. And perhaps too often we approach individuals who we think would serve in the service or leadership capacity well, at the exclusion of others who might be just as suitable but may not be on the radar. I've been pleasantly surprised at the number of County Directors who have raised their hand to take on more work – both as service and as leaders – when we all know that their plates are already quite full. Their commitment is truly remarkable. This leaves me very optimistic about our path forward and I find myself, again, reflecting how impressive the people of UC ANR are. It also leaves me committed to put more effort into increasing awareness of opportunities for service and leadership across UC ANR.
I am, however, less optimistic about the flight as the gate agent continues to apologize that the plane still hasn't left its current location to head in this direction. It promises to be a late night so I had better find a place to charge my phone and laptop.
- Author: Wendy Powers
Last week at Program Council we had a presentation about the Graduate Students in Extension program that has been piloted at UC Berkeley. One of the successes of the pilot is that one of the participating graduate students was recently hired as a CE Specialist at UC Berkeley. Luke Macaulay, now in the ESPM Department at UCB just finished a AAAS Fellowship in DC at USDA's Foreign Ag Service. I'm looking forward to hearing how the Fellowship has helped him hit the ground running in his CE Specialist position. And I am looking forward to meeting Luke when I am at UCB on Friday to talk about the work groups of UC ANR academics have been doing to develop public value statements and condition changes that lead to achieving the 2025 Strategic Vision.
The group that identified the proposed condition changes is currently seeking input from their colleagues and teams. The list, as it currently reads, will be posted on the strategic plan update page in the next day or so should you have feedback you would like to share. The best way to share that feedback is to contact the Program Team Leaders, Statewide Program and Institute Directors, or any of the Strategic Initiative Leaders.
I've been working with a group to develop a proposal for filling leadership positions that will be vacant as of October 1. The group now has a proposal in front of Glenda. In addition, we have shared the proposal with County Directors and REC Directors for their feedback. We started by identifying goals for UC ANR – what were things we sought to improve and how those goals might be achieved through strategic development of the positions. I was fortunate to have a creative group around the table; one that recognizes the needs across the division and can think broadly on how to achieve those needs. A group that was willing to challenge ideas for the sake of leading to improved decision making. The challenge we faced was that in developing the proposal we identified a list of desired outcomes that may very well exceed the capacity of the FTE available – sound familiar?
Tomorrow I have a chance to talk about the leadership proposal and the condition changes with the County Directors where I anticipate good ideas on how to improve both. Then it's off to Ventura County for the day and a few meetings of various topics before heading to UCB on Friday.
I haven't had a chance to think about next week yet but I do know that I need to complete a galley proof on a manuscript yet this week. Why is it that those things always have a 3-day turnaround time yet never arrive in the email on Thursday when we can steal another day to complete?
- 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
A week or so back I was contemplating what it is that makes Southwest flights seem a bit more laid back with employees that displayed a great deal of humor. I even wondered what a flight attendant interview might be like. It turns out my answer was not far away. The next time I flew Southwest (a week or so later) I happened to read the CEO and Chairman's greeting in the August issue of the Southwest magazine where it was explained that three characteristics were sought in Southwest employees: a Servants's Heart, a Fun-LUVing Attitude, and a Warrior Spirit. Combined, these three traits are referred to as “Living the Southwest Way”. The result is a company and its personnel who are recognized for their incredible acts of kindness, ability to take the competition seriously but not themselves, and success in finding ways to beat the competition. To me, this very much sounds like a brand promise.
Strategic Communications has shared their strategic plan with the Communications Advisory Board (CAB) for feedback before a broader release. The plan includes efforts to intentionally weave the UC ANR promise into and throughout communication efforts for the division. This means highlighting the relevant elements of the UC ANR promise by perhaps establishing common vocabulary or sections of communication pieces (i.e. sections of a magazine that appear in every issue with the content within a section changing in each issue). Once widely distributed, take a look at the strategic plan and the UC ANR promise and see where your own efforts weave in.
