ECOP Chair Ed Jones held a conversation with 24 Extension Directors and Administrators representing all 5 regions regarding Strategic Realignment on Friday, 3/1/19, 3-4:00 PM ET. The goal of the conversation was to hear what Extension leaders have to say and gauge the preliminary receptiveness for the concept of
Strategic Realignment. Moderators ECOP Budget and Legislative Committee (BLC) Chair Jon Boren, New Mexico State University, and ECOP Executive Director Rick Klemme were be joined by Chuck Hibberd, University of Nebraska, and Mark Latimore, Fort Valley State University, who along with Jon and Rick are members of the Strategic Realignment Committee. The discussion and those occurring by each region, will help inform the BLC which meets on 3/12/18 for approval by the ECOP Executive Committee to prepare an official report to the
Budget & Advocacy Committee.
All New Look, All New Data - There are big improvements to the public facing Land-Grant Impacts Website
https://landgrantimpacts.org. The site has a fresh new look, better tools and search capabilities, integrated peer review, and more prominently displayed impact stories. All new statements submitted to the database will now undergo peer review before being made public on the site. This new layer of review will insure the highest quality information is being displayed. Statements from the past three years will be archived and available, but not displayed on the public site. Directors and Administrators and their associates are strongly encouraged to review the entire site to find what’s there to generate communication efficiencies and learn what colleagues are doing across the land-grant system.
Award Nomination Eligibility and Winning Words - Cooperative Extension Professionals are individuals with at least 50 percent EFT/FTE university appointment and responsibility for Extension programming. Nonadministrative employees with a minimum of five consecutive years in Extension by
May 1, 2019 (deadline for the National Awards), are eligible to be nominated for either the Diversity in Extension or the Excellence in Extension Award
www.aplu.org/CESawards. Teams and organizations nominated for the Diversity Award must be fundamentally composed of Cooperative Extension professionals.
Re-nominations are strongly encouraged, excluding national winners. Suggestions for optimizing new nominations or re-wording of former nominations can be heard in a 10 minute segment of the
Next Generation Extension Learning for Leaders: National Extension Awards beginning at minute 26:00. For more information contact the writer/presenter, Ann Kellett at
ann@annkellett.net.
NIFA State Liaison Update - NIFA State liaisons are National Program Leaders who serve as the primary resource and information channel between NIFA and land-grant and other universities and colleges receiving agency funds. Liaisons develop an on-going, productive, and mutually beneficial relationship with cooperative extension and agricultural experiment station directors, and other leadership and faculty at state-based universities and colleges. They identify and maintain contacts with relevant colleges (e.g., agriculture, forestry, human sciences, natural resources, veterinary science, etc.) and other relevant academic organizations. In addition, they provide a timely review of annual plans of work and reports for Hatch, Smith-Lever, Evans-Allen and 1890 extension formula programs, and make recommendations on appropriate agency actions. See the current list at:
https://nifa.usda.gov/resource/nifa-state-liaison-assignments.
