Posts Tagged: positions

UC ANR celebrates budget increase, releases 10 UCCE positions for recruitment

After three years of limited hiring due to budget constraints, Vice President Glenda Humiston announced the release of 10 UC Cooperative Extension positions for recruitment.

The new UC Cooperative Extension positions include:

• #11 Plant Pathology Area Advisor, Santa Cruz County
• #13 Soils and Irrigation Advisor, Kern County
• #15 Urban Agriculture/Small Farms Area Advisor, San Bernardino County
• #27 Community Nutrition & Innovative Technologies Specialist, UC Davis
• #31 Forest and Fuels Management Specialist, UC Berkeley
• #37 Subtropical Crops Pathology Specialist, UC Riverside
• #45 Diversified Agricultural Systems Area Advisor, Lake County
• #55 Forestry and Natural Resources Area Advisor, Sutter-Yuba counties
• #59 4-H Youth Development Advisor, San Mateo-San Francisco counties
• #63 Integrated Vineyard Systems Area Advisor, at Hopland Research and Extension Center

The county listed beside the advisor title is where the office for the employee will be located. All of the UC Cooperative Extension Advisor positions will serve multiple counties.

A full description of each position is available at the corresponding position number at the bottom of https://ucanr.edu/sites/anrstaff/Divisionwide_Planning/2018_Call_for_Positions, with some modifications.

On July 12, the state restored UC ANR's budget to pre-COVID levels of FY 2019-20 and provided a 5% increase plus an additional $32 million in ongoing funding, bringing total state support to $107.9 million for the division.

“This budget increase is transformational,” Humiston said, “It will allow us to rebuild UC Cooperative Extension's boots-on-the-ground to help Californians cope with wildfire, drought, climate adaptation and economic development among other issues.”

Over the past 20 years, UC ANR had seen its budget decrease by almost 50% when adjusted for inflation. As a result, UC ANR was forced to reduce Cooperative Extension advisors and specialists – from 427 positions in 2001 down to only 269 in 2021 – creating vacancies in many critical positions.

Twenty UC Cooperative Extension positions have been designated as critically urgent to fill. To avoid overwhelming UC ANR's Human Resources staff, the other 10 positions of the 20 will be released in late September as they ramp up hiring for future recruitment. Seven to 10 positions will be released each of the next four months, with more positions to be released in 2022.

“We look forward to releasing additional positions for recruitment – both academic and program support members – throughout the next several months,” said Humiston. 

“We are extremely grateful to Governor Newsom, the Legislature and especially Senator John Laird, who championed the budget increase, and look forward to working with our community partners to leverage these resources.”

Visit UC ANR Jobs to see the current positions open for recruitment.

ANR releases 6 UCCE advisor positions for recruitment

I am thrilled to announce that the following 6 CE Advisor positions from the 2018 CE position proposals are released 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

 

UCCE positions recruitment hindered by budget constraints

Dear Colleagues,

Over the course of the past 11 months, UC ANR has undertaken a position call process to identify the priority UCCE advisor and UCCE specialist position needs to support the work of the division. After a great deal of work, 46 positions were identified by the UC ANR Program Council and divided into three categories (highest, high, and can wait). Although we will utilize this categorization to the degree possible, the reality is that we need each and every one of those positions to serve our mission – all 46 positions are high priority to me. Furthermore, there are additional positions needed that were not on the list of 46 positions but are important gaps that have arisen over the course of the year. This includes three CE advisor positions vacated within two years of hire and not re-opened for recruitment.

Despite that, and unlike past years, we will not be releasing a list of approved positions at this time. The current budget situation leaves us unable to recruit immediately for positions reviewed during the 2018 process. All positions will remain under consideration based on funding availability, including the opportunity to find funding partners to share position costs.

This difficult decision is part of a larger effort to manage a challenging financial situation that also includes reductions to statewide programs and less subsidy for research at our RECs. UC ANR has managed the past several years of budget cuts and unfunded obligations through judicious use of our reserves, increases to program fees, fundraising and excellent work by our academics to increase the capture of competitive grants. While those options allow us to maintain a strong program and continue to deliver our research and extension mission, sound fiscal management does not allow us to expand academic positions in the immediate future.

2019 recruitment depends on budget and partners

Having said that, it is my sincere intent to recruit for a small number of these 2018 positions during the 2019 calendar year. As the FY19/20 budget unfolds, we will closely watch retirement announcements, the impact of those retirements on critical gaps in service, and any other items that might affect the budget available for recruiting. In addition, we will actively seek opportunities to partner with various entities to jointly fund positions as a key strategy to maintain or, preferably, increase our academic numbers. As a result, the order of recruitments may vary from the categorized list provided to me and we may also need to re-evaluate whether priorities have changed along the way.

More 2016 positions to be filled

Our academic numbers remain steady, not growing at a rate we wish to see, but steady nonetheless. This is in large part because academic HR, search committees, vice provosts, and campus departments have worked very hard over the last two years to recruit talent and fill positions identified during the 2014 and 2016 position call processes. All of the positions approved during the 2014 call have been filled; you might recall that at the time that the 2016 positions were approved, 25 of the positions approved in 2014 were still vacant. All but three of the 26 positions approved in the 2016 position call process are filled or under recruitment. The remaining positions (two CE advisor and one CE specialist positions) will be released for recruitment very soon. Additionally, the three FTE that were reserved for partnership opportunities have resulted in six new academics: three CE advisor positions filled, one CE advisor position under recruitment, and two CE specialist positions under recruitment. This valuable tool allows us to jointly fund positions with external partners as well as other parts of the UC system; we will be exploring how best to expand and leverage this moving forward.

Recruitment and retention of top talent a priority

Recruitment and retention of top talent is a crucial strategic objective. Toward that end, I recently announced approval of year two of a four-year salary equity plan for CE advisors that will bring their salaries into market norms. Offering competitive salaries to our academics and staff is of highest priority to me and the entire UC ANR leadership. Despite our budget challenges, we are pleased to be able to continue with this extremely important plan to improve academic salaries that had failed to keep pace with increased cost of living and academic norms for many years.

While the current budget situation for UC ANR is reminiscent of similar scenarios in the past, it is a strong wake-up call on the need to find new ways to fund our mission. State and federal support for the land grant mission has decreased or, at best, remained flat for the past few decades. UC ANR, the national Cooperative Extension system, the Agriculture Experiment Station system, and public research institutions in general, are at a crossroads – we must develop better ways to fund our mission, deliver our programs and leverage partnerships. This will include deployment of different business models. UC ANR is actively doing just that, while adapting to change along the way. I am confident that by remaining mission-focused we will grow stronger, more impactful, and more relevant to California and beyond.

Sincerely,

Glenda Humiston
Vice President

To answer questions about the positions process, VP Humiston held a town hall on Nov. 29. A recording of the 30-minute town hall is at http://bit.ly/2BGvO73.

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.

Forty UCCE position proposals submitted as process enters phase 2

The 2018 UC Cooperative Extension call for positions process has entered phase 2. 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,” said Wendy Powers, associate vice president.

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