February, 2004

"The mission of Penn State Cooperative Extension is to extend nonformal outreach educational opportunities to individuals, families, businesses, and communities throughout Pennsylvania. Cooperative Extension education programs enable the Commonwealth to maintain a competitive and environmentally sound food and fiber system and prepare Pennsylvania's youth, adults, and families to enhance the quality of their lives and participate more fully in community decisions."

In this Newsletter:

Message from the Director

Penn State Cooperative Extension in the 21st Century: Values and Transformation

What is the status of Penn State Cooperative Extension in today's fiscal environment? How is our organization positioned for the future? In this issue, I offer some thoughts on these issues by painting a broad picture of the extension budget, affirming our successes, extending thanks to all who make our organization successful, and, finally, sharing a perspective on Penn State Cooperative Extension's core values.

Extension Budget
I am pleased to report a significant increase in the total resources available for Penn State Cooperative Extension programming: $72 million vs. $62 million last year. The main growth has occurred in grant and contract funding. We have been successful in continuing to transform our revenue portfolio, securing $19 million in grants and contracts in FY2003. This is a 48 percent increase over the $12.7 million secured in FY2002.

This success is due to the vision, creativity, and initiative of dedicated extension educators and extension faculty seeking new funding to meet the critical needs of the citizens of Pennsylvania. Your great work makes all of this happen! Thank you for your effort and significant contributions.

Thanks also to our volunteer leaders and clientele who advocated on our behalf for FY2003 state funding. As you know, the state appropriation for Penn State Cooperative Extension was held at the previous year's level, instead of an anticipated 5 percent reduction. Thank our volunteers and industry supporters and encourage them to thank our legislators for their support as well.

While we have been highly successful in securing resources from grants and contracts, these funds support programming in narrow areas, and they do not replace the loss in buying power from flat state and federal appropriations. Federal formula funding remains level in dollar figures but is declining when adjusted for inflation and the increased cost of doing business. Most of our special line items within the USDA FY2004 budget were cut by 10 percent. For the Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program (EFNEP) alone, it resulted in a $250,000 cut for Pennsylvania.

The Governor's budget for FY2004 is proposing a 2.25 percent increase for higher education. However, because the increase is based on the total of all line items in the FY2003 Penn State budget, it remains unclear what the increase will mean to the agricultural research and extension line items.

County appropriations for Penn State Cooperative Extension remain quite strong, but we have not yet received FY2004 reports from all counties. When we do, we will pass on the summary figure to you. I am seeing significant increases in some counties, but I also see reductions in others.

We will keep you posted as budget news for the year ahead emerges.

Pennsylvania Farm Show 2004
This year's Farm Show, held in the new complex, was very successful, with approximately 500,000 people attending. Farm Show is very important for Pennsylvania agriculture. It brings individuals who support agriculture together in a festive atmosphere. The event is also an opportunity to highlight and educate people about the agriculture industry. This year, the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture hosted the first Public Officials Day, a special effort focused on agricultural education. Pennsylvania's public officials--township supervisors, county commissioners, county land preservation board members, municipal authority members, and all other local officials--were invited to participate in a workshop to broaden their understanding of general agricultural issues and take part in VIP tours of the Farm Show.

The College of Agricultural Sciences views the Farm Show as important, and your time and effort in providing extensive educational and operational support helps make it all happen. Thank you for your valuable contributions! Our involvement helps strengthen relationships with other key agricultural organizations and positions us in the public eye as a research and educational leader in the fields of agriculture and food sciences; natural resources and the environment; and children, youth, and families.

Outreach Strategic Positioning
As I noted in the last issue, Craig Weidemann, Vice President for Outreach, has initiated a strategic positioning process. Extension faculty, administrators, and educators are involved as team members in all four of the strategic positioning areas: Outreach Core Competencies, Fiscal Stewardship, Academic Relationships, and Innovation. The teams are identifying key strategic directions for the future of outreach and making tactical recommendations in support of strategic initiatives. Each team provided an interim report to Vice President Weidemann in mid-January; the final reports are due March 5. Thanks to all those involved for the time, effort, and the intellectual contributions you are providing for this important initiative. We expect that the process will result in actions that will strengthen Outreach, including Cooperative Extension, at Penn State. I will keep you posted on key developments as this process evolves.

