Posts Tagged: Cooperative Extension

ANR regional meetings kick off with SoCal academics

In late April, University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources hosted its first regional meeting for UC Cooperative Extension advisors and specialists based in Southern California. The meeting, hosted by Daniel Obrist, vice provost, and Lynn Schmitt-McQuitty, director for county Cooperative Extension, brought together 50 participants over two days for networking and collaboration.

Based on feedback collected from ANR's Statewide Conference in April 2023, academics indicated a desire to meet more frequently opposed to waiting for the conference that occurs every five years. As a result, ANR is hosting regional meetings throughout California to provide an in-person opportunity for academics to discuss their research projects, interact with senior leadership, gain clarity related to merit and promotion, strengthen communication skills and network.

On the first day, academics had the option to attend an Impact and Outcome Writing Workshop presented by Martin Smith, Emeritus Professor of Cooperative Extension at UC Davis. The session also included an interactive segment, facilitated by Katherine Webb-Martinez, director of program planning and evaluation, and Christina Becker, program policy analyst for PPE, that broke down impact reporting into theory and application.

To end the day on a social note, attendees were invited to dinner where they could continue informal discussions and networking. During that time, academics got to interact with senior leaders, including Obrist and Schmitt-McQuitty, county and Research and Extension Center (REC) directors such as Rita Clemens for Riverside, San Bernardino and Orange counties, and Jairo Diaz of Desert REC, as well as statewide support staff like News and Information Outreach in Spanish (NOS).

“A key opportunity of these meetings is to build peer networks with colleagues and collaboration opportunities in the regions. So many of our academics are new to ANR, and the regional meetings allow us to welcome and onboard new colleagues and get to know each other,” Obrist said.

The meetings are also beneficial for those transitioning into a new academic role within ANR. Natalie Levy who currently works as a specialist for water resources at South Coast REC, participated in the meeting with her new position, soil health and organic materials management advisor, which begins June 3, in mind.

“It was helpful to have senior leadership present. I spoke to Lynn the most and she gave me good feedback about developing a new program and my research interests,” Levy said. “I also liked the session discussing merit and promotion because it gave me a framework to use as I step into a new role.”

The morning of the second day, academics participated in a poster session to share their research with colleagues. Attendees also engaged in discussions to understand and address regional needs, build new partnerships and engage senior leadership for support.

“I learned a lot about my colleagues from the poster session. I felt more connected to their work because I could visualize how we can collaborate,” said Ashley Hooper, urban community resiliency advisor for Los Angeles County. “It can be isolating for advisors who don't have counterparts in other counties or in ANR. Seeing how others are managing their programs during the poster session gave me reassurance that I'm on the right track in my position.”

In the afternoon, academics heard from Vice President Glenda Humiston, who addressed ANR's budget and career pathways for academics. Niamh Quinn, human-wildlife interactions advisor for Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego counties, presented on the merit and promotion process to remind academics that “swallowing the eBook” (Guidelines for UC ANR Academics Preparing the Thematic Program Review Dossier) is the best way to learn how merit and promotions work within ANR.

Finally, Saoimanu Sope, digital communications specialist, showed academics how to leverage social media as an extension tool. Ricardo Vela, program manager for News and Information Outreach in Spanish, and Miguel Sanchez, broadcast communications specialist for NOS, described how to produce videos using a smartphone. 

“It was useful to see colleagues from other counties, especially those who work in different disciplines,” said Quinn, who, like Hooper, is programmatically isolated given her program niche. As someone who uses social media for her program, Quinn described the social media presentation as informative. “I felt better educated and equipped to make improvements afterwards,” she said.

The regional meeting schedule is as follows:

Region 3:  May 30-31, at UCCE San Joaquin County Building in Stockton

• Counties: San Joaquin, Stanislaus, Merced, Mariposa, Mono, Inyo, Madera, Fresno, Tulare, Kings and Kern
• RECs: Kearney, Westside and Lindcove

Region 5:  June 10-11, at UC Santa Cruz

• Counties: Sonoma, Napa, Marin, Contra Costa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Alameda, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, San Benito and Monterey

Region 2:  Sept. 12-13, Central/Northern Sierras, specific location TBD

• Counties: Tehama, Glenn, Butte, Colusa, Sutter, Yuba, Nevada, Placer, El Dorado, Yolo, Solano, Sacramento, Amador, Calaveras and Tuolumne
• REC: Sierra Foothills

Region 1:  Feb. 26-27, 2025, Redding, specific location TBD

• Counties: Del Norte, Siskiyou, Modoc, Humboldt, Trinity, Shasta, Lassen, Mendocino, Lake and Plumas-Sierra
• RECs: Intermountain and Hopland

Propose new UCCE positions by Dec. 18

The 2023-24 call for UC Cooperative Extension advisor and specialist positions is underway. Get involved in the process to identify our priority positions. We plan to release 20 new priority UCCE advisor positions and 10 new priority UCCE specialist positions.

