ACTION ITEMS
Southern Region Program Leaders Annual Meeting
Each individual Southern Region Program Committee has surveyed and/or discussed the possibility of changing the date of the Annual Meeting so that it will allow for a better flow of information between the Southern PLC and the Southern Directors and Administrators. Many possibility alternatives have been discussed, and the Southern PLC recommends that the Annual Meeting be moved to the last week of April or the first week of May. Possible facilities will be explored for the Atlanta area for a 2001 meeting.
Strengthening Extension Advisory Leadership
The Southern Program Leadership Committee recommends your approval of a regional meeting to be hosted by North Carolina in 2001 which was submitted to PLC by the Program and Staff Development Committee and the Middle Management Committee. The full proposal can be found in Appendix A.
Web-based Grammar Training for Extension Employees
Revised proposal is found as Appendix B.
Triennal 4-H Specialists Meeting
The Southern Program Leadership Committee recommends approval of the proposal by the State 4-H Youth Development Program Leaders for a face-to-face meeting of state and district Extension specialists working in the area of 4-H Youth Development. Proposal for this meeting is found in Appendix C.
INFORMATION ITEMS
Southern Program Leaders Meeting
Over 190 persons have pre-registered for the Puerto Rico meeting which is the highest number of preregistered participants since the Joint Southern Region Program Committee Meeting began 11 years ago. A program that will feature much discussion about the future of the Extension system in the South has been planned for joint sessions.
Sustainable Development: Building Quality Communities Meeting
Plans are progressing for this regional conference which is scheduled for October 10-12, 2000, in Nashville, Tennessee. The conference features information around the various aspects of building quality communities as follows:
Growing a Sustainable EconomyThe multi-disciplinary planning team is chaired by Curtis Absher and Ed Jones. Registration materials have been distributed electronically and printed versions will be distributed during the upcoming Joint Southern Region Program Committee meeting.
Protecting Natural Resources
Exploring Smart Growth
Creating Community
Governing Sustainably
Living Sustainably
Agriculture and Natural Resources Leaders
INFORMATION ITEMS:
The spring meeting of the ANR leaders was held March 26, in conjunction with the national ANR meeting, in San Antonio, Texas. Information regarding that meeting follows:
PRESENT:
R. Crickenberger R. Love A. Powell M. French C. Absher S. Halbrook R. Lacewell C. McPeake B. Harris D. Kopp B. Tyson M. Ouart C. Depew B. Hubbard S. Umberger D. Foster M. Horton R. Olmeda J. Schaefer Chairman Clint Depew opened the meeting at 3:00 p.m. on Sunday, March 26 with a review of the agenda and a request for items that needed to be added to the agenda. He welcomed new members of the ANR Leaders' group and had everyone introduce themself.
Bill Harris made a motion seconded by Curtis Absher that the minutes from the last meeting be approved as presented. The motion was voted on and passed.
Advisor's Comments--Dr. David Foster, Advisor, indicated that the next meeting of the Southern Region Extension Directors will be held in Tulsa in April. At that meeting, discussion will be held on the feasibility of hiring a Regional Extension Director. The outcome of that discussion should be known by the next PLC meeting.
Ag Policy and Our Role--Dr. Ron Knutson, Texas A&M Ag Policy Center, made a presentation on agricultural policy and the role states play in policy development. His presentation centered on the two areas of 1) economic situation and outlook; and 2) policy situation and outlook.