Organizational Values
As you reflect on our successes this year and think about what makes us successful, I suggest you consider how success is significantly associated with Penn State Cooperative Extension's core values and principles. To my mind, the following values are central to our organization:

• Commitment to the promise of outreach: nurturing and rewarding leadership, entrepreneurship, and excellent service; and valuing community and learning
• Dedication to diversity, multicultural understanding and cross-cultural competence
• Excellence and productivity in the scholarship of education, research, service, and engagement as our highest priority
• Creativity and innovation in education, research, service, and engagement
• Embracing change and rewarding risk-taking
• Mutual respect that promotes open sharing of ideas and values everyone's contributions
• Empowerment of all to lead
• Balancing continuity and change: building on the past to strengthen the future
• Reflective practice and learning

As we position our organization for the future, it is essential that we have a clear, mutually shared sense of our organizational core values. Then, with such a sense, we will meet the future with confidence and deal with challenges in creative, innovative ways and truly transform Penn State Cooperative Extension into a 21st-century organization.

In closing, I note the recent passing of several colleagues: James McKeehen, former regional director who retired in 1988; Leland Bull; former Pennsylvania Secretary of Agriculture, professor of agricultural extension, and regional assistant director of extension who retired in 1976; and James Sargent, former horticulture business extension educator in the Southeast Region. These individuals exemplified the spirit and value of Penn State Cooperative Extension through their work. We are a better, stronger organization because of their efforts. I extend our heartfelt sympathy to their families.

Thank you for your commitment and leadership. I wish you all the best for the year ahead.

Best regards,
Ted Alter
Associate Vice President for Outreach and Director of Cooperative Extension

News to Know

In cooperation with the regional leadership and county educators in cooperative extension, Dean Steele continues to visit each extension region once per year on the "Dean's Industry Tours." The receptions held for college alumni and friends during these visits are an important means to communicate college activities to interested college supporters and to hear from those supporters.

Search for Director of Cooperative Extension
The search for the position of Director of Cooperative Extension, Associate Vice President for Outreach, and Associate Dean of the College of Agricultural Sciences is progressing. The position has been posted and applications are being received.

New Staff Orientation
The orientation for new extension staff was held at University Park on February 3-5, with 15 attending. This talented new group of staff bring fresh ideas that will add value to our programming efforts. We extend a warm welcome to those who have recently joined our Penn State Cooperative Extension family!

Director's Awards
The call for nominations for the Penn State Cooperative Extension Director's Awards was announced in December. The awards include a Leadership Award, a Team Award, and a series of Spirit Awards. For details about the awards, see Director Ted Alter's e-mail dated December 19, 2003. Nominations should be submitted to the director and must be received by February 27, 2004. The 2004 Director's Awards will be presented at the County Extension Director's Leadership Institute to be held at University Park May 4-6, 2004.

2004 McDowell Lecture
The 2004 McDowell Lecture will be presented by Dr. Richard Spoth, senior research scientist and project director for prevention programming from The Iowa State University Institute for Social and Behavioral Research. Dr. Spoth directs Project Family, an interrelated series of studies addressing prevention program needs assessments, motivational factors influencing program participation, program efficacy, culturally competent programming, and diffusion of empirically-supported programs.

Dr. Spoth will be presenting "Cooperative Extension's Role in University-Community Partnerships" Tuesday, March 2, from 9:00-10:00 a.m. at The Penn Stater Hotel and Conference Center. Registration is required to attend the lecture. Register online at http://esd.cas.psu.edu/. Access the Spring Statewide In-Service Registration and register for the McDowell Lecture.

PCCEA Annual Meeting
The Pennsylvania Council of Cooperative Extension Associations annual meeting will be held on April 15 in State College. In addition to a business meeting, the program will include college updates, a presentation on legislative advocacy, a talk on the connection between research and extension, and a presentation on the dissemination of research-based information through cooperative extension.

Program Updates and New Directions
Keystone Agricultural Innovation Center. The Innovation Center, mentioned in the previous newsletter, should be up and running by mid-March. The Center will provide education and technical assistance to Pennsylvania farmers wanting to establish and maintain value-added agricultural activities.

The center, a network of three regional locations, is coordinated and supported by faculty, extension associates, and food processing experts at PENNTAP. The regional sites will be staffed with a team of two complementary subject matter experts who will be housed in a cooperative extension office. Positions were recently advertised, and although these positions are located in particular counties, the programs are not limited to those staffed locations. The center's faculty, extension associates, and experts will work closely with extension educators and others throughout the Commonwealth, making the programming and assistance available statewide. In-service training and programming will be open to extension staff and other partner organizations.

Preventing Childhood Overweight and Obesity: Parents Can Make a Difference. In a new program partnership with Dr. Claudia Probart, associate professor, and Elaine McDonnell, Project PA Coordinator in the nutrition department in the College of Health and Human Development, and the Pennsylvania Department of Education's Division of Food and Nutrition, new resource materials will be made available to extension family and consumer science educators to address issues of child overweight and child obesity in your community and schools. The kit "Preventing Childhood Overweight and Obesity: Parents Can Make a Difference" includes a motivational video and supporting print materials. This kit was designed to provide parents with information about the increasing rates of childhood overweight and obesity and consequences of these trends, as well as to provide ideas for how parents can be involved in helping to establish healthy home, school, and community environments for their children. The kits will be mailed to family and consumer science educators in the near future.