Building on the more than 100 UCCE positions released over the last couple of years, UC ANR continues to prioritize growing our academic footprint to provide the expertise needed to improve the lives of all Californians and address emerging and future needs.

There are several phases with the same timeline for UCCE advisor and UCCE specialist positions:

1. Identifying priority positions/connecting interested groups – until Dec. 18, 2023
2. Proposal co-creation and submission – by Feb. 19, 2024
3. Program Council reviews and develops recommendations – March 2024
4. UC ANR Vice President makes final decision and releases positions – May/June 2024

Please see the 2023-24 CE Position Call webpage for process details and important documents, such as the required proposal template. 

The processes for new UCCE advisor and UCCE specialist positions take a similar approach, but have different groups working together and submitting. As always, UC ANR strongly encourages engaging both internal and external stakeholders in identifying and developing proposals for priority positions. The process has been improved in response to feedback. UC ANR Program Teams have an important role given they engage and represent the UCCE and Agricultural Experiment Station network, including statewide programs and institutes.

• For UCCE advisor positions, county directors and the Research and Extension (REC) System will prioritize in their regional teams and work closely with UC ANR Program Teams.
• For UCCE specialist positions, UC ANR Program Teams and the REC System will identify their top priority needs and campuses will select the position ideas that align with their academic planning. Working together, they will develop the proposals.

AES and UCCE collaborate to find solutions

A key to the success of UC Agriculture and Natural Resources for over a century has been its research-extension continuum.

UC ANR is composed of the Agricultural Experiment Station (AES) and UC Cooperative Extension (UCCE). The AES is not a place, it's the collective faculty members who are federally funded through the Hatch Act of 1887 and based at UC's AES-designated campuses in Berkeley, Davis and Riverside. UCCE specialists and advisors are federally funded through the Smith-Lever Act of 1914 and located on campuses and throughout the state.

Linda Forbes, Strategic Communications director, has been collecting examples of successful outcomes resulting from collaborations among AES and UCCE academics and sharing them in an email campaign to encourage further networking and partnerships.

In general, AES academics do most of their research on campus, UCCE specialists conduct more research in the field and UCCE advisors work directly with Californians to apply knowledge developed from AES research. In a simplified explanation of the research-extension continuum, UCCE advisors bring problems they see in the field to the attention of UCCE specialists and AES academics, who try to solve the problems, then recommend solutions for advisors to apply in the field. In effect, UCCE advisors and specialists bridge communication between campuses and communities.

Unlike in most other states, UCCE advisors also do their own field research, often collaborating with farmers and other community members.

Numerous successful collaborations take place across this network and the entire UC system to bring research-based solutions to local communities. See some examples at https://ucanr.edu/sites/anrstaff/Collaborations. Suggest other examples by emailing Forbes at lforbes@ucanr.edu. Visit the UC ANR directory to find AES and UC ANR experts working in your fields of interest.

UCCE specialists at Davis and Riverside add ‘professor’ to their titles

UC Cooperative Extension specialists based at UC Davis and UC Riverside can now identify themselves as a “Professor of Cooperative Extension” as well as UCCE specialist. Adoption of the new working title is underway at UC Berkeley.

“Note this is not a title change,” said Selina Wang, co-chair of the UC Davis Specialist Advisory Committee, who explained the working title Professor of Cooperative Extension is more familiar to people outside of UC Agriculture and Natural Resources.

“The addition of a working title for CE Specialists has many positive impacts as it aligns with our role of someone who professes their skills and instructs others,” Wang said. “We are grateful for the enthusiastic and widespread support from the leaderships, committees and individuals at UC Davis. We also thank those who have paved the way for realizing this vision – the title of Emeritus Professor of Cooperative Extension applies to CE Specialists who are currently approved for emeritus status.” 

In documents submitted to the Academic Senate at UC Davis by Wang and Vikram Koundinya, her co-chair on the UC Davis Specialist Advisory Committee, they state, “The title ‘Specialist in Cooperative Extension' or ‘Cooperative Extension Specialist' is not universally recognized or commonly used outside of the land-grant system in California or internationally, while the title ‘Professor' has widespread recognition. Similar to those in the professorial series, Specialists in CE have been integrated into the research, graduate education, service, and outreach missions of the departments, though teaching of regular undergraduate or graduate courses is not a required responsibility. In every state except California and Mississippi, individuals holding the title Specialist in CE can also hold the title Professor.” 