Regional Web Page Committee and Master Naturalist Program
Michael Ouart gave an update on the regional PLC web site that had been developed (http://www.ext.msstate.edu/srdc/). He indicated that each state should check and verify the contact information listed for their state. Changes should be forwarded to Bonnie Teater. Ir addition, each state should send Bonnie Teater the web site address for their programs in agriculture and natural resources. Michael also indicated that the regional Master Naturalist Task Force had met recently and that things were progressing well.401 & 406 Grant Update
Dennis Kopp, CREES, indicated that the RFP for Future Agriculture and Food Systems (401) would be coming out soon. The deadline for proposals would most likely be extended past the original date of May 8. Unfortunately, there was a chance that Congress might eliminate the funding for the program through a supplemental budget bill currently under consideration. Dennis encouraged preparation of proposals on a multi-state and multi-disciplinary basis.The integrated competitive grants (406) RFP should be coming out in late March with a 60-day time period for submission. All four-year accredited colleges are eligible to submit proposals to the integrated competitive grants programs. New integrated grants activities that will become available in 2001 include 1) Youth farm safety education and certification; and 2) Pesticide applicator training.
Mike French indicated that the regional pesticide impact assessment program committee would like to prepare a proposal to be submitted for the region for pesticide impact assessment. Joe Schaefer made a motion seconded by Mac Horton that such a proposal be prepared. It was voted on and passed.
Regional Forester-- Bill Hubbard distributed his report as regional forester. He indicated that there had been 1400 participants at 62 satellite sites for the Master Tree Farmer program with over 29,000 contact hours. It was pointed out that it was important that ANR program leaders visit with their Extension Directors to let them know the benefits of the regional forester program.
PLC Recommendations--The following recommendations were made for Bill Harris to carry forward to the PLC.
Carry forward the recommendation that a regional master naturalist program be established
Bill Harris made a motion that was seconded by Joe Schaefer that the Southern Region Water Quality Committee conduct a water quality workshop in 2001. It was voted on and passed.
Communications and Information Technology
INFORMATION ITEMS:
Dr. William Lambert, one of the advisors of the Communications and IT committee, will not be attending the PLC meeting in Puerto Rico, however, he has asked Dr. Stephen Jones, Extension Director of the Alabama Cooperative Extension System, Auburn University, to substitute for him.
The Communications and IT committee will tackle the problem of "duplication of subject matter written materials" that was discussed at last year's PLC meeting. This will be our main topic of discussion in our meetings in Puerto Rico.
An internet radio network project called Radio Source.Net is a collaborative effort involving the University of Georgia, Texas A&M University, Mississippi State, the University of Kentucky, and the University of Florida, which is the lead institution for the project. Ashley Wood - University of Florida will report on the project's progress during our committee meetings.
The IT group will focus its attention on regional projects that deal specifically within their scope of expertise, e.g., the IT group will provide technical support as requested from other groups, but would not initiate proposals for projects centered in subject matter program areas. Some examples are the storage of print-on-demand images at Florida and the use of the North Carolina calendar program.
The Communications and IT committee favored having the Southern Region PLC meeting moved to the spring or early summer, however thought that consideration should be given to the 4-H committee's concerns about conflicts in already established dates of 4-H events, many of which are held in late spring/early summer.
A collaborative effort involving a consortium of 1890 institutions titled FF:NEWS (Families First: Nutrition, Education and Wellness System) project includes Prairie View A&M University - Texas; Langston University - Oklahoma; South Carolina State University; Southern University and A&M College - Louisiana; and the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff. This consortium currently collaborates on preparing a newsletter and is discussing the development of a FF:NEWS CD which can be used for each institution's training efforts.
The agenda for our upcoming Communications and IT committee meeting in Puerto Rico follows:
Agenda
Monday - p.m. - August 28
Introductions
Report on Radio Source.Net project - FL, GA, MS, KY and TX - Ashley WoodGroup discussion and brainstorming on how to lessen the duplication of subject matter written
materials (overall theme of meetings)
Training Resources and Status of Collaborative Projects - Nina Boston - IT representative
Share Sessions - 10 minute presentations from various states with a 5 minute discussion period.
Discussion on Publication Database Collaboration across the southern region
General discussion on Sharing Job Descriptions (especially for Web and Multimedia positions)
Committee Night OutTuesday - p.m. - August 29
IT and Communications meet separately
"Puerto Rican Night Out"Wednesday - a.m. - August 30
1. Discussion of Action items to take forward to the Administrators and Directors
2. Any other items
Meeting should be adjourned by 10:30 a.m.
