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Posts Tagged: Cooperative Extension
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.”
ANR releases 6 UCCE advisor positions for recruitment
- #12 Production Horticulture Advisor, San Diego County
- #42 Agronomy Area Advisor, Merced County
- #54 Livestock and Natural Resources Advisor, Siskiyou County
- #58 Nutrition, Family, and Consumer Sciences Area Advisor, San Mateo-San Francisco Counties
- #62 Vegetable Crops and Small Farms Advisor, Riverside County
- #66 Pomology and Water/Soils Area Advisor, Kings County
The Academic HR unit will begin to work on recruitment plans for the above CE Advisor positions immediately following the winter break.
In addition, I commit to refill the position “#49 Irrigation and Water Resources Advisor, Glenn County” at such time that a gap occurs.
These were difficult decisions to make because while we need the above positions, there are many more needs for both CE Specialist and CE Advisor positions that continue to wait for additional funding. Additionally, while we have grown the CE Specialist numbers over the last several years, the number of CE Advisors in the field has steadily declined. For this reason, we are not releasing additional CE Specialist positions at this time. I remain deeply committed to the 4-H Youth Development Program and support the current conversations underway about investments in expanding non-academic support to improve program delivery to our local communities.
I hope to release 5 to 6 more positions in the spring/summer. This is possible, in part, due to the advanced notice provided by individuals planning to retire June 2020. In addition, we will complete recruitment of other academic positions currently advertised, including those that are funded through partnerships. See Status of Recruitments and Hires for a list of positions under recruitment now. That list does not reflect a few recent CE Advisor and CE Specialist hires who have not yet started.
I wish to thank the Program Council for their work providing recommendations to me. Likewise, I thank the County Directors, Program Team Leaders, Statewide Program/Institute Directors, REC Directors and Associate Deans for their efforts to identify priority needs.
I look forward to sending more of these notices soon!
Glenda Humiston
Vice President
Final position proposals due Sept. 15 for 2018 Call for Cooperative Extension positions
On Aug. 1, phase 2 of the Cooperative Extension Positions Call process ended and phase 3 began. During phase 2, the Program Teams reviewed the 40 phase 1 proposals and submitted six additional proposals. All submitted proposals are posted on the 2018 Call for Position web page: http://ucanr.edu/2018callforpositions.
Phase 3:
- The statewide programs and institutes are now reviewing all 46 proposed positions to determine if there are any positions they feel are of higher priority.
- If so, they can propose up to two additional CE advisor positions and two additional CE specialist positions by Sept. 15 – keeping in mind that the more proposals there are at the end, the lower the probability of being approved for recruitment.
- The proposals that did not make the phase 1 final 40 can be picked up during these subsequent phases. They can be found on the proposal ideas web page. New proposals are not limited to these ideas.
After Sept. 15, Program Council will review all the feedback and make recommendations to the vice president.
“We thank the ANR network for actively engaging in this participatory process to strengthen and rebuild CE positions statewide,” said Wendy Powers, associate vice president.
