Meeting Participants:
| Alabama | Martha Johnson |
| Arkansas | Lynn Russell |
| Florida | Nayda Torres |
| Georgia | Tom Rodgers, Carol Ann Johnson, Sue Chapman |
| Kentucky | Bonnie Tanner, Beverly Garner, Joanne Bankston, Mary J. Fant, Vivian Lasley-Bibbs |
| Louisiana | Gina Eubanks, Ellen Murphy |
| Mississippi | Beverly Howell, Mildred Holland |
| North Carolina | Karen DeBord, Carolyn Dunn, Thelma J. Feaster |
| Oklahoma | Lynda Harriman |
| Puerto Rico | |
| South Carolina | Nancy Porter |
| Tennessee | Shirley Hastings, Thelma Sanders-Hunter |
| Texas | Kathy Volanty, Carolyn Nobles, Margaret Hale |
| Virgin Islands | |
| Virginia | |
| West Virginia |
Meeting was called to order by Kathy Volanty at 2:00 pm. Roll call was conducted by Kathy Volanty, Chair.
A presentation was made by Mary McPhail Gray (Colorado), co-chair of the National FCS POW Impact Committee. The Impact Committee, appointed in October, 2000, is almost finished with the draft POW. Prior to the work of the committee, all state POW's were reviewed and outcome programs listed that were common to most state POW's. Seven major programs selected for inclusion are child care, financial management, food safety, health, housing and environment, human nutrition, and parenting. FCS pl's requested Dr. Gray's power point presentation to use in getting feedback from fcs specialists. Feedback will be presented at the NEAFCS meeting in Kansas City, October 7-9, 2002. The work of Gina Eubanks (Louisiana) and Lynda Harriman (Oklahoma) were recognized as critical to the final work of the committee.
The meeting was called to order on August 25, 2002 in Nashville, Tennessee, at 2:00 pm. An attendance roster was passed around to get an accurate list of names, titles, and email addresses. The new updated list will be sent to Bonnie Teater at SRDC. Minutes were reviewed from the 2001 Joint Program Leader Meeting held in Savannah, Georgia. Motion was made by Tom Rodgers (Georgia) and seconded by Nayda Torres (Florida) to approve the minutes as corrected.
The rotation list for selecting chair and chair-elect (secretary) was distributed for information. The FCS PL Committee will select a new chair and chair elect during the meeting because of the The resignation of Sarah Anderson (Arkansas) before fulfilling her three year term, and the completion of a three-year term by Carolyn Nobles (Texas).
Dr. Margaret Hale (Texas), FCS liaison to ASRED, gave her report. She shared information from the National Director's meeting in Las Vegas and the ASRED meeting in San Antonio. Highlights from the 21st Century Report were also shared. The southern region provided leadership for the study. A follow up committee has been appointed to provide further information. Colien Hefferan made comments at the Las Vegas meeting, as well as Joe Jinn, who indicated a further study would be made of the Extension system, starting in September and completed in February. A summary of the report will be shared at the Director's meeting in Orlando. ECOP goals from outgoing chair Lila Hoglum (Oregon) were shared. Other reports from the Las Vegas meeting were shared. Dr. Chester Fehlis (Texas) will be the new chair of ECOP. ECOP will be keeping a close eye on Schedule A legislation. He also wants to see that state program leaders are more involved in setting the national Extension agenda. ECOP strongly supports the e-Extension project. Questions were asked about the Jen study organized by Colien Hefferan. Comments were made about the upcoming need for more information on Homeland Security and how Extension and FCS will play a role in this concern now and in the future. The new white paper on Homeland Security generated by the Directors did not contain a lot of reference about support by FCS. Various PL's reported on what their states were doing to support Homeland Security. A lot of discussion about budgets occurred at the Association of Southern Region Extension Directors (ASRED) meeting in San Antonio. Most states have experienced cuts and many are looking at structure changes. They are interested in the CECP curriculum project moving forward. Dr. Hale was asked about a rumor that the base program area structure and the initiative structure were to be changed drastically. Dr. Hale has a copy of the proposal to reform. Gina Eubanks related discussion from the PLC that the process was taking so long in the present mode. PLC will be meeting in September to go over the proposal.
