Healthy Food Systems, Healthy People – ECOP had a significant role organizing the Joint COPs 2014 meeting July 21-23 in San Diego. The theme Healthy Food Systems, Healthy People evolved from a letter from ECOP Chair, Jimmy Henning, University of Kentucky, to the APLU Board on Agriculture Assembly Policy Board of Directors requesting time on the agenda to review the work of the ECOP National Task Force on Health, chaired by Michelle Rodgers, University of Delaware. What has resulted is an integrated work session with representatives from the Administrative Heads, Academic Programs, Cooperative Extension Experiment Station and International Agriculture Sections, plus the Board on Human Sciences. The purpose of the meeting is to engage all sections of the Board on Agriculture Assembly and others in a discussion to set priorities, identify funding opportunities, and adopt integrated approaches to address vexing national and global issues related to health. Nearly all ECOP members and liaisons are planning to attend.
Big Data, Unmanned Aerial Systems & Wearable Technologies are New User Groups – eXtension has created three user communities around Big Data, Unmanned Aerial Systems, and Wearable Technologies. Many of our professionals in the Land-grant University System are beginning to work or have an interest in all three of these areas. To discuss possible uses, share results of projects, and create new efforts to test and evaluate innovative uses, join the Big Data community at https://people.extension.org/communities/1709; Unmanned Aerial Systems at https://people.extension.org/communities/1708, and Wearable Technology at https://people.extension.org/communities/1707.
Extension Centennial News – The Smith-Lever Webinar series, sponsored by Epsilon Sigma Phi, Mu Chapter at USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture, observes the Extension Centennial Celebration this year. Go to http://nifa-connect.nifa.usda.gov/p7pjte8pb57/ to view Keith Tidball’s presentation Implementing EDEN in a State Context: A New York State of Mind. Tidball is senior extension associate in the Department of Natural Resources at Cornell University, Associate Director of the Civic Ecology Lab and Program Leader for the Nature & Human Security Program, and State Coordinator for the New York Extension Disaster Education Network. Tidball currently is a Visiting Scholar at USDA-NIFA in the Division of Family & Consumer Sciences.
ECOP Recommends Advisory Board Member – Together with the Experiment Station Committee on Organization and Policy (ESCOP), ECOP has recommended Milo Shult, Vice President for Agriculture (retired), University of Arkansas, to assume another term on the USDA National Agricultural Research, Extension, and Economics (NAREEE) Advisory Board. The announcement for eight openings on the board appeared in the Federal Register (79 FR 35512, June 23, 2014) http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2014-06-23/pdf/2014-14578.pdf. If approved, Shult, who has served on the board since 2011, represents 1862 Land-Grant Colleges and Universities. For more information, including the 2013 recommendations about Cooperative Extension, see http://nareeeab.ree.usda.gov.
Register for APLU Annual Meeting – Progress through Partnerships is the theme of the 2014 APLU Annual Meeting November 2-4 in Orlando, FL. Early registration runs until 7.31.14 at http://www.cvent.com/d/t4q93z. The hotel room block for the Hilton Bonnet Creek Resort is at https://resweb.passkey.com/Resweb.do?mode=welcome_ei_new&eventID=11135815. Cooperative Extension meets for dinner Monday evening when the ECOP chair gavel will be passed from Jimmy Henning, University of Kentucky, to Delbert Foster, South Carolina State University.