UCCE specialists at UC Riverside were informed in June 2020 of their new working title, which was shepherded through the process by UCR Professor Tim Paine, when he was divisional dean for the College of Natural and Agricultural Sciences.

“We are, and always have been faculty, but not senate faculty. This is the main difference between University of California CE Specialists and the rest of the United States,” said Peggy Mauk, director of UCR Agricultural Operations and UCCE specialist. 

Mary Lu Arpaia, UC Cooperative Extension specialist based at UC Riverside, is pleased the UCR Academic Senate approved the title.

“I think it is a critical first step for putting extension specialists on equal footing with tenured faculty,” Arpaia said. “In many other land-grant universities in the U.S., extension specialists are considered full faculty and gain true tenure. This is what we should strive for within the UC system. Kudos for our administrative staff at UCR for making this first step and being the first in the UC system to recognize extension specialists. Hopefully the next steps occur within the UC system in a timely manner.”

UCCE specialists located at UC Merced, UC Santa Cruz and UC Santa Barbara, which are not part of the Agricultural Experiment Station, are based in UC ANR, and will have to wait to use the professor title. For campus-based specialists, the title must be approved by the local academic senate. Because UC ANR doesn't have an academic senate, they will have to find a different administrative path, according to Wendy Powers, associate vice president.

“It would be great if everyone can use the same title; the CE Specialist title was already too confusing for folks and it would not help if we start using two different titles,” said Safeeq Khan, assistant UC Cooperative Extension specialist at UC Merced.

 

New research identifies UCCE disaster management needs

Californians have been dealing with wildfires, the pandemic, power shutdowns, excessive heat and drought, sometimes all at the same time. In every county, UC Cooperative Extension is there to assist community members.

To better serve their clientele, nearly three-quarters of UC Cooperative Extension employees say they need professional development related to disaster response, according to a new study led by Vikram Koundinya, UC Cooperative Extension evaluation specialist in the UC Davis Department of Human Ecology.

Koundinya and coauthors Cristina Chiarella, UC Davis doctoral graduate student researcher; Susan Kocher, UC Cooperative Extension advisor for the Central Sierra; and Faith Kearns, California Institute for Water Resources academic coordinator, surveyed UC ANR personnel to identify existing disaster management programs and future needs. Their research was published in the October 2020 edition of Journal of Extension.

“It's becoming so common that our folks are being put in the role of responding to disasters, while not having much training or background to do so,” Kocher said. 

“And, it's really cross-disciplinary,” she added. “Right now, our nutrition folks are doing so much with assisting their communities with food access during COVID. Others, like Faith Kearns, have been working hard to address drought and help clientele weather drought impacts. There are the individual events like the LNU Lightning Complex fires [wildfires caused by lightning strikes in Lake, Napa, Sonoma, Solano and Yolo counties that burned from Aug. 17 to Oct. 2, 2020], but really, so many of us are currently doing disaster work across our disciplines and that role will only continue to expand with climate change-induced disasters. Once you frame it as ‘disaster work' you can start to see how our system needs to be much more prepared and to learn from and collaborate with each other and with disaster organizations.”

The survey showed that about one-third of the 224 respondents had been involved in preparing for, responding to, or helping communities recover from disasters. Respondents also noted a variety of needs related to disaster preparedness, response and recovery systems, procedures, materials and equipment, and educational materials.

“UC ANR personnel reported a need for professional development related to understanding how we fit into broader disaster response systems (73%) in California, what Extension resources are available for disaster response (63%), how the landscape of disaster risks in California communities is changing (62%), how communities can mitigate or manage disaster risks (62%), how to develop pre-established networks within the organization for responding to disasters (52%) and coordination with local and state entities (48%),” Koundinya said.

The authors note in the journal article, “Even though UCCE has been playing a critical role in disaster response for decades, because of the size and geographic spread of the UCCE system, disaster management approaches and materials have tended to develop piecemeal on a program-by-program and often county-by-county and disaster-by-disaster basis.” 

The article, “Disasters Happen: Identifying disaster management needs of Cooperative Extension System personnel” can be viewed at https://joe.org/joe/2020october/a2.php.

“We recommend that the findings be used for designing professional development on the topics and needs identified by the respondents,” said Koundinya.

In her blog ANR Adventures, AVP Wendy Powers, wrote about the report, “The tables identifying needs are of particular interest to me and perhaps something the Learning and Development team might think about for future trainings.” 

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