Dr. Hale reported that Myron Johnsrud was honored at the Director's meeting in Las Vegas. He gave comments on AGetting Better in the Midst of Adversity.@ Have an 80/20 budget, use federal dollars as a reserve, technology is a good investment, have a future plan. Be mindful of changes that have unexpected consequences.
Dr. Hale will continue for another year as our advisor. Directors have scheduled a September meeting for next year.
Director Larry Turner (Kentucky) made comments to the group. He visited the FCS PL group to learn more about us.
Dr. Carolyn Nobles reported for Dr. Linda Williams-Willis, who could not come. AEA met in Nashville in June. They have eight program work teams. FCS teams are Strengthening the Family (Gina Eubanks - Louisiana - is the administrative advisor for this group); and Nutrition and Food Safety (Dr. Willis is advisor). Plans of Work have been submitted by these groups. PLC new guidelines have strengthened many areas.
Dr. Nobles asked the group for a response on the CECP project. New guidelines for the PLC Network include a POW for each group. We should be aware of the changes, including the attendance guidelines for the meetings and conference calls. She stated although we are all very busy people, we should participate fully in the things that have to do with our job and leadership positions that we hold. Once our input is received on the new PLC guidelines, they will decide where the PLC meeting will be held in 2003. The Guidelines include a plan for orientation for new members. Orientation meeting and Network meeting will overlap with AED to facilitate more interaction. Two administrators for AEA and ASRED will be on the executive committee of the PLC Network.
Carolyn Nobles was recognized for her leadership as chair of the Program Leader's Committee for the past year. She reminded us that action items and information items need to be recorded by the group and turned in to Bonnie Teater before September 9. Carolyn recognized the FCS PL group for the progress they had made in getting subgroups started to identify base FCS competencies.
Chair Volanty recognized Dr. Linda Harriman in Anudging@ the group to get started on fcs base program competency identification Forty specialists have now volunteered to work on the subgroups. She urged each state PL to keep abreast of the competency work and encourage the groups to keep going. Competency identification is the first step toward writing curriculum. As soon as the base competencies are identified, groups will be encouraged to write/share curriculum that will help develop those competencies.
The FCS PL group welcomed Michael Newman and Allison Penn who led the group in a discussion of the proposed CECP model. The groups questions and comments will be forwarded to the PLC.
The next agenda item was a discussion on the FCS competency project to date. On an FCS PL teleconference, Lynda Harriman brought up the idea of starting on competency identification for base program areas in family and consumer sciences. In an effort to provide training for those new employees that have been hired with specialty degrees, we should develop curricula to train new agents who are specialized, but need a basic knowledge in all three main areas of child and family development, family resource management, and nutrition/health. During a regular teleconference, FCS program leaders volunteered specialists to work in subgroups to identify competencies in the four areas (health was thought to be a fourth subgroup). At the time of the Southern Region meeting, approximately 40 specialists had agreed to serve on a subgroup to identify competencies.
Each subgroup was asked to meet once via teleconference before the Southern Region meeting. All but one group did manage to meet. Martha Johnson (Alabama) brought up the fact that the Health SERA is about the have the third regional health training and there is a curriculum already developed. Many of the volunteers on the competency subgroup are involved in developing the SERA training. Bobby Clarke (Tennessee) was unable to get the group together via teleconference before the Southern Region meeting, but will soon following the meeting. The Rural Health Development training will be held in November at Schoco Springs, Alabama. It was planned by health specialists as AHealth 101" to be everything that agents would need to know to teach health in their counties, including needs assessment, data base building, epidemiology, evaluation and curriculum. Graduate course credit can be received from Mississippi State. Additional information can be found on the Southern Rural Development Center website.