Energy Harvest Grant. Penn State Cooperative Extension in Westmoreland County was recently awarded an Energy Harvest Grant from the Department of Environmental Protection to install and demonstrate a hybrid wind and solar energy generation system. The system will offer a source of green power and considerable cost savings to extension and its partner Westmoreland County. Congratulations to Gary Sheppard and colleagues!

POW Narratives. In case you ever wonder, yes, we do look at your narratives reported in the POW Planning and Reporting System! Here is just one example: Recently, Dr. Alter requested information for a presentation about cooperative extension partnerships. From a search of the database, we found that in 2003 alone, between 40 and 50 narrative reports indicated program partnerships with a Conservation District.

4-H Youth Development Receives Rural Youth Grant. With support of a $50,000 grant from USDA, the Pennsylvania 4-H Youth Development Program will enhance organizational capacity for rural youth development programming through partnerships, empowerment, and training. The grant will support two specific program areas-youth/adult partnership programming and 4-H Afterschool. The youth/adult partnership efforts are actively functioning in three rural counties through support of a previous rural youth grant. The current grant will continue to support their efforts to address community issues by both youth and adults working together for solutions acceptable to all. The after-school component was added to the second year of the grant. All counties will benefit from these after-school programming efforts. Watch for announcements about the best practices conference and the availability of resources.

Well Done

Kudos to the faculty in horticulture and entomology and the extension educators who once again put together an outstanding Mid-Atlantic Fruit and Vegetable Convention, which was held January 27-29 in Hershey, Pennsylvania. This collaborative event offered 7 concurrent sessions, more than 40 pesticide credits, and included 120 exhibitors. More than 1,200 growers attended this year, in spite of the poor weather the first day.

Congratulations to Penn State Cooperative Extension and the Pennsylvania Office of Rural Health for the research and development of the Resource Guide to Low Cost or No-Cost Health Insurance Options in Pennsylvania. Robert C. Wonderling, State Senator, 24th District, expressed his appreciation and gratitude for this effort in a letter. He noted, "…With your hard work, we are able to highlight opportunities to families desperately in need of health insurance."

Dairy extension educators in the Central Susquehanna Valley teamed with area agribusiness and dairy producers to plan and implement a COWnections Youth Day Camp to improve teenagers and adults knowledge about the dairy sciences. The program, held on a 450-cow dairy, included a farm tour and small group training through various hands-on workshops: a dairy records station, herd health station, judging and type station, udder health station, reproduction station, and nutrition station. Evaluations indicated that the first COWnections program was a success, with many attendees indicating they would like to participate in a similar educational program next summer.

We Are Penn State Extension Proud

Congratulations to Dan McFarland for receiving the Pennsylvania Dairymen's Association Extension Educator Award. Dan's contributions have been exemplary on all levels, both as an expert in animal housing (particularly in the dairy arena) and as a member of the Capital Region Dairy Team and with cooperative extension in York County. Dan's optimism, energy, and good humor are surpassed only by his expertise in the engineering field. He is widely recognized, both nationally and internationally, as an expert in cattle comfort and animal housing and is skilled in communicating with dairymen, dairy industry personnel, and fellow engineers.

Joann Logan, senior extension educator for 4-H and youth development with Penn State Cooperative Extension in Westmoreland County, was chosen as an Outreach Intern for 2003-04. Each intern designs an individualized program, and Joann plans to increase her understanding of outreach programming and explore ways to enhance cooperative extension programming in Westmoreland County through partnerships and collaborative program development. Congratulations, Joann!

Congratulations to the following extension educators who are recipients of the 2003 Edward L. and Dessa B. Keller Memorial Scholarships. The scholarships provide support to Penn State graduate and undergraduate students in pursuing degree courses.
- Cathy Brady, Fayette County, a Masters of Education candidate in Youth and Family Education
- Chester Hughes, Lancaster County, a Masters of Education candidate in Agricultural and Extension Education
- Marcia Weber, York County, a Masters of Education candidate in Training and Development

The Extension Spirit

The Imperative of Diversity
by Dennis Calvin, professor of entomology, College of Agricultural Sciences

What would the world be like without diversity? Biological diversity provides us with all the natural beauty around us and the bounty we need to survive. Human diversity provides us with many interesting cultures and ways of viewing the world. Can you imagine a world where everyone was of western European decent? There would be no Asian, African, Latin American, Oceanic, or Eastern European cultures. We would never have had the opportunity to experience the diversity of foods, clothing, music, and customs that make our world interesting, or the mixing of these cultures that has led to modern jazz, blues, and rock n' roll music. It is the combined contributions of these diverse groups that make our nation great!

