Posts Tagged: Wendy Powers

2018 CE Position Call process to submit proposals ends Sept. 15

Colleagues,

The 2018 CE Position Call process to develop and submit proposals ends tomorrow. The proposals are posted on the call web page: http://ucanr.edu/2018callforpositions. Internal stakeholders across the ANR network and external stakeholders were engaged, throughout the seven-month process, in the development of these proposals.

To recap:

• Phase 1 – UCCE county directors and REC directors submitted 20 CE advisor position proposals and the executive associate deans, working with campus departments, submitted 20 CE specialist position proposals.
• Phase 2 – Program Teams reviewed the 40 phase 1 proposals and submitted six additional proposals that they identified as higher priority than the 40 already submitted.
• Phase 3 – Statewide Programs and Institutes reviewed all 46 proposed positions, and as a group agreed there are not any additional positions they believe to be of higher priority.

To clarify Comments:

• The process was designed to engage stakeholders in the development of the proposals rather than to provide feedback after the fact. Thus, this process does not include a formal public comment period.
• Comments submitted in the comments box on each proposal web page are for feedback to the authors, for their review. These comments are not part of Program Council's review.

Next steps:

• Program Council will discuss the proposals during their October and November meetings, and will provide recommendations to VP Humiston.
• By Jan. 5, VP Humiston plans to release information on support and release of positions put forth as a result of this call.

Once again, we thank the ANR network for actively engaging in this participatory process to strengthen and rebuild CE positions statewide – which remains an ANR priority.

Sincerely,

Wendy Powers
Associate Vice President

 

View or leave comments for ANR Leadership at http://ucanr.edu/sites/ANRUpdate/Comments.

This announcement is also posted and archived on the ANR Update pages.

Phase 2 of 2018 call for Cooperative Extension positions is underway

Dear Colleagues,

The UCCE county directors and REC directors have submitted 20 CE advisor position proposals and the executive associate deans, working with campus departments, have submitted 20 CE specialist position proposals. Both groups engaged program teams, statewide programs/institutes, and external stakeholders in the development of these proposals. All 40 phase 1 proposals are posted on the 2018 Call for Position web page: http://ucanr.edu/2018callforpositions.

Phase 2 is underway:

• Program teams are reviewing the 40 phase 1 proposals to determine if there are any positions they feel are of higher priority.
• If so, each program team can propose one additional CE advisor position and one additional CE specialist position by August 1-- remembering that the more proposals there are at the end, the lower the probability of being approved for recruitment.
• The proposals that didn't make the phase 1 final 40 can be picked up by Program Teams. Proposed positions available for pick up can be found on the proposal ideas web page.

We thank the ANR network for actively engaging in this participatory process to strengthen and rebuild CE positions statewide.

Sincerely,

Wendy Powers
Associate Vice President

View or leave comments for ANR Leadership at http://ucanr.edu/sites/ANRUpdate/Comments.

This announcement is also posted and archived on the ANR Update pages.

ANR Update – Telling our story through UC ANR’s public value statements

UC ANR's final, revised public value statements are now posted. These short and compelling statements articulate the value of our work. They can be used by everyone in UC ANR to help others understand our work, garner support for our work, and help us focus our work on impact.

The public value statements are brief descriptions that include the issues, how we address them, and the value of our work to program participants and the public in general. The recently identified condition changes are referenced, but not all listed given these are intended to be brief. As a reminder, condition changes represent the broad societal benefits (environmental, health, and economic) to which our work contributes, while recognizing that UC ANR may be only one contributor towards these long-term outcomes.

Mark your calendar! There will be a lunchtime WebANR on June 21 to help all of us think about how our work connects to our public value via condition changes. The webinar will be led by Nancy Franz, a professor emeritus nationally renowned for her work on extension public value. She will talk more about how other states are using public value statements and share success stories about using them to garner support and/or focus our work.

A volunteer team of Program Team Leaders, Statewide Program/Institute Directors, and Strategic Initiative Leaders reviewed and revised the initial draft public value statements, which were developed by a programmatically diverse group of academics last May. For their efforts in this last round to finalize the public value statements, I want to thank the following people: Theresa Becchetti, Jim Farrar, Tunyalee Martin, Missy Gable, Ted Grantham, Michelle Leinfelder-Miles, Ramiro Lobo, Deanne Meyer, Katie Panarella, Lorrene Ritchie, Suzanne Rauzon, Katherine Soule, Andrew Sutherland, Tom Tomich, Lorna Krkich, Anne Megaro, Mark Bell, Katherine Webb-Martinez, and Nilofar Gardezi.

The development of these public value statements is part of our ANR's Strategic Plan Goal 5 effort to align programs and services with the 2025 Strategic Vision.  The purpose of this overall effort is to assess both current and future needs as well as the strengths and impacts of our work, and then align our efforts such that we are positioned to achieve the 2025 Strategic Vision.

Sincerely,

Wendy Powers
UC ANR Associate Vice President

 

View or leave comments for ANR Leadership at http://ucanr.edu/sites/ANRUpdate/Comments.

2018 Call for Cooperative Extension positions update

Colleagues,

The 2018 Call for Cooperative Extension (CE) positions was released on Feb. 7 with the aim to identify positions that address programmatic gaps and emerging needs. The call, including the new process flowchart and timeline, criteria, proposal template and interactive academic footprint maps are posted at http://ucanr.edu/2018callforpositions.

