Excellence in Extension and Diversity Awards Announced

Please Note: The ECOP Monday Minute will return on November 6, 2017 

Louie Rivers, Jr.
Kentucky State University

Louie Rivers, Jr., Kentucky State University, will receive the 2017 Excellence in Extension Award, and the 2017 Extension Diversity Award will go to Oregon State University’s Youth Development Program "Attitudes for Success Youth Leadership Program". With visionary leadership, excellence in programming, and positive impact, Rivers has helped secure and manage more than $12 million in extramural funding to enhance Kentucky State University’s work with the small, limited-resource, minority, veteran and women farmers in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Participants of the Small Farmers Program have shown an annual increase of $5,000 per participant. His leadership has impacted more the 20,000 individuals at Kentucky State University’s monthly sustainable agriculture workshop “Third Thursday Thing”.
Since the inception of "Attitude for Success" in 1989, more than 9,000 Hispanic and Native American youth have participated in the “Attitudes for Success” program. Over 950 students have served as youth council officers and 270 professionals, including university and college representatives from institutions located in the northwest, have volunteered as presenters, many for multiple years. Local mentors assist the youth in leadership engagement such as running for student body officer positions or planning community events. As a result of the impact, longevity, and the availability of curriculum and evaluation tools, the program is being replicated to other states. In addition to the 2 national awards, the Extension educators named below, one from each of the five Cooperative Extension regions, will be recognized for excellence. U.S. Department of Agriculture National Institute for Food and Agriculture (USDA-NIFA) and the Cooperative Extension Section have sponsored the Excellence in Extension and National Diversity awards since 1991. All awards will be presented at the Annual Meeting of the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) in Washington on Nov. 12, 2017.

Row 1- Misty Blue-Terry, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University (1890s Region); Kevin Erb, University of Wisconsin-Extension (North Central Region) and Chet Arnold, University of Connecticut (Northeast Region). Row 2-  Damona Doye, Oklahoma State University (Southern Region), and Marsha Goetting, Montana State University (Western Region)

Seeking a Host Land-grant University for 2019 National Extension Conference on Volunteerism - Volunteers form the basis of a very effective leveraging of core funding from federal, state and local sources. The National Extension Conference on Volunteerism provides an opportunity to develop volunteer management skills and has been held every other year since 1999. Since then, new strategies have been developed, research conducted, evaluations implemented, and priorities identified at the local, state, and national level. The 11th National Extension Conference on Volunteerism will be held in April or May, 2019. All land-grant universities interested in hosting the conference should submit a hosting proposal by December 8, 2017. Email Doug Swanson dswanson@nifa.usda.gov to request hosting criteria and application.


Reminder – New Administrators Orientation Registration Is Open - The orientation workshop is intended for individuals on the APLU Board on Agriculture Assembly (BAA) and their supporting administrators or faculty and USDA-NIFA personnel who have entered an administrative position since 2013 and any others who would like to learn more about APLU, the land-grant university system, the BAA, and USDA-NIFA. Information presented will be particularly useful to administrative heads, directors, associate/assistant directors, and USDA-NIFA national program leaders and administrators. The workshop’s learning objectives are:

• Discuss compelling issues facing land-grant university Administrators as well as budgeting and accountability advice. 
• Gain valuable tips from experienced administrators and how to be a proactive administrator. 
• Learn how the APLU, BAA, USDA-Research, Education, and Economics, and USDA-NIFA work together to advance research, education and Extension. 
• Learn how to become involved at the national level to influence federal legislation and decisions made by USDA-NIFA and other agencies. 
• Understand the diverse roles of various institutional types within the Land-grant University System and the BAA. 
• Establish strategic networks with colleagues. 

Reserve a hotel room (by 11/21/17) and register for the meeting ($375 until 11/6/17). The planning committee is finalizing the speakers for the agenda, and every session will include time for Q&A with many having small group and other interactive components to them. For information and to register, please click here. A pre-workshop webinar will be conducted on December 5th from 3:00-4:00 p.m. Eastern Time. Connection details will be provided in the 11/6/17 ECOP Monday Minute.

Director Ed Jones (Virginia Cooperative Extension)
joins Vermont 4-H'ers from the Flying Hooves Club
on October 4 as they build their "Incredible Wearables"
fitness trackers.

4-H Science Grows with help from "Incredible" Design Challenge - The 10th annual 4-H National Youth Science Day, the world's largest youth-led science challenge, engaged thousands of young people across the nation in October, thanks to the popularity of the 2017 Incredible Wearables design challenge, created by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. This year's challenge, including the flagship event co-hosted by Cornell University Cooperative Extension and National 4-H Council in Brooklyn, New York, also garnered prominent news coverage from several media outlets: Popular Science, Scientific American, RFD-TV and Axios. The hands-on project challenges young people to use the engineering design process to build a wearable fitness tracker that will help people lead healthier lifestyles. 4-H NYSD is made possible by Cooperative Extension, USDA-NIFA, National 4-H Council and the generous support of several corporate partners, including U.S. Cellular, DuPont Pioneer, Lockheed Martin, Hughes Net, Google and CA Technologies. Shop 4-H (formerly 4-H Supply Service) is on track to sell a record number of science kits this year -- nearing 10,000 as of October 19. For more information, including photos, click here.

2017 NEDA Wrap-Up - All presentations from 2017 NEDA are now available on the gadget on the right of this blog called "NEDA Links and Downloads" (the web view of the ECOP Monday Minute). Recently added is the summary from "Recruitment and Retention of an Innovative Workforce" and videos of "Anticipating and Planning for Paradigm Shifts",