- Author: Wendy Powers
We did it! Yesterday, 281 donors gave $100,000 to UC ANR programs. THANK YOU to each and every generous donor! So many good things will come as a result of the support. I really would not have guessed we would have raised so much during Big Dig Day given that it was the first event of its kind for UC ANR. ‘New' can be good!
In other good news, David Haviland has been determined as the recipient of the Western Extension Directors' Award of Excellence for 2019. The award will be presented to David at the 2019 Western Region Joint Summer Meeting at Albuquerque, New Mexico. Awardees are asked to give a 5-7 minute overview of their program during an award lunch. This continues the streak for UC ANR as Jeff Mitchell, Dan Munk, and the team were recipients last year.
This week was the SI Leader meeting on Tuesday. We planned to summer road show a bit and talked about the new story pipeline. I'm excited to see more stories in it so that I have it as a resource to talk with stakeholders about all the great things we are doing! If you have a story to submit, you can find the link here under 'Telling Our Stories' (Knowledge Stream).
On Wednesday we had Program Council. The highlight was a presentation by Katie about the Master Food Preserver Program's new strategic plan. That program is an example of where UC ANR can really make a difference for some who have so little. The program is more than canning; it's about food safety and using preservation methods (drying, freezing) to make use of excess produce and make it available all year long.
Today the Vice President's Council met. Topics included the elements of a strategic plan (funding plan, staffing plan, vision and mission elements). John Bailey and Sabrina Drill provided a close look at the funding plans for Hopland REC and the Cal Naturalist program, respectively. It was a busy day for Sabrina; she also led the presentation on citizen and community science in UC ANR. The UC Davis Center on this topic (Heidi and Ryan) were co-presenters. Other topics included the economics of the ability to accept credit cards at events throughout the state.
Tomorrow is the REC Directors call followed by the County Directors call. Then the Davis building is having their summer BBQ. Another week in the books. Almost 3 years ago, I would never have imagined how fast time would fly!
- 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.