Cooperative Extension Celebrates Excellence

Delbert Foster, ECOP Chair 2014-15 stands with Excellence in Extension Award recipients: Virginie Zoumenou (1890); Dana Martin (Western); Julie Garden-Robinson (North Central); Mary Jane Willis for Chang Lu Wang (Northeast); National Award - Joe Outlaw and Region - Derrell Peel (Southern)

Yesterday, ECOP Chair Delbert Foster assisted in recognizing Cooperative Extension colleagues at an awards celebration at the APLU Annual Meeting in Indianapolis. The national and regional awards recognize excellence in Extension programming. An additional award recognizes diversity and inclusion. Details about the award winners can be found HERE. Extension directors and administrators are encouraged to nominate colleagues for the 2016 awards. The call for nominations will be announced soon.

eXtension Unveils Professional Development Course – The new online Impact Statement Reporting course, created by land-grant communications professionals especially for Extension faculty and educators, is now available at https://about.extension.org/2015/11/03/new-online-impact-statement-reporting-course-now-available/. 

Health Insurance Survey Due 11.20.15 – The ECOP Health Insurance Literacy Action Team, led by Virginia Brown (University of Maryland Extension) is surveying family and consumer sciences and agriculture Extension educators nationwide to understand what is being taught around health insurance literacy. The team wants to understand what Extension educators are teaching and barriers to doing health insurance literacy programs. Your state’s input will be helpful to guide recommendations for the whole system. Please ask those who have not yet completed the survey to do so by 11.20.15. Any questions can be directed to Virginia Brown vbrown12@umd.edu. The link is: https://umdsurvey.umd.edu/SE/?SID=SV_0lBjFCrZQ9PRLvL. 

Urban Webinar Focuses on Research – The next Western Center for Metropolitan Extension & Research webinar is 3:00 p.m. ET, 11.18.15 on the topic Metropolitan Extension Best Practices: What is our research base?. Register at https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/8315340729270843650. 

Community Development, Natural Resources Conference Proposals Due 12.18.15 – Building a Path to Resilience: Uniting Natural Resources and Community Development is the theme of the joint National Association of Community Development Professionals (NACDEP) and Association of Natural Resource Extension Professionals (ANREP) conference June 26-29, 2016 in Burlington, VT. Proposals are due 12.18.15 at Click here to submit. Direct questions to Joshua Clements (jclement@iastate.edu, 563-213-9357) or Mary Sisock (mary.sisock@uvm.edu, 802-656-1721). 

USDA-NIFA Releases 2014 Report – Based on the vision to "catalyze transformative discoveries, education, and engagement to address agricultural challenges," USDA-NIFA Director Sonny Ramaswamy has released the agency’s 2014 Annual Report here. It describes how USDA-NIFA is advancing agricultural science to solve societal challenges.