Framing the Future ~ Tools for Success

 Western Region Extension Mid-Managers Conference
July 13-15, 2005 ~ El Dorado Hotel, Santa Fe, New Mexico

Conference Agenda

 Wednesday, July 13, 2005 

 4:00-5:30 p.m. Registration for the Western Region Extension Middle Managers' Conference in the lobby on the concourse of the Eldorado Hotel.
 
 5:30-7:00 p.m. Reception at the Sunset Room

 Reception of light refreshments will be available at the Sunset Room beginning at 5:30 p.m. A no host bar will be available. You and your family/guest are invited to attend the event and chat with old friends from previous conferences and make new friends. There will be a special door prize drawing held at the reception so you don't want to miss this activity. Each state will have an opportunity to introduce their participants and get additional information about the conference activities. We also will have available an excellent list of local area restaurants which you might want to make your selection from for that evening's dinner.

Thursday, July 14, 2005  

7:30 a.m. WRMMC Registration, lobby on the concourse of the Eldorado Hotel
 
8:15  Introductions and Orientation
 
SESSION ONE ~ Entrepreneurial Skills Applied in Learning Organizations

PURPOSE OF SESSION ONE: Learn to design, market, deliver, and evaluate innovative Extension programs rapidly.

Extension education programs continue to make significant contributions to the success of businesses and families in communities throughout the United States. The landscape in which Extension operates, however, has changed significantly.  It is more crowded. Extension is not the “only game in town”. Public dollars available for informal community-based higher education are scarce and the competition is fierce. Are there appropriate entrepreneurial concepts and skills that we can apply in higher education?

Entrepreneurs must be agile; they must move from concept to product delivery swiftly, because the environment is constantly and rapidly changing and moving forward. Extension is a 100 year old organization that can not afford to act that way.  We need to “see the need” and “seize the need.” To continue to survive and excel, Extension needs to learn how to take risks, make good decisions swiftly, “drain the swamp” so to speak, and deliver innovative programs when it seems that the “headwinds” are too strong to break through. Jack Payne, Dean and Director of Utah State University Extension and Hunt Lambert, Director of the Colorado State University Entrepreneurship Center will lead a workshop where participants apply these concepts to case studies.
 
8:30:  Jack Payne:   Why must Cooperative Extension be Entrepreneurial?
 
9:00:   Hunt Lambert:      What does it mean to be Entrepreneurial?
                             How does one become Entrepreneurial?
 
9:30  Break
 
9:45-10:45:  Organize into Break-out groups. 
      React to case studies. Address key questions.
 
10:45-Noon:

Groups report out. 
              Challenge, reflect, suggest.
              Interact with presenters
 

Workshop Presenters

 

 Hunt Lambert is Director of the Colorado State University Entrepreneurship Center and a member of the faculty at the College of Business.  He teaches entrepreneurship in the undergraduate program and strategy and business plan writing in the MBA program.  He was named the Beta Gamma Sigma Professor of the Year at the CSU College of Business in 2004.   Hunt sits on the boards of several companies and groups.  Hunt is a master of strategy development, business plan development and creative delivery tools to help management teams align around and succeed with change and new ideas. Hunt has developed a unique gap finder framework for strategy development that integrates customer expectations, business planning, business processes, customer experience and the systems to link them together.  He uses this tool in his teaching, in framing consulting projects and as the basis for regular talks at seminars and lectures.

 

 Jack Payne is Vice President, Dean, and Director for University Extension at Utah State University.  His responsibilities include serving as the Director of the Utah Cooperative Extension Service and Dean of Continuing Education.  Jack served on the faculty of the School of Forest Resources at Penn State and as Extension Wildlife Specialist, working with private, non-industrial forest landowners. Later, at Texas A&M University, he was a faculty member in the Fisheries and Wildlife Department, and was Extension Wildlife Specialist for South Texas, where he integrated wildlife habitat into Texas ranching operations. After leaving Texas A&M University, Payne had a long career with Ducks Unlimited (DU), most recently serving as their National Director of Conservation. While at Ducks Unlimited, some of his successes included the development of DU’s Private Lands Program with agriculture; the development of a national conservation easement program and the expansion of their Mexican program to Central and South America.
   