The Foods and Nutrition Competency Group met via teleconference on August 19. They submitted a one page summary of their work with ten questions for the group. The first question was how deep they need to go in developing the competencies. Answer: Identify three levels of competencies - essential (basic), intermediate, and advanced with definitions. The essential level would be appropriate for agents with little or no knowledge of the subject area. Other competencies would developed by other groups that identified basic information about teaching or methods. Teaching methods could be modeled by the teaching of the subject matter competencies. Specialists could include Ahow@ to teach as they talk about subject matter. The CECP group is developing broad categories of competencies that may include teaching skills. Another question: what about including physical activity in the development of the health essential competencies? Answer: Yes, it is included in the SERA Health Curriculum development. What type of format do we want the final product to be in? The example from Child Development/Family Relations was good. To have broad headings or learning topics, three levels under each topic with explanation of each level at top, and could easily check off each as they are delivered.
Home based business, income generation, entrepreneurship is important but does not seem to be included in the overview of the Family Resource Management Competencies. There is a national curriculum on home-based business. It may be confusing to have housing under resource management. Family resource management and financial management are basically the same for the purpose of the competencies. Purchasing consumer items such as housing and food should go under the main subject matter area. Curriculum should reflect what the agent needs to learn, and not necessarily targeting clientele.
Question 7: When is the first draft of the core competencies needed? By Kansas City - October. Final draft by February 1, 2003.
Question 8: Will existing Extension training materials and on-line courses be reviewed prior to developing new training materials? YES- we want to use as much already-developed materials as possible. Question 9: As soon as competencies are identified and approved, a curriculum design team would be convened. Volunteers would be asked to serve on these groups. The curriculum groups would begin soon after February.
Question 10: Is it appropriate to request information from other F&N colleagues about work they have done in their states - posting message on national list-serves? Yes - this would be great!
The Health Competency Subgroupdid not meet prior to Southern Region - they could not find teleconference dates. They will continue to look for a date after the Program Leader meeting and questions could be answered about form, levels, etc.
Dr. Karen Debord led discussion on the progress of the Child Development/Family Life Competency Subgroup. Sexuality and sexual orientation should stay in Family Life, not in Health. Areas of gerontology should be looked at separately. The Child Development group wants to send out their competencies for the review of the group using a web based survey. Anyone with additional suggestions for the CD group could forward them to Karen. They should use the SRDC list serve to send to the group. The new group will be posted soon after September 9. Interdisciplinary approach should be used when working in the competency areas. It was recommended that the draft competencies be reviewed by the FCS Program Leaders, who in turn could involve appropriate specialists in their states.
Southern Region Directors had appointed a small committee, Joan Dusky (chair), of people attending the e-Extension meeting in Atlanta to work on FCS competencies. A preliminary list of competencies was developed. There seemed to be some feeling by this committee that there is currently a lot of web based curriculum already developed that could be used for FCS competency training. This may not be the case. FCS PL's need to interface with this group to make sure nothing drops through the cracks.
Any curriculum developed would be distance education, and can be shared by all states needing basic training for agents in the identified areas. Although states would not be bound to use the developed training, it would provide a good data base of information for professional improvement. Other efforts/training/professional development activities could be accessed that would meet the training needs of each state. At some time in the future, what we develop will have to be integrated into CECP. Some question about clothing and textiles being included on the list of areas for competency development.
Discussion items were generated for Anna Mae Kobbe and Jane Coulter.
1. What is the role of the new director positions? How will she get state PL's more involved?
2. Tell us more about the Jen study.
3. Tell us more about the Health and Human Services survey.
4. How is the EASE project going?
5. What is the agenda for NEAFCS in Kansas City?
6. Update on the budget.
Other business items: 1. 2002-03 Chair and Chair Elect - the FCS PL committee chair rotation list was distributed. The rotation list includes the state level associate/assistant director from each 1890 and 1862 institutions. This means that Mildred Holland, Alcorn State University, and Beverly Howell, Mississippi State University, will serve in the roles of chair and chair-elect for 2002-2003. The chair-elect will also serve as secretary for the group. Minutes will be taken at the planned teleconferences and the Southern Region Program Leader meeting in the fall. If the new PLC guidelines are accepted by the PLC committee and ASRED, the Program Leader meeting will overlap with the ASRED meeting. This meeting may be in September in Little Rock, if guidelines are accepted by ASRED.