Here's a quick update:

• CE Advisor position proposals – The county directors and REC directors have narrowed their list of proposed CE advisor positions to 27. They have discussed these with program team leaders and statewide program/institute directors. Through ongoing two-way communication, we encourage them to work with program teams, statewide programs/institutes and external stakeholders to develop those proposals. At their May 10 meeting, county directors and REC directors will further narrow to the 20 proposed positions for submittal May 15. The list of 27, and those that aren't moving forward but can be picked up by other groups such as program teams and statewide programs/institutes, are posted along with more detail on their next steps.

• CE Specialist position proposals – Conversations for the proposed CE specialist positions have also begun. Through two-way communication, department chairs, CE specialists, Agricultural Experiment Station faculty will engage with program teams, statewide programs/institutes and external stakeholders to develop positions. The list of department chairs to contact is posted, as will be proposal ideas when available (no later than April 20). The final list of 20 proposed positions will be submitted by May 15.

The information described above can be found on the proposal ideas web page at http://ucanr.edu/2018positionproposalideas.

We thank the ANR network for actively engaging in this participatory process to strength and rebuild CE positions statewide.

Sincerely,

Wendy Powers

Associate Vice President

 

View or leave comments for ANR Leadership at http://ucanr.edu/sites/ANRUpdate/Comments.

This announcement is also posted and archived on the ANR Update pages.

 

Your input requested for condition changes

Background

As part of the current effort to align our work such that we are best positioned to achieve the 2025 Strategic Vision, a group of UC ANR academics have drafted condition changes that are now in need of your review and feedback.

Condition changes are those long-term outcomes of our work that are the evidence of how our work makes a difference. Condition changes are at a level higher than that of the personal benefit our clientele receive as a result of direct participation in our programs. Rather, the condition change represents environmental, health or economic benefits at a societal level (e.g. improved water quality, improved nutrition and health, increased market opportunities, etc.).

How you can provide feedback

Program Team Leaders, Statewide Program Directors, Institute Directors and Strategic Initiative Leaders have worked together to develop the current list of condition changes. They will be reaching out to you to solicit your input. I would ask that you share your thoughts with those who reach out to you and they will collate all feedback they receive and provide it back through a Collaborative Tools site so that the development team can see the feedback as it is received. In early October, we will assemble all of the feedback and make decisions how to move forward.

Why this is important to you?

The final list of condition changes will be coded into the new Project Board (UC ANR program information system that will be replacing DANRS-X and integrated with the merit and promotion process for UC ANR academics. We will be asking academics to assign a percentage of time you spend working towards the condition changes. This will replace assigning your FTE to the federal Knowledge Areas. In addition, you will be tagging condition changes to your work when you write your outcome/impact narratives. You will be able to tag multiple condition changes to a single narrative provided you have quantitative evidence of the effected condition change.

How will this information be used?

The condition changes will be used in multiple ways. First, the condition changes and aggregated effort associated with each condition change will be used to determine if we have sufficient capacity working towards the changes needed to achieve our 2025 Strategic Vision. This will help guide future investments by UC ANR and help you, as an individual, identify priorities for directing your own effort. Second, the outcome/impact narratives that are tagged to specific condition changes will provide us the evidence needed to share all of your good work with supporters. The condition changes will serve as a sorting mechanism for the outcomes/impact narratives. The narratives themselves provide quantitative evidence of your outcomes including how they contribute to condition change indicators, as well as frame the work (what was done, where, why, who were the partners, etc.). Because of the intended uses of the information, it is important that we have a complete set of condition changes that represent the work we need to do to achieve our vision.

Why the rush?

The new Project Board is on track for roll out in March. In order to have the condition changes be part of Project Board and not a separate, additional reporting request, we need to have them coded in the system. The development team has indicated that they need the information in early October. Therefore, we are requesting that all Program Team Leaders provide their collective feedback (1 document per Program Team) by October 1. We will review the feedback, draw up a revised list of condition changes, and have that turned around to the Project Board team quickly.

What happens after the feedback is provided?

We will continue to talk about condition changes and condition change indicators throughout the fall and into spring. We are planning to offer training in the winter and spring to address condition changes, condition change indicators and how they tie to Public Value Statements that are currently in draft form. The Public Value Statements will be reviewed and modified yet this fall. If you have interest in being part of a small-ish group that will review and revise the Public Value Statements, please let me know via email. Note that condition change indicators and public value statements will not be part of the reporting in Project Board or any other form; only condition changes will be reported against in Project Board.

Tips to consider

• Condition changes must be measurable; condition change indicators are the metrics used to quantify the magnitude of change in a condition
• Condition changes should not be audience-specific but rather apply to any/all of our audiences as appropriate
• While I am an incurable ‘lumper' it is best to be a ‘splitter' when it comes to condition changes because it provides greater clarity as to what the evidence that support change really is and will allow for improved aggregation of your impact stories making it easier to share your work with others (easier to find, easier to understand and convey appropriately).
• Having more, rather than fewer, condition changes in Project Board will not cause you to have to report the same thing in multiple locations – the coding is planned to provide opportunity to use multiple tags for the same report.

Attached is a generic logic model used for reporting to USDA National Institute for Food and Agriculture.

Regards,

Wendy Powers
Associate Vice President

View or leave comments for ANR Leadership at http://ucanr.edu/sites/ANRUpdate/Comments.

This announcement is also posted and archived on the ANR Update pages.

 

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