12:00 noon Lunch ~ El Dorado Old House Restaurant
 
12:30-1:10 Luncheon Program
 “Doing Good is Not Good Enough: The Engaged Institution”

by Dr. Lorilee Sandmann, Co-Director of the Clearinghouse and National Review Board for the Scholarship of Engagement, and Associate Professor of Adult Education, University of Georgia.

This keynote address will provide a national perspective on the engagement agenda.  It will feature the emerging definitions of outreach and engagement, scholarship of engagement, civic engagement and service learning.  The relationship of the engagement movement and Extension will be particularly addressed—including such issues as “how are outreach and engagement related to the three missions (research, teaching, and service) of the Land-Grant College and University system” and “what does the scholarship of outreach and engagement look like for campus-based research and teaching faculty and for community-based Extension Agents.”
   

SESSION TWO: Documentation and Evaluation of Outreach and Engagement

PURPOSE OF SESSION TWO: Learn and practice documenting and evaluating the scholarship of outreach and engagement.

 Colleges and universities are creating reward and recognition systems to support the scholarship of outreach and engagement. How are these institutions promoting a commitment to outreach and engagement scholarship among campus-based research and teaching faculty? What are the implications for Extension faculty and Extension programs? This is a two-part workshop that will look at both the documentation and evaluation of scholarly engagement.
 
1:30 pm Introduction and orientation
 
2:00 Part 1: Teams will examine well-documented case examples of outreach and scholarly engagement and explore the relationship between outreach, engagement, and Extension education.
 
3:00 Debrief and Break
 
3:20 Part 2:  Teams will then apply existing evaluation criteria and quality standards to  examples of outreach and engagement scholarship, again reflecting on the utility for Extension programs and for non-tenure track Extension educators.
 
   
4:20  Debrief
 

4:40

 Building Institutional Systems to Support Scholarly Engagement
 
  Closing remarks by Lorilee Sandmann
 
5:00                Closure  ~ Dinner on your own
   
7:30-9:00pm

Fireside Chat ~ Eldorado Sunset Room

 The Fireside Chat will provide conference participants an opportunity to meet informally and to process what they are learning. The Fireside Chat is also designed to provide an opportunity for participants to interact informally with our conference content providers and workshop leaders. There will be a no host bar.

Workshop Presenter

 

 

Lorilee Sandmann ~ After 21 years in higher education administration, Lorilee R. Sandmann has joined the University of Georgia’s faculty in the Department of Lifelong Education, Administration, and Policy, College of Education.  Previously, Lorilee served as Associate Vice President for Public Service and Outreach at UGA and Executive Director of the Georgia Center for Continuing Education. In addition she served as Vice Provost for Institutional Effectiveness and Strategic Partnerships at Cleveland State University, Director of University Outreach at Michigan State University, and held faculty, administrative and extension and outreach positions at Michigan State University and the University of Minnesota.

 Sandmann considers herself a scholarly-practitioner. During her 30 plus years of experience particularly in program leadership and administration through higher education, cooperative extension and continuing education Dr. Sandmann has distinguished herself as a leader in her field. She has published widely in books and journals devoted to adult and higher education, outreach and community engagement, and organizational change; developed numerous presentations and workshops; and demonstrated success in institutional futures and strategic planning and grants and fund-raising.  Additionally, she serves as a consultant to many educational institutions, non-profit organizations, and international governments. She serves in assessment, accreditation, and program evaluator roles for many organizations
 

 Friday, July 15, 2005

 

8:30am Introductions and Orientation ~ Eldorado Sunset Room
 

SESSION THREE: Extension in the City: Meet the Challenge of Changing America

PURPOSE OF SESSION THREE: Gain confidence in your ability to design, implement, and evaluate of Extension programs for audiences that do not have a rural or an agrarian world view.