2. PLC representatives
Normally there are two FCS representatives to the Program Leader Committee. They serve for a three year term, and terms are usually staggered. Carolyn Nobles (Texas)has served her three years. Sarah Anderson, the 1862 representative, is no longer a program leader, so another needs to be elected. It was determined that the past chair, Kathy Volanty (Texas), would serve as PLC representative. 1890 would get together and put forth a nominee. 1890 nominations were tabled until later in the afternoon.
3. Teleconferences
Suggested teleconference dates for 2003 (second Fridays) were January 10, April 11, and July 11. Teleconferences usually convene at 9:00 CST. The Southern Region FCS PL's also normally meet at the August Southern Region Program Leader meeting and at NEAFCS.
All program leader's were especially encouraged to be proactive in attending the teleconferences. Agenda items should be sent to Mildred.
NEAFCS registration materials have already been sent. Go to the website for additional information. The Kansas City meeting will be very important for Southern Region to be represented. Listening sessions will be conducted, and each region can have a speaker to give written and oral testimony.
Nayda Torres (Florida) reported from the Leadership Council. The Leadership Council meeting will be held in Washington, D.C. on September 18-19, 2003, to further plan the Kansas City meeting. Nayda Torres will represent FCS. A special invitation has been sent by Jane Coulter to a leadership planning session on afternoon of September 19, to Board on Human Sciences, Nayda Torres from Southern Region FCS Program Leaders, Dick Bird - 4-H Extension, Susan Halborg, youth, Ag in the Classroom, Christine Knapp, Eleanor Schlenker, George Godfrey, Linda Melkrin, Mary Lawler. Plans will be discussed for a national forum that would discuss issues related to family and consumer sciences. A Southern Region representative is invited to give testimony in the national listening session at Kansas City in October. Mary Gray will also make a final report on the national FCS POW. Southern region FCS program leaders have requested a meeting time and location. Round table discussions will be held on how to survive in tough economic times.
The FCS Program Leader group reported to the Kentucky Room for a technology demonstration conducted by a University of Arizona based effort. Barbara Marino - NASA.
The FCS Program Leaders reconvened at 1:00 pm for a teleconference with Dr. Anna Mae Kobbe and Dr. Jane Coulter. After some technical difficulties, Dr. Kobbe opened with statements about her new job as Director, Family/Consumer Science and Nutrition, CSREES. The staff is now divided into two subsections headed by the two directors. Professional and support staff will report to the Directors. Directors will perform personnel/mid-management functions, as well as building partnerships, working closely with states, special projects to enhance visibility of the system, and other things as assigned. All the nutrition and consumer staff will report to Dr. Kobbe. The two directors and Deputy Director will be working as a leadership team. Dr. Kobbee would like the Directors to be invited to the Southern Region meeting next year to report, build relationships and to hear issues and needs. The Leadership Council will continue and be strengthened. The LC will be meeting in D.C. in September.
Dr. Kobbe was asked about the Kansas City agenda. Agency is hosting a listening session in NEAFCS that will be announced in the Federal Register. Professionals will be asked to provide testimony about the Family and Consumer Science or Nutrition programs currently being conducted by Cooperative Extension nationally. Listening sessions will be held periodically on all subject matter areas. The Listening Session will be held on Tuesday morning (October 8). Jim Spurling and Phil Schwab will coordinate the session (all day session). Dave Baker, Chair of EDEN (Extension Disaster Education Network) will be speaking at our PL meeting. EDEN received $600,000 from Homeland Security funds. Dr. Kobbe would like to see how family and consumer sciences can be more prominent in the Homeland Security effort. How does your state interface with EDEN? Dee Smith, former Dean of the College of Human and Environmental Sciences at Missouri who is now assistant to the president of the university, will talk about how we are addressing budget issues in tight times. She will address concerns about losing staff and programs in tough times.
Dr. Coulter discussed her goals as Deputy Administrator.
