- Author: Wendy Powers
The team in the Central Sierra are quite creative! Take a look at the elevator pitch they put together to describe UC ANR! Of course, UC ANR is so much more, but for a 2-minute video, this team captured the essence of ANR while putting their new skills to use. Nice job!
I am working my way through merit and promotion packages, so just how much more UC ANR is, is at the forefront of my thoughts these days. Every year, I am so impressed with the accomplishments and commitment of the academics and their teams who are core to success. The impact statements improve each year and I suspect it is rewarding for some who are later in their careers to look back on long-standing programs and see all that has been accomplished. This is my fifth year reading the packages. Many in the process this year are second or third time reviews for me now, so I can see how programs have grown or matured since my first read. As much as I enjoy reading the dossiers and as important as it is to understand every academic's program, I will be okay 6 or 8 weeks from now when I put that task aside for another year.
Mark Bell is on the road this week, tired of being cooped up at home, I bet. Mark's been helping me learn Utah geography. Who knew the Great Salt Lake photographed better than it looks live!
I am ready to get out of the garage and back to an office environment and make some visits to our county and REC locations. I can't put faces to all of the new hires since late 2019. As a result, I feel a bit disconnected from everything, despite Town Halls and other Zoom events. I will sit tight a bit longer and let this 4th wave pass us by. Then, perhaps, we will be ready to move to our new normal. The upside is that I interact with pollen less when I am not commuting.
In the meantime, I continue to meet with partners via Zoom. There are some exciting opportunities for partnerships out there! Some of those opportunities are at the national Cooperative Extension System level; others at the UC ANR level. I have a couple of meetings scheduled to see what might materialize.
- Author: Wendy Powers
Anyone anxious this week? And it's not over, yet. My Pollyanna voice says that while the country is divided, no one is on the short end of a landslide. Some important ‘firsts' took place across the country (NY, DE, NM), too, suggesting changing times. An interesting week, indeed. Thank you to everyone who took the time to vote – I hope you remained COVID-safe during the process! A special thank you to Michelle Hammer-Coffer's football team for sending dinner to all the vote counters in Pennsylvania! I finished a project this weekend for a fan of that team. Don't tell him; it's a Christmas gift.
Meanwhile, Jose Luiz Carvalho de Souza Dias started this week in Merced County as an Agronomy and Weed Management Advisor. Jose has programmatic responsibilities in Merced, Stanislaus, and San Joaquin Counties. Please welcome Jose to UC ANR!
Amidst the voting and vote counting, Program Council met this week. We spent some time talking about partnerships, within UC, across CA and beyond. Mark has assembled a useful document to describe opportunities. If you have ideas, please reach out so we can assist in pursuing the partnership. In particular we talked about the research continuum comprised of AES researchers, CE Specialists, CE Advisors, and Community Education Specialists and how to ensure that all know of the benefits of working with partners across the continuum. Jim Farrar shared a high level vision for the IPM program that was particularly interesting.
Tomorrow, Glenda and I will share our UC ANR work and the planned work of both the ANR Strategic Plan and the REC Strategic Framework with the UC Vice Chancellors for Research. We hope to generate interest in our work and identify possible partnerships across the UC system. We will have a similar conversation with the UC Committee on Research and Policy next week.
This is the first week of the month which means that Friday is the monthly meeting with REC Directors, followed by County Directors. Following is a 2-hour professional development session for Extension Directors that I am particularly looking forward to about helping people cope with the stresses of 2020. I'm not alone in finding this an important topic; record attendance is anticipated at the session. A few more meetings follow on Friday, before the weekend arrives. I don't know about you, but I am already ready for the weekend! I plan to keep the news channels turned off.