USDA-NIFA Webinars on FY 2015 Centers of Excellence – The 2014 Farm Bill requires that NIFA give priority in competitive research and Extension funding to Centers of Excellence in the food and agricultural sciences. As part of its outreach effort, NIFA’s Office of Grants and Financial Management will hold two educational webinars to present information on the FY15 implementation of the Centers of Excellence Provision. The webinars will be held from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. EST, Feb. 26 and March 5, 2015 - Webinar access. NIFA will be announcing a separate series of webinars to solicit stakeholder input on FY 2016 Centers of Excellence Implementation.
NEW eXtension Seeks CEO – The eXtension Foundation Board of Directors has released the Chief Executive Officer position description, which is available at about.extension.org under Featured News. The position closes at 5:00 pm P.T. on Monday, 3.16.15. Mail completed applications to Michelle Giddens michellegiddens@extension.org. Questions can be directed to Dennis Calvin dcalvin@psu.edu, Chair, eXtension Governing Committee, or Elbert Dickey edickey@extension.org, Executive Director, eXtension Foundation.
NEW eXtension Displays at Ag Outlook Forum – The NEW eXtension, a member-driven initiative of Cooperative Extension, was a center attraction at the 2015 USDA Agriculture Outlook Forum http://www.usda.gov/oce/forum/ last week in Crystal City, VA. Extension education innovations in big data, unmanned aerial systems, virtual reality, and wearable technologies were highlights of the exhibit area at the forum.
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| Cathie Woteki, USDA Chief Scientist and Research, Education and Economics Under Secretary, trying out wearable technologies. |
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| Victor Villegas, Oregon State University, shows the micro "drone" unmanned aerial vehicle he demonstrated. |
FY 2016 Federal Budget Priorities – See http://land-grant.org/appropriations_docs.html for the documents summarizing the Board on Agriculture Assembly (BAA) Congressional requests for the FY 2016 Federal Budget Priorities. In addition to the overall document to be used by the Council of Agriculture Research, Extension and Teaching (CARET) during Hill visits the first week in March, there are documents for each of the seven priorities – Smith-Lever (b)&(c), 1890 Institutions Extension, Hatch Act, Evans-Allen, McIntire-Stennis Cooperative Forestry 1994 Institutions Research and Extension, and the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative. Cooperative Extension leaders representing ECOP in this decision-making process are ECOP Budget and Legislative Committee Chair Rick Klemme, University of Wisconsin, and BAA Policy Board of Directors elected member Tim Cross, University of Tennessee.
National Health Outreach Conference – Early bird registration ends April 1, 2015 for the National Health Outreach Conference May 6-8, 2015 in Atlanta. Highlights of the meeting include a pre-conference Workshop, educational Tours, and keynote Speakers. See www.nationalhealthoutreach.org for more information.
APLU Launches New Website – A massive overhaul and redesign of www.aplu.org features a more intuitive navigation system, new ways to feature member institutions, a more functional library of APLU publications, and better integration with social media platforms. Built with a responsive design, the new website also is more friendly for those viewing it on a phone or tablet. ECOP maintains information on the APLU site that can be viewed via the redirect URL of www.extension.org/ecop.