1) To strengthen and expand the resource base that available to the families 4-H and nutrition unit. This would include space allocations, operating budget, staffing, and portfolio of programs that serve our constituencies. Also expand collaborative ventures. Although there are many commonalities between 4-H and FCS units, there are also many differences. Staff has been realigned into two units and mid-level management has been introduced to enhance supervision and guidance and strengthen the number and caliber of spokespersons for each unit. Having two Directors will allow them to concentrate on the substantive aspects of the two units. Some support staff responsibilities have been reassigned and assignment of liaison roles are currently being reviewed.
2) Second goal is to introduce special initiatives that would lead to more collaborative ventures. Gladys Vaughan will be sent to the Department of Health and Human Services for a month, and Dr. Kobbe to the National Science Foundation for a month, although another staff person may be considered for NSF liaison. Hope to open up a new opportunity for FCS to serve on committees and task forces, garner more seats on review panels that review competitive grants, and to send some of their staff to the FCS PL key meetings to increase opportunities for funding and communication. Another special initiative to increase collaborative ventures will bring on a couple of shared faculty members from minority institutions. This request is pending. .25 individual from a minority institution has been requested to join Larry Jones in working on the FSNEP program. Also requested .5 faculty to achieve diversity goals in 4-H program. Board on Human Sciences requested support for a project - funding granted for Dennis Saviano (Ohio State) to manage a benchmarking study for collecting data over the web that would provide a clear picture of Colleges of Human Sciences for measuring progress in future years. A third initiative centers around attracting young people to future leadership roles. Dr. Coulter and Dr. Kobbe would like to sponsor a prestigious event next spring called Leadership Renaissance. It will bring together representatives of key organizations that span 4-H, youth development, nutrition, family and human development - 150+ people. Planning meeting to be held September 19, 1:30-5:00 pm. Several individuals coming to assist - Virginia Moxley (BoHS), Nayda Torres (FCS-Extension), others from 4-H, FFA, Ag in the Classroom, Christine Nepp (University of Wisconsin), Eleanor Schlenker (Virginia Tech), HHS, and others.
Are moving forward with a special initiative in the President's 2004 executive budget request. We are in at this point - in the area of obesity. Graduate fellowships for Extension in the health service arena, increase for EFNEP, increase for nutrition science and research through NRI, and to launch a new competitive grants program for Extension in the area of obesity prevention and management.
Dr. Coulter announced a new secretary that would be working with Dr. Kobbe - Veronica Pettiford. Also reminded the vacancy announcement for the Deputy Director for Family, 4-H and Nutrition will open until August 31. Highly qualified applicants are encouraged. Announcement for Director for Youth Development is almost ready to announce.
Dr. Kobbe had a few more comments about the NEAFCS meeting. There will be a presentation by Larry Jones on FSNEP and Mary Gray on the accountability report as it ties to EASE. Also brief update on securing additional funding for EFNEP. We will also have a session on competencies, Jim Lindquist (chairs ECOP committee on professional development). There will be time for regions to meet. Also time for PL's to attend awards program. PL's will need to be there for 8:30 am meeting on October 8 through awards program on Wednesday.
Question:
Increasing interest in the area of Homeland Security - do either of you have comments on where FCS should be?
Answer:
This is still a very political issue. Have been pretty specific about what agency's roles should be - in USDA invasive species and genomics. As HS is organized topics will expand. Deputy Directors have had to turn in what each program areas is doing in homeland security. Felt like strong family unit is essential. Problems will have to be dealt with at family and community level.
EDEN will continue to evolve. Need to have things ready to go. We may need to lay out a portfolio of initiatives that we would be able to address rather than waiting for the call.
Question:
What is the Jen study and how will it affect FCS?
Answer:
Dr. Jen decided we would do a study of Extension and assigned Dr. Hefferan the details to implement. Dr. Hefferan will receive comments from the listening session in Kansas City to feed into the Jen study. Dr. Kobbe will send us an email update.
Question:
Where is the HHS survey?
Answer:
Met with Carol Anderson a week ago. She will be in Washington to present the results to the Leadership Council on September 18.
Question:
Update on EASE?
Answer:
Proactively sharing accountability committee's work with Phil Dobkowsky and Cheryl Oris on September 4. Will have some additional information for us at NEAFCS. Some of the states piloting EASE are Texas, Florida, and others.