Community Development
INFORMATION ITEMS:
The 1999-2000 USDA CSREES Base Program Strategic Team is well represented by land-grant specialists. The Community Resources and Economic Development Base Program Team is represented by Rick Maurer, Virgil Culver, and Ernie Hughes. The Leadership and Volunteer Development Base Program Team is represented by Chris Sieverdes, Joe Waldrum, Martha Nall, and Rosalie Bivin.
The Southern Community Development Institute had 27 participants enrolled this year. This is the third year of the Institute which was taught by a panel of specialists in Extension and experts from outside the land-grant system. The Institute was held in Canton, Mississippi, on June 12-16. Seven participants were enrolled for graduate credit. The presenter evaluations by participants were exceptional. The Institute is held in high regard by those exposed to it.
The Southern Extension Health Institute is scheduled for October 2-6, 2000 in Canton, Mississippi. Registration materials have been distributed to all Extension directors and administrators.
E-Commerce, Business Retention and Expansion in the Southern Region, and a specialized Leadership and Business Retention and Expansion program is being developed during the current year.
Other developments include an active and current webpage which contains numerous links regarding community and economic development resources.
Family and Consumer Sciences
INFORMATION ITEMS:
The Southern Region Family and Consumer Sciences Health and Resource Management
Accountability Conference was held in Irving Texas in April, 2000. This is the second accountability conference addressing the identification of common program evaluation indicators that can be used to determine program impact within a state and across the region.The Family and Consumer Science Program Leaders will address the multi-state programming opportunities during the 2000 Southern Region Program Leaders Conference in Puerto Rico. Programs of significance have been identified by states and these will form the bases for identifying multi-state program opportunities and evaluation strategies.
Dr. Alma Hobbs (CSREES) has been invited to the Puerto Rico meting to discuss the federal perspective on multi-state programming and indicators of what constitutes a successful multi-state program. The Family and Consumer Sciences Program Leaders from across the nation will be meeting during the National Association of Extension Family and Consumer Sciences October Annual Meeting in Baltimore, MD. The Southern Region Family and Consumer Sciences Program Leaders are scheduled to meet on Oct. 16 during the NAEFCS meeting.
4-H Youth Development
INFORMATION ITEMS:
Middle Management
ACTION ITEMS:
INFORMATIONAL ITEMS:
Program and Staff Development
INFORMATION ITEMS:
Southern Extension Leadership Development Program (SELD)
SELD was approved by the Southern Region Directors and Administrators in 1994 and is sponsored by the Southern Region Program and Staff Development Committee (P&SD). Three regional workshops have been conducted and 10 of the 13 states have sponsored SELD workshops within their states. Over 1000 Extension, research and teaching faculty in the Southern Region have completed SELD workshops. Their evaluations of the workshops average 9.3 on a 10 point scale. The last scheduled regional SELD workshop was cancelled due to lack of participation, apparently because most states are now offering the program locally.P&SD has communicated with Middle Management Committee (MM) representatives about future scheduling and advertising of this program to best meet the needs across the Southern Region. A packet of information was sent to Fred Boughton, MM PLC Representative. P&SD has proposed a joint meeting with MM in Puerto Rico to discuss this further. We believe this is an excellent program and are anxious to make it available to professionals in all states of the region.
On-Line Evaluation Resources
The Southern Region Program and Staff Development committee has developed and continues to maintain an on-line collection of program development and evaluation resources from across the region. The effort is designed to maximize cross-state utilization of existing resources and improve evaluation practice across the region. The site includes a wide variety of fact sheets, publications, and manuals on evaluation methods and principles. Since the site was launched in October 1999 it has been accessed 1,641 times. Future plans include expanding the site to include resources from the rest of the country as well as just the Southern Region.Southern Region Accountability Workshop on Health and Family Resource Management
The Southern Region Program and Staff Development Committee provided technical support to the Southern Region Accountability Workshop on Health and Family Resource Management held April 10-12 in Dallas, Texas. More than 100 administrators, specialists, and field staff participated in this training. Participants saw examples of various impact assessment projects that had been conducted across the South and worked to build consensus on common indicators that might be used to document program impact.
