ASRED Meeting
August 22 – 26, 2016
Sheraton Music City
Nashville, TN
AgendaMonday, August 22
1:00 pm / Registration Opens
1:00 – 2:30 pm / Program Leadership Committee Meeting w/ Committee Chairs
Followed By PLN Executive Committee Meeting – Hermitage D
1:30 – 4:30 pm / Pre-conference: Urban Extension – Two Rivers
5:30 – 6:00 pm / Newcomer Orientation – Hermitage D
6:00 pm / Dinner On Your Own
Tuesday, August 23
7:00 am / Breakfast – Hermitage C/D
8:00 – Noon / General Session – Hermitage C/D
8:00 / Welcome – ChaNae Bradley, PLC Chair, Senior Communications Specialist, Ft. Valley State University
Welcome to Tennessee
· Dr. Tim Cross, Extension Dean and Professor, University of Tennessee
· Dr. Chandra Reddy, Dean and Director of Research/Administrator of Extension, Tennessee State University
8:15 / Charge – Dr. Ed Jones, Director, Virginia Tech and Chair, ASRED and Dr. Carolyn Williams, Prairie View M University and Vice Chair, AEA
8:30 / Keynote: Shonali Burke – public relations and social media expert and consultant based in Washington, D.C.
9:30 / Response
10 – 10:30 / Break
10:30 / Branding Extension
11:00 / Ignite Sessions
11:45 / Lunch – Hermitage C/D
1:30 pm / PLC Committee Meetings (with Administrative Advisors)
· Agriculture & Natural Resources – Edgewood
· Communications - Evergreen
· Community Development – Hermitage A
· Family & Consumer Sciences – Hermitage B
· 4-H Youth Development – Tulip Grove F
· Information Technology – Kingsley
· Middle Management – Tulip Grove E
· Program & Staff Development – Two Rivers
3:00 pm / Break
3:30 pm / PLC Committee Meetings (with Administrative Advisors)
Evening / State Night Out (Optional)
Wednesday, August 24
7:00 am / Breakfast – Hermitage C/D
8:00 - Noon / ASRED Session - Belmont
8:00 / 1 / Call to Order; Charge Committees; Review Agenda; Approve April Minutes – Ed Jones, Chair
Ed Jones called the meeting to order and introduced our special guests. Self-introductions followed: Tim Cross (UT), Paula Threadgill (MSU), Gary Jackson (MSU), Jim Trapp (OSU), Jimmy Henning (UK), Laura Johnson (UGA), Tom Dobbins (CU), Leslie Boby (SREF), T. Hinton (Nat'l 4-H Council), Ron Brown (ASRED), Ed Jones (VPI), Tony Windham (UA), Rick Cartwright (UA), Paul Brown (AU), Mark Tassin (LSU), Eric Young (SAAESD), Rich Bonanno (NCSU), Bill Hubbard (SREF), Jennifer Sirangelo (Nat'l 4-H Council), Doug Steele (TAMU), Tom Obreza (UF)
Nick Place (UF) arrived around 10 AM.
The minutes from the April ASRED meeting were approved by unanimous vote.
Nominating Committee – Nick Place, Tim Cross, and Tom Dobbins. Positions identified to be filled include these.
The question of continuing Chris Boleman on the National 4-H Leadership Committee was raised. Tim Cross moved to recommend to the nominating committee that Chris remain on this committee for another term. The motion carried unanimously.
NIFA is looking for six people to serve as part of the LGU Stakeholder and Liaison Group for NIFA’s Grant Modernization Initiative. Nominated individuals include C. Shotwell from KY; R. Swan from MS; M. Kelly from SC; D. Alexander from TX; and K. Gouin from FL. These names were sent to Katelyn Sellers for consideration.
The Resolutions Committee of Gary Lemme, Jim Trapp, and Rich Bonanno will present a resolution on Friday morning.
2 / State Updates
Print all State Updates in one document: HERE
Individual documents: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Puerto Rico, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Virgin Islands
MS: State legislative budget increases (17%) have occurred in the last 4 years. Have hired new faculty and provided pay raises. Had a small 1.8% decrease recently. Getting ready for another small decrease. Grants and contracts increasing – extension and applied research included. Won the tenure battle for extension faculty in the faculty senate. No grandfathering of current employees.
LA: Most of Mark’s report centered on the recent floods. The state is in the clean-up stage that will take a long time. The sugarcane crop survived, but the rice crop does not look good. Twenty parishes were declared disaster areas. No damage occurred to the LSU campus in Baton Rouge. Count of 60,000 homes and 7,300 businesses damaged at this time, but there are probably more. Most businesses had no flood insurance. Lots of neighborly help going on.