Regardless of whether they live in Montana or California, about 80 percent of Americans live in urban areas. Even in rural areas, people who “live in town” may not have a traditional rural much less agrarian point of view.  Among the public issues they deal with are health, community development, natural resources and the environment, and workforce development. How do we build relevant Extension programs in urban or “non-rural” areas and provide funding for them?

The National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges' (NASULGC) Commission on the Urban Agenda has focused on programs of vital interest to urban audiences. The Commission provides leadership with the association to help focus on major urban issues to:

·        Advocate policies, positions, and legislative strategies furthering the urban agenda at national, state, and city levels.

·        Foster the development of programs and projects of special interest to universities, which have strong commitments to urban areas and to solving urban problems.
 
8:45 Panel: The Myths, Shibboleths, and Realities of Urban Programming
 
10:00 – 10:30 Small Group Break Out Sessions Led by Panel Members

 Political Issues ( discussion prompts)

·      Do we serve tradition, money or need?

·      Do urban based decision-makers find us irrelevant?

·      Will our rural supports feel abandoned by increased urban programming?

·      Will urban based decision-makers prove to be as loyal and supportive as rural officials?

·      Do we have a resource base at the University to engage in urban programming?

·      Does Extension urban programming undermine the colleges of agriculture?

 Economic Issues (discussion prompts)

·      Is the continued viability of state funding tied to urban program development?

·      Can rural programs compete on a per capita efficiency comparison?

·      Do we have the tools to compete in an urban landscape?

·      Do we have sufficient resources to grow urban programs?

 Marketing

·      Our flagship programs are rural; can we create urban programs and keep our identity?

·      Will urban programming blur our focus and image?

 Programmatic Issues

·      Is urban more than not rural – and vice versa?

·      What about non-agricultural and small community rural audiences?

·      What is the urban niche for Extension?

·      What existing programs fit well with urban audiences?

·      What existing programs can be modified for urban audiences?
 

The panel will discuss the fiscal, political, and programmatic challenges and opportunities that confront Extension in providing educational programming for urban audiences in a variety of settings.
10:30 – 10:45  Break
 

Workshop Presenters
 

 

 National Perspective – Bonnie D. McGee, Associate Director Urban Programs, CSREES Shared Faculty, Texas A&M University, and former chair of the Extension Council on Policy (ECOP) National Urban Task Force.
 

 

 College Perspective – Karen Hinton, Dean & Director, College of Cooperative Extension, University of Nevada, Reno. Nevada is a state with a high percentage of its population in urban areas yet is also the 8th least densely populated states in the nation. Satisfying the educational needs of both urban and rural audiences in this unique setting frames the urban programming issues in the Western Region.
 

 

 Regional  and County Perspective – Frank Flavin formerly a regional coordinator with Cornell Cooperative Extension and has recently assumed the post of Western Area Director with the University of Nevada Cooperative Extension. The Cornell system has confronted the issues of providing Extension programming to both metropolitan centers and smaller urban communities in largely rural areas. Mary Zartman Director of Personnel, Montana State University will provide us with a perspective on urban programming from a rural state.
 
10:45 – 11:15 Continue Small Group Sessions Led by Panel Members
 
11:15 – 11:30 Report back to Large group from Small Groups Discussions
 
11:30 –12:00

Response Panel: Converting Rural Programs for Urban Audiences

       Bonnie McGee, Karen Hinton, Frank Flavin, and Mary Zartman

·      Can we do it? Should we do it? Where do we go from here?

·      Planning and resourcing urban programs in the west.
 
12:30 Noon Lunch Eldorado Sunset Room
 
1:30 Conference evaluation and wrap up
 
2:00 Adjournment

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