What Public(s) Do We Serve? Navigating the Role of Extension in Policy and Community-based Engagement
UC Cooperative Extension (UCCE) colleagues from diverse disciplines shared their insights into effective strategies and approaches to building mutually beneficial relationships and networks in their communities, as well as candidly discussed how they decided with which groups to work. With a particular orientation towards helping newer UCCE hires, we addressed how to assess the landscape of opportunity of organizations/groups to connect with, how to proactively reach out to groups and do so effectively, and how to respond to being approached.
In the spirit of co-learning, the workshop format was discussion-based rather than didactic. Our aim was to spark the process of self-inquiry for both presenters and participants, as we collectively thought about how each of our specific lines of work fit into the land grant mission of public value, and what public(s) it does (or does not) serve.
Workshop Materials