NC: Experiencing a 2.3% budget cut. Received a small raise and a 1-year bonus. NC State Extension is feeling good about how the FLSA response turned out. Extension is establishing new category of Extension Leaders. A list of criteria relating to the scholarship of extension was developed. The Extension strategic plan is finished, and Extension is hiring 40 new faculty. Seventeen new FTEs in Extension are being added statewide. NC State is working on new branding with NC A&T.
KY: Extension is engaging the UK main campus relative to their Plan of Work. Extension hired their first “County Manager,” who will supervise peers. Kentucky SNAP-Ed has experienced huge growth. Extension is adding SNAP-Ed money to agent salaries. The state budget is going through a bumpy time.
OK: Extension has received no budget increase in 7 years; experiencing a 16% budget decrease this year. Mentioned a 1% sales tax for education. Extension will have to reorganize its county structure due to lack of budget. Trying to go elsewhere for revenue. 4-H program fee instituted, but internal push-back is occurring. Wondering how hard 4-H can be squeezed.
GA: Most recent budget year was a good one. Have been able to add new state and county faculty positions. Thirty agent positions have come back. A new Ag Dean is in place. Greg Price will retire December 1; the HR director is also retiring. Grants and contract activity has set a record. Providing startup funds has been a challenge. Maintaining county funding is a challenge.
SC: Great budget year this year. Fourth straight year of increases. New excitement and enthusiasm among extension agents. Finished a strategic staffing plan with some personnel restructuring. Want to get more MOUs done with county governments. Coming back with Food Safety and Nutrition education. Re-doing the state 4-H program; hiring new agents, but still a long way to go. Would like to attract more males into 4-H agent positions.
AR: Rick Cartwright will take the interim position as Tony Windham departs Arkansas Extension. Have had flat funding for 8 years even though state finances are doing well. Tony opined that the FLSA exemption decision for county agents will result in lawsuits. Hiring a new Food Safety faculty member. There is a problem with illegal use of dicamba in Arkansas.
TN: Tim Cross is moving up to the Chancellor position as Larry Arrington retires. Delton Gerloff will take Tim’s job for the time being. Have experienced a modest increase in the Extension budget. State has done well financially but the university did not see an equal benefit. A 3% salary increase is coming. Extension had animal cruelty investigation responsibility removed after 17 years. Rolling out a new county director training consisting of four sessions per year.
FL: UF president, senior vice president (IFAS), and IFAS deans met with the Florida Farm Bureau State Board the day before this report was given. Farm Bureau has issues with IDC and with IFAS’s attention to agriculture. According to FB, IFAS is “walking away” from ag. Commodity groups now paying 12% IDC instead of zero. FB pressed University President Kent Fuchs to change this but he will not. FB also questioned urban extension, the $20 new 4-H membership fee, and 4-H growing into urban areas. In some cases, “we have met the enemy and he is us.” Some of our own people are not pleased with the direction we are going and they feed it to their local FB. President Fuchs will be the keynote speaker at Extension’s annual conference in September. Extension is reaching out across UF for engagement of other colleges; for example, Health and Human Performance for tourism and Engineering for regional outreach. Funding situation is good; IFAS is hiring many new faculty. Extension has a major push on water resource education. Extension is advancing the revenue enhancement concept with county agents. Laura asked if IFAS records the Extension Conference. (Yes.) She would like to watch it and Nick will try to accommodate.
TX: University campuses are now subject to a new concealed carry firearm law that has led to controversy. Current year’s budget is set at 96% of level funding, but the university is trying for 100%. It would help if the price of oil would increase. Working to increase agent salaries. Want to add a COLA adjustment to salaries. Removing the need for a newly-hired county agent to achieve a master’s degree within 5 years of employment (applies to rural counties). Degrees must be closely related to the agent’s job assignment. County contracts vary from one place to another, so Extension is working towards consistency and transparency. A task force will work on this. Changing contracts will be painful but necessary.
AL: Working to develop regional administrative teams rather than establishing another administrative layer like middle managers. Transition from ROI to Economic Impacts in their reports on the impacts of Extension. Have made their impact reports simpler with time… something people will read.
VA: State just canceled a 3% pay raise. University will give a 2% merit pay raise. Significant hole in budget. Working on an early retirement plan to free up resources. Salaries for faculty and agents are way behind.
