Western Region Program Leaders Committee
July 9-10, 2008
Fairbanks, AK
The meeting was presided over by Judy Barth, Chair. The following were present: John Burton, Nevada; Bill Braunworth, Oregon; Lyla Houglum, Oregon; Karen Hinton, Nevada, Liaison from the Western Extension Directors; Rob McDaniel, Washington; Jim Knight, Montana; Kevin Kessler, Utah; Ed Martin, Arizona; Ruth Wilson, Wyoming; Chuck Gay, Utah; Roxie Dinstel, Alaska; and Don Albrecht, Western Rural Development Center. We were missing representatives from Idaho, New Mexico, Hawaii, and the territories.
The minutes sent by email for the last meeting from March 17-20, 2008 were approved as sent.
WEDA report from Karen Hinton.
Upcoming WEDA meetings:
· July 19-22, 2009 at Semiana Resort in Bellingham, Washington. Flights are available to Bellingham. Not sure if the WRPLC will meet with the directors. If so need to interact with Linda Kirk Fox for a room.
· April 1-3, 2009 in Salt Lake City. Chair should interact with Charlotte for space arrangement
· Grants Workshop in Salt Lake City, October,2008
· March 9-10, 2009 Integrated Workshop in Las Vegas at Riviera. WRPLC members are encouraged to get this date out within their state. Registration information will come out in September. The hotel rate will apply three days before the workshop and three days after.
WEDA Award of Excellence. Change in eligibility. Recognition is open to only member institutions.
Western NACO presentation. Lyla had informal discussion with Commissioners on how they looked at Extension. Colorado has conducted two surveys over the past two years on how County Commissioners viewed Extension. Colorado found that the Commissioners were concerned that 2003 cuts of 29 agents had not been replaced. They will continue to conduct this survey this year as it is required by the Colorado Commission on Higher Education. Other WEDA directors were interested in seeing the survey and potentially administering it within their state.
Communities of practice. Two new CoPs have been forwarded. One on Renewable Energy and a second on Water Conservation. Program Leaders are asked to identify people who could be involved in these CoPs. One will be funded in the current process.
eXtension. Strategic planning has been completed; the Executive summary will be out this month. Karen encouraged members to attend workshop on eXtension. Recent workshops featured two topics of particular interest: Changing face of the web and marketing. Both were excellent workshops. At anytime, any interested group can submit to have a CoP, but must have their own funding. Even if they are unfunded, they must be submitted to eXtension and do the paperwork to be a CoP. There is an opportunity for administrators to be advisors to CoP. There are more groups who are offering to sponsor CoP such as Financial Investment National Regularatory Assoc as sponsor for Financial Security CoP. Some groups have received grant funded for their CoPs.
JOE. Group talked about how to approach an article in JOE on urban programs since the Urban report is finalized. Considered doing in Commentary. Rob will discuss with Bill Gray.
Reorganization of NIFA. Over the next year all 3d funds will be viewed as competitive and will require application made through grants.gov. At this time not sure if they will be completely competitive or just have to apply for the number.
New Farm Bill. Congressional support is strong right now with a $52 million increase. However, with a new president and cabinet as well as an expected turnover in congress, not sure this will continue. The budget and legislative committee established the priorities for lobbying as formula funds, eXtension, NRI with extension focus. The committee has asked ECOP to look at other advocacy funds that might help with 4-H SET, which is a priority, but there is no line item specifically for 4-H. Others that don’t specifically have a line item are energy and community development. The marketing task force is surveying Extension Stakeholders on brand value. Surveys are currently being conducted using names provided by state offices.
ECOP. Two Staff positions at national level. North Central proposed that one position be moved to serve ¼ time in each region. Western Region Directors voted to keep current staffing.
Assessment change. There was a difference in how WEDA and ECOP counted formula funds, b, and c funds resulting in two different payment rates. WEDA voted to compromise and let the islands pay based on the NASULG rate which lowered their contribution and other states will remain the same.
Tenure Issues. Excellence for Utah State Extension faculty criteria presented by Chuck Gay. This paper is the first draft by Utah to establish a framework for evaluating agents for tenure. Comments made by program leaders will be accepted by Chuck and Kevin. The effort to create a citation index for extension publications has been dropped; too many hurdles. Discussion of many of these issues will be continued at next meeting.
Excellence in Extension was presented by John Burton. Work group has developed a database to outline extension information in the areas of resources and grantsmanship, not programming. State Extension groups enter data so they can compare themselves to other states. Several states piloted it, and there are now 35 entered in the system.
Website at: eit-data.tamu.edu/extmetrics/slog/index.asp. The materials will be updated once a year. Western States not involved are New Mexico, Arizona, Alaska and California. Any suggestions for the database should be mailed to John.
Western Rural Development Center. Don Albrecht has served as the full time Director of Western n Rural Development Center since July 1. Don gave an overview of the Center and asked for suggestions from group.
Public Value-Judy Barth. Several states are investigating ways to quantify Extension value by examining public value. Colorado and Nevada have done the project after a spring NEDA meeting. There is an online training program that trains agents to separate public value and private value of extension programs to help public see the value of program. The next step is to build a marketing plan based on these values.
Diversity-Linda Marie Manton. Presented a draft report of ideas for encouraging diversity employees and administrators. The committee reviewed procedures used by change agent states to find best practices. One of the challenges of retention is the sink or swim culture of Extension. Comments and suggestions given by the program leaders will be incorporated into the report of the Diversity Committee. The committee is trying to finish up the report and get it to the Directors by their next meeting. Any additional comments by the group should be sent to Linda.