Title: Strengthening Extension Advisory Leadership
Situation:
Volunteer leadership and advisory input into programs is the strength of Cooperative Extension. The potential for advisory leader input is powerful. In addition, Federal requirement for Agricultural Extension and Research funding calls for increased stakeholder input. Many states satisfy this requirement through advisory leader involvement in needs assessment, prioritization, and issue advocacy.
The National Leadership Seminar sponsored by the National Association of Land-Grant Colleges and Universities has provided and opportunity for state advisory leaders to learn more about issues and how to be more effective as advocates for extension. The CARET (Council on Agriculture, Research, Extension and Teaching) meeting is another opportunity for a small group of leaders to share ideas and advocate with key congressional leaders. The focus of these national conferences of advisory leaders however, is not to strengthen advisory leadership capacity or partnerships between volunteers and extension paid faculty. The Southern Region structure provides a forum for accomplishing these objectives, as well as modeling inclusiveness, sharing resources and sharing ways of organizing advisory systems.
Advisory leaders are a tremendous asset to extension. To be most effective, they need knowledge and skill training about Land-Grant, Cooperative Extension, advocacy, needs assessment, networking and much more. Identifying common needs for curriculum, training materials and pooling expertise and experience across the region will help strengthen all state advisory systems. There are also community-based and agricultural issues that cut across state lines. This proposal will create an environment to nurture the development of partnerships and collaborative efforts.
The Proposal:
Convene a three-day, regional meeting hosted by North Carolina for the spring of 2001. The objectives of this meeting would be:
1. States to share how they are structured, their mission within Extension, and resources
they use for developing leaders.
2. Identify common issues that may offer potential for collaborative multi-state
programming.
3. Developing a curriculum for building the capacity of volunteer leaders of states
throughout the South.Paid staff and volunteer advisory leaders from all the states in the Southern Region and all 1890
Institutions will be invited to send a team of four to six people with the following job groups suggested:
- Advisory leaders
- County faculty
- Middle management
- State staff
- Program leaders
Projected Outcomes:
It is anticipated that the following outcomes will result from a well-designed and facilitated
meeting:
- Organizational, environmental scanning and issue assessment tools and other resources shared
- Common issues identified
- A curriculum of training materials
- Recommendations developed for collaborations
Title: Web-based Grammar Training for Extension Employees
Justification:
Research has shown that people with good language skills tend to hold more responsible positions and to be more successful within organizations. Our use of language reflects not only on us as individuals but on the organizations for which we work. This is especially important for Extension employees, who must translate research-based information for a variety of lay audiences.
Grammar and punctuation are the foundations for clear communication. However, for many of our employees (including secretaries, agents, specialists, and administrators), it may have been years since they last studied grammar. In 1997, then Dean Billy Hicks of the University of Tennessee Agricultural Extension Service decided that all Extension employees needed a refresher course in grammar to improve deficiencies he identified in the writing of many employees. Communications staff members traveled across the state, offering a series of popular grammar workshops. However, because of limited time (on the part of the trainers and the participants), only an abbreviated overview of grammar could be covered. Web-based training would allow Extension employees to review grammar principles on their own time, in their own space, and in greater depth.
Other states report similar training needs. In Georgia, for example, a retired district supervisor/county agent replied that although other communications training workshops were welcomed, secretaries really needed grammar training, since they knew others relied upon them to know grammar rules. At Prairie View A&M in Texas, agents and specialists often call the communications office, looking for advice on grammar and writing. They, too, could use a grammar refresher or a source for quick grammar information. The same could be said for secretaries, agents, and specialists throughout Extension nationwide.