9:40 / 3 / Regional Forester’s Report– Bill Hubbard
SREF responded to the request to market themselves better. Doing a better job at that. Bill talked about the partners in regional forestry extension… LGUs and Forest Service. Bill reviewed the following items: SREF mission; products and services; programming areas and issues; staff. Talked some details about various program areas. Lots of web-based knowledge bases. More details in written report.
10:00 – 10:30 am / Joint Break
10:30 – 12:00 am / ASRED Meeting – Belmont
10:30 / 4 / 4-H Council Update and Discussion – Jennifer Sirangelo (NOTE: This is a joint discussion with the 4-H Program Committee in Tulip Grove F; afterwards, ASRED will move to the Belmont room)
4-H Council is considering restructuring the Board. Jennifer Sirangelo, President and CEO, National 4-H Council, along with southern region representatives on the Board, Nick Place and Chris Boleman, and Ed Jones, Co-Chair of the ECOP National 4-H Leadership Committee, will provide background information and lead a discussion concerning the proposed changes (See Council Update, Board Development Initiative, and PPT Presentation).
Jennifer Sirangelo's comments: We need to tap into 4-H alumni better than we do for support to grow 4-H nationally. (1 in 12 adults were associated with 4-H as youth, and 38% still feel connected to 4-H.) Goal is adding 10 million youth to 4-H. Fundraising goal is $125 million in 5 years. 8% of the budget will go into marketing 4-H. The Board should be composed of 20 trustees or less, and it should devote 80% of its effort towards fundraising.
11:00 / 5 / National 4-H Congress Board of Directors and 4-H National Leadership Committee Update – Laura Johnson and Ed Jones
Supportive of proposal to change make up of Board.
11:20 / 6 / SRDC Update – Steve Turner
Steve described some of SRDC’s activities and projects:
Stronger Economies Together – Rural Development has $200 billion to loan, but they don’t loan nearly all of it; SET prepares communities to receive the loans.
Leaders in Economic Alliance Development.
Local Foods Initiative – expecting a SERA.
Turning the Tide on Poverty.
Community Development Indicators.
Steve also described his visits around the region, new initiatives/opportunities (e.g., Recreation Economy, RIDGE, and Rural America Counts), and SRDC’s priorities moving forward (economic development is #1).
11:40 / 7 / Using a Content Management Platform – Andrew Kniberg, Office Depot and Neal Vines, Virginia Tech
Neal framed this opportunity by asking the question of what problem are we trying to solve. Problems include warehousing publications, complicated access to programs and publications, insufficient means for revenue generation, targeted marketing; etc. Andrew showed how the Office Depot content management system works at Virginia Tech. He showed the utility of the web site and how publications are handled, among other things.
12:00 – 1:30 pm / Joint Lunch / Recognitions – Hermitage C/D
1:30 pm / PLC Committee Meetings (with Administrative Advisors)
3:15 – 3:30 pm / Break
3:30 – 5:00 pm / PLC Committee Meetings (with Administrative Advisors)
Evening / Committee Night Out
Thursday, August 25
6:30 am / Breakfast – Hermitage C/D
6:45 am / Program Leadership Committee (PLC) Meeting – Belle Meade (Current, Incoming, and Outgoing PLC Members)
8:00 – 10:00 am / First Joint General Session of AEA and ASRED – Belle Meade
8:00 / J1 / NIFA Update – Brad Rein, Division Director, Division of Agricultural Systems, NIFA
8:30 / J2 / eXtension Update – Christine Geith, CEO, eXtension
9:00 / J3 / Joint Discussion Items
a. 2018 Farm Bill Update –Albert Essel and Jim Trapp
b. FLSA Overtime Rule: Implementation and Potential Impacts– All
c. NIFA Capacity Study –L. Washington Lyons and Ron Brown
10:00 – 10:30 am / Break
10:30 - Noon / Second Joint Session of AEA and ASRED – Belle Meade (Includes Program Leadership Committee)
10:30 / J4 /
PLC Action Items
11:15 / J5 / PLC Information Items11:45 / J6 / Continue 8:00 AM Session Discussion (If finished and time remains, resume ASRED Session)
Noon / Lunch (AEA and ASRED) – Two Rivers
1:00 – 5:00 / ASRED Session – Belmont
1:00 pm / 8 / SAAESD Update – Eric Young
Eric Young was not able to see the first version of the NIFA survey. He reported that the original survey has been changed to three surveys, one each for the Head Administrator, the Head of Research, and the Head of Extension. NIFA hopes to send the survey out after Labor Day. The research survey looked pretty good to Eric (he reviewed it immediately prior to his report). The questions are set up to make capacity funding look good to LGUs, but how will non-LGUs react? We are not exactly sure which institutions will receive the survey.