Full Committee Meeting
Gloria Mosby, chair, called the meeting to order, asked participants to introduce themselves, made several "housekeeping" announcements related to the meeting and distributed the agenda.
Carla Craycraft, 1862 representative to the Program Leadership Committee covered the following in a report to the committee:
A. How the Program Leadership Committee (PLC) functions, with items brought from the individual committees to them for consideration and action.
B. Announced that next year's meeting will be Aug. 26-29 in Savannah or Atlanta
C. Explained the structure of offices for the Communications/IT committee which was established at the 1999 meeting: The offices are chair, vice-chair and secretary. A new secretary is elected every year and the officers move up. Current officers are Gloria Mosby chair, Nina Boston vice-chair, Ellen Ritter, secretary. Offices rotate among communications and IT representatives. The committee has two representatives (1890 and 1862) to the PLC on staggered three-year terms. Carla Craycraft is in the second year as 1862 representative, and Gloria Mosby is in the first year as 1890 representative.
D. Called on LaRae Donellan to report on the web-based grammar training proposal which the committee agreed to pursue at its meeting last year.
Discussion of Web-based training proposal:
A. LaRae Donnelan outlined the grammar training course which would be directed toward extension agents and secretaries and was brought forward to the PLC. Tennessee would provide the content based on a grammar training workshop previously offered at ACE and develop the web format. Each participating state would put up $1,000 (between 1862 and 1890 institutions), a minimum of 10 states would be needed and a maximum of 50 people could enroll. This would be considered a test after which enrollment could be expanded. LaRae noted that the directors and administrators are interested in seeing if this works and moving into other subject areas.
B. Discussion of this subject covered the following items: Similar things are being done through the Land-Grant Alliance, why reinvent the wheel! States should share the responsibility for development rather than putting up money for one state to do the project. If the content is available, Web CT can be used easily. The issue is not content, a server or software-it's that we can't get organized. The real contribution of this activity would be to have more than one state involved in development and to establish a model procedure for collaboration.
C. The committee decided to rescind the requirement for $1,000 contribution by the states and to establish a working group which would make this a collaborative project. The following representatives/states volunteered for this group:
Project director - LaRae Donellan, TN
Technology - Kevin Gamble (Rhonda?) - North Carolina
Instructional Design - Florida
Content- Kevin Hayes, OK; Carla Craycraft, KY
Technology host - TN
Special Reports. The following special reports were made to the committee:
A. RadioSource Net project - Ashley Wood reported on this multistate Internet radio service which went up in July. Two states are participating, with another 12 interested. Florida is handling coordination, the database and formats. Marketing has begun and needs to be enhanced. Collaborative funding to support the Florida position will be imperative as ADEC did not provide funding for the coming year, but evidenced an interest in funding once there are more results to show.
B. Training Resources and Status of Collaborative Projects - Nina Boston talked about fundamental issues related to training and collaborative efforts. We need to develop a model for how to collaborate when it requires personnel and budgeted funds; we need to bring ideas forward in advance of the annual meeting; and we need to determine what is going on among the states in the subject areas that we need to know about, e.g. collaboration among 4-H and FCS groups to produce materials.
C. Sharing job descriptions - Tom Knecht led a discussion of whether it would be useful to share job descriptions among states in the region as one means of addressing hiring and retention issues. It was noted that some states can't share descriptions, or have extremely general or purposefully vague descriptions due to Human Resources rules. Several people thought it would be useful. Bob Reynolds and Nina Boston of AR volunteer to host the database site. Nina will send e-mail to all requesting descriptions and soliciting suggestions on how to categorize them.
D. Review of salary and hiring survey proposal - LaRae Donnelan and Tom Knecht. LaRae asked the group about its interest in a biennial salary survey, similar to one being supported by the ACE heads. The objective is to develop data from the institutions to benchmark against industry. A spirited discussion about low salaries and competition for good employees ensued. It was noted that state salary information is available as a matter of public record if you want to look for it and that salary figures alone without the context of the state or local market may be of limited use. There was additional discussion of whether if this information was gathered, it would be shared with administrators and others.
Share Sessions. Individuals reported on special activities in their states:
A. Conversion to digital photography - Tom Knecht.
B. 1890 Impact Statements - Angela Corbett
C. Public Service Related Information Technology Projects - Ken Pruitt
D. A to Z Weekend Agriculture at the Zoo - Janet Rodekohr
Communications Sub-Committee Meeting
Discussion of duplication of subject-matter materials and publications.
Discussion centered around what this committee could do, since subject-matter specialists originate most publications. Bob Reynolds reported that a subgroup appointed to look at this subject last year did not make much progress. Concern was raised about state's identity on multi-state documents, with several members noting that should not be a problem since electronic documents can be constructed in individual state's identity templates. The Western Region and IFAS/GA collaboration were cited as potential models and the FF News, So Region Aquaculture and Farm Safety collections were cited as model projects.
The sub-committee decided to:
1) propose a super workshop to present and promote collaborative publication models;
2) locate one or two PL groups (e.g., FCS or 4-H) to work with us as a pilot project;
3) make a recommendation to the directors at the September 30 meeting that they support a formal agreement that all extension publications on the web can be used across the Southern Region, under each state's identity, but with credit to the originating Extension Service;
4) form a working group (Bob, Ashley, Tom, Angela, Ellen) to pursue these recommendations.
Sharing Session:
Ashley Wood - RadioSource Net funds and ACE recruitment
Janet Rodekohr- Communications Advisory Committee for ECOP Budget Committee, recommendation of hiring communications professional for AESOP
Mike Gray - North Carolina's quarterly magazine produced for the last two years
O.J. McGee, Florida A&T- Grapevine Magazine
Ellen Ritter - Biotechnology communications/training at Texas A&M
Full Committee Meeting
Report from Nina Boston on the IT subcommittee meeting
A. Discussed publications duplication and formed a working group. The committee can handle the mechanism, but it is the job of subject specialists to eliminate duplication. Proposed identifying a subject area where we can be most successful, such as beef cattle. Discussed role of AGNIC and what is already being done. Decided credit should not be an issue-our niche is depth and detail of information not who gets credit for what.
B. Other items discussed: FL system for accomplishment data; training and level of competency is becoming a big issue; making sure that what we design recognizes browser being used; plant analysis which several states are doing offers an area of potential collaboration.
The communications subcommittee reported its discussion (see above).
Committee agreed to form one communications/IT group to work on the publications duplication issue. Bob Reynolds and Nina Boston from AR will co-chair and coordinate reporting to PLC.
Potential agenda items for next year's meeting were discussed including involvement of communication and information technology heads in approving grants at their institutions and publishing activity going on outside of channels.
Report back from the PLC meeting - Carla and Gloria reported that the PLC approved the web-based training at no cost to the states, with secretaries as the target audience and agreement that administrators will identify participants.
Other items:
A. Janet Rodekohr reported on the activities of the ECOP budget committee's communication advisory group
B. Carla Craycraft asked if others want to share digital images and a discussion ensued of how to catalog digital images.
Closing items:
Chair Gloria Mosby noted the diversity in the group with significant participation by 1890 institutions this year and said she enjoyed serving as chair.
New officers: Angela Corbett was elected 2000-2001 secretary earlier in the meeting.
Nina Boston is chair, and Ellen Ritter is vice-chair.
The group voted to thank Gloria for her work as chair and to thank Carla for her work with the PLC.