Energy and other WEDA Regional Efforts- Lyla Houglum. Lyla shared the Consortium report that was drafted to address energy issues. Since the North Central Region has focused on biofuels, the Western Region has chosen to take a broader focus. Lyla needs member of the Program Leaders to review document and add comments. She will send electronic form to everyone on the list. The key question is does this structure help us work across state lines or does it bind us? Western Region Rural Development and WSU Energy Center are possibilities to hold the clearinghouse. WSU already centers on industrial and commercial level. It would be possible to add capacity to include individual clients. One question that needs to be addressed is whether participation will require dues. Washington is offering a consortium on sustainability for community planners and decision makers. A subgroup of Jim, Paul, Don, and Ron will come up with suggestions to change the Consortium paper. Lyla will send the electronic copy of the materials to the group for comments. The subgroup will try to have a draft ready for the directors at the Galaxy.
There is a possibility of funding from NSF energy grant for a GK12 project focusing on working with graduate students and connecting them with K-12 students. The youth component has already been developed (4-H curriculum), so only need to develop graduate student piece.
There has been a Western Energy Survey conducted with 443 responses from 13 states to determine the interest in an energy program by state.
Lyla has participated in the Council for Energy Research and Education Leaders when they met at UCLA. They are addressing three major components: teaching, research, and engagement. Lyla will continue working with this group which has similar aims to our energy focus.
Water is a major priority in the West. There will be a water conference or symposium during the next couple of years. The effort is driven by experiment station and they want Extension to be involved. Suggestions for member of this committee are: Ginger Page, Wyoming; Regan Waskom, Colorado; Bob Simmons, Washington; Mike Campanas, Oregon, and John Bolte, Oregon.
Thanks were offered to Rob for his work on the Urban Extension paper. It is currently posted on the WEDA website.
Miscellaneous Topics-Judy
The next WRPLC meeting will be a Conference Call held on September 2nd at 2:00 Pacific time and 3:00 Mountain time to discuss the energy consortium paper.
The next face-to-face meeting will be held on October 27th – 29th in Denver, Colorado. A new chair will be selected at the Denver meeting. The group agreed that meting face-to-face twice a year is normally sufficient with conference calls in between meetings. Since WRPLC is expected to meet with WEDA at the March meetings, September-October would seem to be good timing for the second meeting.
State Reports
Wyoming-Ruth Wilson. A year ago Wyoming had a CSREES review that was largely successful. Suggestions from the review include establishing a formal mentoring system, reorganizing areas (regions), and discussing supervision of 4-H educators. After the second round of drafts, the document will be sent to the dean for inclusion in the University Academic Plan. Wyoming is having trouble hiring qualified educators, so have raised the minimum salary. Despite efforts one position has remained open for two years. They have adapted educational requirements to allow for a bachelors and an RD or a masters to help with recruiting in Nutrition and Food Safety.
Arizona-Ed Martin. Arizona-Ed Martin. Arizona is not expanding and will have a $1.9 billion shortfall and the University of Arizona is looking at a 4.3 to 4.8% decrease this year. They have a temporary hiring freeze. The new provost, Meredith Hay, has asked each college to prove its worth. The Extension budget is separate from the college, but money still comes down through the college. Strategic planning will be conducted for Extension this year. Many new faculty will need to be mentored. A recent survey of Extension faculty showed topics of interest included grantsmanship, marketing, and evaluation.
Utah-Chuck Gay and Kevin Kessler. Major challenge is recruitment of new faculty, particularly young, single people in rural areas. Have included website of things to do and see. Partnerships have been of particular value to the program by pooling resources and working on projects. Partners for conservation and development have resulted in $1 million of funding. Next year counties will put up dollars to hire 4 new rangeland people, with this money eventually being replaced by state funds. Two major issues are water conservation and renewable energy conservation. Utah has increased their starting salary for agents and has established an undergraduate internship program. Another challenge for supervisors has been the process of working Y generation employees. Their method of work is far different than the supervisors expect. Utah has established an online peer review process to reduce the work of arranging for peer review. New challenge that has arisen this week is that there will no longer be any reimbursement of out of pocket expenses.
Montana-Jim Knight. Montana is experiencing budget challenges resulting primarily from stagnant federal budgets and state mandated pay plans. Several strategies are being considered to address the situation. Montana has established a State Energy Team made up of existing faculty to help clients make decisions on use of solar, wind, and biofuel energy. Also has established an internship and mentoring program for new county faculty. A new challenge has been addressing the educational needs of those considering a transition to organic farming. We are sensitive to relationships between the traditional commodity groups and the growing organic market. Extension has been careful to stay neutral in the discussion and provide decision making tools rather than becoming promotional. .
Washington-Rob McDaniel. Washington has just completed an Academic program review with water, science and education (4-H), and poverty reduction being major focus. During the review, all programs came through strong, but there was some discussion as to why the learning centers were under Extension. Land use in the Western part of the state is a challenge with the value for housing far exceeding the value for agriculture. They are working on an application for the Carnegie Foundation Engaged University and are considering a 4 day work week to reduce gasoline expenses for employees. In 2010, they are expecting to have a budget crunch. They are considering a new staffing pattern that doesn’t work directly with consumers. This pattern will work with agencies that serve consumers on specific projects rather than the current place based programming.