Question:
Any other opportunities for funding curriculum development for Extension audiences?
Answer:
Higher Education Challenge Grants program would be a possibility. Section 406-7 should be a primary target for funding FCS curriculum. Ron Brown suggested that we look into the Challenge Grant dollars for preparing materials for undergraduate curriculum development and then also use it for Extension. Most departments are integrated, so this would apply.
Dr. Kobbe and Dr. Coulter were thanked for setting aside time for the teleconference.
Dr. Ron Brown, Executive Director of Association of Southern Region Extension Directors addressed the group. He commented about the Jen study. He encouraged FCS to encourage constituency groups to mobilize and report on our value. Commodity groups are listed to by Congress, are our groups? NACo would be a good ally. How can we get stakeholders to provide testimony for FCS? Provide outcome information and then anecdotal information provided by participants.
CECP - resources will be attained from resource redirection and new money. We duplicate each other terribly. Why are we taking time and resources to duplicate curriculum when we could work together? Working together on materials that are peer reviewed are going to improve our resources. We are waiting to see if PL groups buy into CECP. CECP could be folded into e-Extension. CECP should be offered to other regions along with e-Extension. If other states will buy into e-Extension, we can get funding. Ag Telecom project is already authorized and funded. This could be a source of funding for e-Extension. Requests to corporate funders will be stronger if we go as a group of states, rather than individually. Challenge will be to agree on a set of standards to develop materials. Will need 12 - 2 million a year to fund e-Extension.
The CECP idea started when Dave Foster(Oklahoma) raised the question at ASRED if other states were working on professional staff development. Texas and North Carolina were also working in this area. North Carolina and Texas were asked to present at Roanoke as a proposal to work on this jointly. States were asked to send teams to Atlanta to do further work. Margaret Johnson chaired an evaluation group. Judith Jones chaired inventory and demonstration group. Mitch Owen, Don Hamilton also chaired groups. Other groups are working on competencies. We have to look to the future.
Timeline after this meeting includes getting all seven committees agreeing to do the taxonomies in 1-2 months or so. Once the guidelines have been accepted, we will move ahead. A steering committee will meet again to lay out the next phase. We will keep you informed. There is a website to keep everyone updated. We need your input. We will have to start making more decisions on the fly using technology. Joan Dusky chaired the fcs competency committee in Atlanta. The FCS PL group is in charge of FCS taxonomy.
Ron was thanked for dialoguing with the FCS group and we look forward to working with him in the future.
Because we were a little ahead of schedule, several states gave their updates.
At 3:30 pm, the FCS PL group met jointly with the 4-H PL group and CRD PL group. Gae Broadwater (CD Chair) reported on the CD training offerings that were now in a brochure that had been distributed through the mail and at the meetings. 4-H reported on funding opportunities. Proposed federal initiatives were discussed. Partnerships were recommended. Joint programs were suggested such as diversity in programming - professional development opportunities that include understanding ethnic groups.
The FCS PL group returned to their meeting room. FCS PL's would support a learning module developed jointly on understanding diverse cultures. Possibly as a part of character education multi-state effort. CYFAR gave money to three states (Florida, Tennessee and one other) to develop a module on diversity. Interest was expressed in developing or taking advantage of what is being developed throughout the southern region. These opportunities need to be shared across the southern region. States started with update reports. The meeting was adjourned at 5:20 pm.
Lynda Harriman (Oklahoma) was elected (and graciously consented) to give testimony at the NEAFCS CSREES Listening Session in Kansas City. She will be gathering information from our states to prepare her report.
Kathy Volanty (Texas) will be serving as PLC representative for 1 1/2 years, Thelma Sanders-Hunter (Tennessee) will be the 1890 representative to PLC, serving three years.
Kathy thanked everyone for their support during her year as secretary and chair. Mildred Holland (Mississippi) will assuming the role of chair for 2002-2003, with Beverly Howell (Tennessee) serving as secretary and chair-elect.
Meeting was adjourned at 12:00 noon.
Competency Groups
Program Leaders Committee Report
List Serve
Suggested Template for Competency Identification