2023-24 Call for Cooperative Extension Positions

The 2023-24 Call for Cooperative Extension (UCCE) Positions was announced in September 2023. On May 24, 2024, Vice President Humiston announced the positions to be released, see the ANR Update blog. UC ANR doesn’t just refill past positions, instead identifies priority positions to address the most pressing needs, including California’s emerging and future needs.

The final list of the approved 29 Advisor positions and 20 Specialist positions are listed in the tables below. The UCCE Advisor positions will be released for recruitment in small batches over the next several months to facilitate engagement of various selection committees. The UCCE Specialists will be released to campuses for recruitment upon completion of the Memorandums of Agreements (MOAs) currently being renewed between UC ANR and the campuses/host sites.

Rebuilding the UCCE footprint continues to be a priority for UC ANR to provide the expertise needed to improve the lives of all Californians consistently and significantly. The historic 2021-22 state budget increase allowed UC ANR to release over 100 UCCE academic positions to date. UC ANR also continues to pursue non-traditionally funded positions as a complementary strategy to grow the programmatic footprint. There are UC ANR resources on: how to develop co-funded positions and shared benefits of funding partnerships.

NEW ADVISOR POSITIONS

NEW SPECIALIST POSITIONS

Process Information

Link to the 2023-24 Call for Positions process flowchart with more details

Resources

• Link to CE Position Proposal Template (required)
• Link to CE Position Proposal Criteria
• Link to FAQs
• Recorded webinar about the process for Program Team Leaders and campus leadership

Submittal groups were expected to work collaboratively across the UC ANR network and seek external stakeholder input. See list below.

For CE Advisor Positions:

• County Directors work with the Research and Extension Center System in their regional teams. Link to list of County and REC Directors
• Regional teams of groups listed above prioritize 6 positions per each of the 5 regional teams (listed in process PPT linked above).

For CE Specialist Positions:

• Research and Extension Centers - at least 3 for the system
• UC Campus Provosts and/or Chancellors ~18 in total; encouraging 1 per priority idea identified by each UC ANR Program Team and that align with campus academic planning priorities

Submission

• Regional team leads for County Directors and REC Directors: Use the Universal Review System (URS) accessed from the ANR Portal.
• UC Campus Provosts or Chancellors: Email proposals directly to UC ANR Associate Vice President of Research and Cooperative Extension, Brent Hales at Brent.Hales@ucop.edu. For any questions, please contact Brent. For more information regarding how appointments will be handled between UC ANR and UC campuses other than UCB, UCD, and UCR, there is a Memorandum of Understandingand the APM guidelines. The proposals will be added to URS by UC ANR so they appear on this web page, and display as "submitted by" Brent Hales.

UCCE Programmatic Footprint Maps:

• Link to maps
• These maps illustrate current positions for UCCE Advisors, UCCE Specialists, other UCCE Academics, and Community Educators, as well as the UCCE Advisor and Specialist positions under-recruitment. Secondary data layers provide county level data with relevant information that, when coupled with local knowledge, can help illuminate gaps/needs to inform UCCE position proposal development and future hiring.
• Recording to maps overview and demo (30 minutes)

For overall process questions, contact Katherine Webb-Martinez at katherine.webb-martinez@ucop.edu or (510) 987-0029.

For questions about using the Universal Review System (URS), contact Chris Hanson at christopher.hanson@ucop.edu.

The focus of this position is to identify strategies to increase temperate, semi-arid and sub-tropical orchard resilience to the stressors of climate change, particularly increased temperature stress (e.g. low chill winters, extreme heat summers, erratic freeze events), unfavorable precipitation patterns, both drought and excess precipitation, and numerous challenges that can follow these stressors (e.g. restricted water availability, salinity stress, root rot), as well as strategies to decrease the carbon footprint of production practices through increased resources use efficiency and other novel innovations. Such adaptations may leverage various regenerative and organic farming practices that are not only agronomically feasible, but also generate co-benefits for environmental and economic sustainability. A PhD in Crop Physiology, Horticulture, Agroecology, Ecophysiology or related fields is required. Understanding of and experience in orchard or other perennial systems is required. The candidate must have experience in extension and outreach, a demonstrated ability in securing funding and publishing relevant research in high quality journals, an ability to work in and lead interdisciplinary teams and a proven track record of innovative, integrative systems thinking. The position will be headquartered at UC Davis in the Department of Plant Sciences and will be expected to collaborate in their research and extension efforts with a wide range of professor and specialist experts (e.g. breeders, agronomists, soil scientists, economists, agroecologists, pathologists and entomologists) across a diverse set of departments (Land, Air & Water Resources, Pathology, Entomology), campuses (Berkeley, Merced, Riverside, Santa Cruz), RECs (Kearney, Lindcove, Desert, Westside), statewide programs (Ag Issues Center, IPM, SAREP, OAI), and farm advisors in UC county offices.