Along those same lines, the Southwest magazine takes the approach of having regular sections in each issue that include an employee feature, a passenger spotlight, stories to support the Servant Hearts of the Southwest employees, and a community outreach article. This month's community outreach piece talked about the airline's Heart of the Community program that partners with local organizations to create spaces and opportunities to bring people together with an intended outcome of strengthening communities. That concept of building relationships in order to facilitate collaborative problem solving sounds very familiar, doesn't it? There weren't any cities in California identified as having received any of the $6.4 million invested by Southwest to date. But given the prominence of the airline in California, coupled with some overlap in core values and mission, it seems like there is some potential here.
It's shaping up to be a very bust next 7 days. True to its name, Labor Day is shaping up to be a bit laborious. I'm not sure when I will get back to another post – perhaps not until after Labor Day. If that's the case, I hope everyone enjoys the long weekend and official end of summer (can't believe we are facing September already!). In the meantime, I will be processing the conversations and discussion that took place during the workshop we held with program team leaders, SI leaders, statewide program and institute leaders to develop condition changes that reflect the public value statements developed by these leaders back in May. Great discussion but a lot to absorb.
- Author: Wendy Powers
It turns out there is far more to the UC Master Gardener Conference than talk about gardening! I was unable to attend as many talks as I had hoped but those I made were great – filled with timely information from UC ANR Advisors. Despite the outstanding venue, the talks were well attended, reflecting the strong commitment to continued education by the volunteers. Rachel Surls gave a nice overview of the Search for Excellence First Prize Grow LA Victory Garden Project, complete with evaluation data that demonstrated the personal benefits one achieves due to gardening. There was a nice awards ceremony complete with Silent Auction and a Marketplace. Apparently Master Gardeners are passionate about shopping, in addition to gardening. Considering I once managed to buy 2 pairs of shoes while attending the World Pork Expo, it should be no surprise I returned home with a few items from both the Marketplace and the Silent Auction (thanks Lauren for transporting my items that were not plane-suitable!).
The most coveted item at the Silent Auction was a beautiful redwood garden bench made by our own Jim Downer – and it was mine until the final minute of the auction! Alas, I drowned my sorrow by winning a few gift baskets well stocked with regional wines and then brought home a beautiful ceramic pumpkin made by Master Gardener Liz Burns of Monterey County. When I get to that county I will be sure to try to meet her. Overall, it seems that Master Gardeners are quite a talented bunch, especially those in Ventura County. Must be the salt air.
On the flight back from Long Beach I took a look at the Southwest magazine and had some of my earlier questions answered, right there in the message from the CEO. As I read through the magazine I came upon another article that gave me an ‘ah-hah' moment and the start of an idea. More on that later. I don't mean to keep us all in suspense but now I really must get that logic model done. The workshop to identify condition changes associated with the public value statements that were developed by the Statewide Program and Institute Directors and the Strategic Initiative Leaders is Tuesday and Wednesday of this week. Thus my procrastinating is over.
I was a bit surprised to see that one of the promotion portfolios I reviewed for a faculty member seeking promotion from assistant to associate professor included a logic model for the candidate's research and Extension program. I wouldn't say it was the best logic model I have ever seen. However, this was the first time I have seen one in a promotion package. I can't help but think this demonstrates a movement in academia, or at least Extension, away from conducting activities as they present themselves to a more deliberate planning of work and efforts in order to achieve intended outcomes. What I found particularly astute, especially for an assistant professor, was that this candidate gave consideration to trends in funding and in societal and stakeholder needs and how those trends and needs might redirect the candidate's efforts in the future despite strong success up to the present. Despite the time it takes to review promotion documents for candidates outside of the UC system, there is great value in not only seeing what candidates across the U.S. are up to but in also seeing how portfolios are prepared – what's emphasized and how accomplishments are conveyed. I suspect that was my last review for this promotion year.