Objectives and Expected Outcomes:
1. See improvement in participants' knowledge and application of grammar
principles.
2. Learn important information about whether and how Web-based instruction can help with basic skills competency.
3. Design and create five grammar modules, each about 15- to 20-minutes long.
4. Use a course-development tool to post modules on the Web.
5. Pilot-test the modules.
6. Evaluate the data received through online tests and surveys and make
adjustments as needed.
7. Use pilot-test results to seek grant funds for a more complete Web-based
grammar project.
Proposed Products:
We plan to create five grammar modules focusing on such topics as the correct use of commas, noun-verb agreement, and active versus passive verbs. We will use a course development tool such as Learning Space or Course Info to post modules on the Web.
The educational content for the modules will come from a nationally recognized educational package titled Training the Grammar Trainer: Fun Workshops a la Carte. The authors (Dr. LaRae Donnellan from Tennessee, Professor Meg Ashman of Vermont, and Dr. Florita Montgomery of West Virginia) are recognized for their teaching expertise as well.
Timeline:
Create educational modules Pilot-test program Evaluate and share results
Suggested Membership:
All land-grant universities would be invited to participate in this project, for a contribution of $1,000 each. At least 10 states would need to participate to make the project feasible. Up to 50 participants in each state would be allowed to try the modules.
Tennessee Extension will provide the content, design the graphics, create the educational packages, evaluate the data, and provide a server to host the material The lion's share of the out-of-pocket expenses will be to hire student help for programming and site construction.
Evaluation of Planned Activities:
By using a course-development tool, we will be able to use the administrative capabilities to monitor who uses the educational modules, since "students" must enroll for the "course." The program would allow us to track how successful each student is and whether some questions are more problematic than others. We can also ask students their thoughts about Web-based training, once they have completed each module.
The results of this study can be used to evaluate the feasibility of using Web-based instruction for improving basic competencies, such as grammar. After completing the study, we will present a final report to the Southern Region Program Leadership Committee. If the project proves successful, then we will seek additional funding from other sources to create a more complete Web-based grammar project.
| Submitted by: | Dr. LaRae M. Donnellan Professor and Section Leader Extension Communications The University of Tennessee |
Title: Triennial 4-H Specialists Conference Proposal--March 11-15, 2002 in San Antonio at the Menger Hotel.
Justification:
There is a need for periodic face to face interaction among state and district
Extension specialists working in the area of 4-H Youth Development. The purpose of this
meeting is bring specialists from throughout the southern Extension region together to discuss
emerging issues within the field of youth development and allow individual program groups to
work on specific programs that relate to core programs in 4-H Youth Development.
Objectives and Expected Outcomes:
The primary preliminary goals are as follows:
1. To strengthen networks between specialists working in core and emerging areas of 4-H
such as camping, leadership development, awards and recognition, curriculum development, staff development, fund development, and character education.
2. To share program successes with peers and to exchange ideas.
3. To report current research and evaluation that is being conducted in the region as related
to 4-H youth development issues.
Proposed Products: Conference
Timeline:
- August 2000 State 4-H Program leaders nominate staff for a planning committee. The Host
State will book the dates with the conference hotel.
- By December 2000 all 1890 and 1862 4-H staff at the state and district level along with their administrators will be notified of the date of the meeting.
- Spring, 2001 a committee which represents a diverse cross-section of state program leaders
and state specialists from the 1890 and 1862 institutes to begin the development of a
conference program.
- Summer of 2001 Program leaders will review the proposed conference program and make and final additions or changes.
- Fall 2001 Conference registrations will be sought.
Suggested Membership:
All state and district or area faculty/specialists in 4-H youth development.
Evaluation of Planned Activities:
A conference evaluation will be conducted with program highlights being reported back to Directors and Administrators.