The role of Penn State Cooperative Extension is to help people learn new skills to improve their lives and fully enjoy all the opportunities this nation provides. Cooperative extension has an obligation to make sure educational programs that teach these skills are equally accessible for all segments of our society. Focusing on diversity should not be viewed as something that we are being forced to do, but should be looked at as a natural part of the land-grant mission. As the outreach arm of our college, cooperative extension must embrace diversity so that all our citizens can help keep agriculture and the United States strong.

For those of us focused on production agriculture, the world has changed considerably in the last 20 to 30 years. The number of full-time farmers has declined steadily and agricultural policy is now influenced heavily by the desires of the general public and less by farmer organizations and the industries that support them. This can be seen in pesticide, water protection, conservation, work protection, and genetically modified crop regulations. In the 19 years since I first came to Penn State, I have participated in many meetings where all of the above regulations were discussed, and in almost every case the audience, made up of farmers, agricultural business personnel, crop consultants, and cooperative extension personnel, complained about these regulations and how poorly informed the general public was about agriculture. In every case, the desires of the general public were legislated into law and farmers were forced to adopt practices that protected the water, human health, and the environment.

Whether or not we feel the general public is properly informed about agriculture, it is important to listen to their concerns and what they want from agriculture. It is our job to make sure all citizens understand how food production systems work so they can make informed decisions about agricultural policy. The consumers that purchase Pennsylvania's agricultural products represent every ethnic and racial composition, gender, and sexual orientation in our country. So, as we interact with farmers looking for ways to remain competitive, perhaps by considering the special needs of our diverse population, we can help them pick out a niche market that is more profitable for their operation.

As budgets have declined in recent years, conversations have taken place about where extension should focus its resources. Some people feel we should focus all our limited resources on the largest, most efficient farms because they produce the majority of the food and fiber. Others feel we should reach out more and engage the urban segment of our society, work with alternative farming systems, and divert some energy into telling the general public about what we are doing to ensure a safe and wholesome food source. I favor the latter approach. Our research and extension programs need to provide information and technologies that are beneficial in all types of farming systems. We need to show the general public how we are responding to their needs and concerns. We cannot continue telling ourselves what a great job we are doing and that the public should trust us to provide cheap and safe food.

What does all this have to do with diversity? It has to do with how we focus our educational programming, how we position our programs in the future, and how we embrace diversity in our organization and agricultural advisory groups. In order to reach all segments of our society, extension needs to reflect the diversity of Pennsylvania's population. By working to improve diversity in our ranks, we will improve our ability to reach all segments of our state and their support of agriculture.

Working to fully integrate diversity into all aspects of extension programming will require a concerted effort by everyone. We must think about where we can make a difference. In the Department of Entomology, we have taken steps to provide educational materials in Spanish. A list of these articles in Spanish can be seen at our Web site: http://www.ento.psu.edu/extension/SpanishFactSheets.htm. We hired Edgar Martinez of Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, to translate extension materials into Spanish. Our goal is to have all pest sheets translated. In addition, Ed Rajotte, as a leader of the state's IPM program, has worked to translate several resources for IPM education.

The faculty, staff, and administrators in the Department of Entomology are committed to improving diversity and will continue to make every effort to develop research, teaching, and extension programs that serve all members of our society. Other efforts to improve our department's commitment to diversity include:

" Increased research and outreach for organic and alternative agricultural systems, targeting the largely ignored group of women operators
" Increased efforts to recruit minority students
" Following very closely the University's Affirmative Action Policies for hiring new faculty, including opportunity hires

Everyone wants to be respected and have access to all the opportunities this University and nation have to offer. By aspiring to these goals, the College of Agricultural Sciences will benefit in the long run by broad-based support of our constituents, and our land-grant colleges will truly be institutions of the people.

Leadership Thoughts

"Experience has shown that looking into the future is most useful when it is the beginning, not the end, of a significant conversation."

Schwartz, P. 1996. The Art of the Long View. Doubleday: New York, p. xvi

"Change requires self-leadership. …Leaders must continually look within to decide what they want, what they value, and what they are willing to be courageous about."

Leider, R. J. 1996. The Ultimate Leadership Task: Self-Leadership. In The Leader of the Future, Hesselbein, F., Goldsmith, M. and Beckhard, R., eds. Jossey-Bass: San Francisco, p.190.

The We Are Penn State Extension Proud section recognizes an extension employee's outstanding accomplishments.

The Extension Spirit section enables Penn State Cooperative Extension employees to share meaningful work experiences, articulate the values and goals behind their efforts, and present inspirational ideas.

Send your suggestions for the Well Done, We Are Penn State Extension Proud, and The Extension Spirit sections to Margaret Koble, mak10@psu.edu. Nominations will be reviewed and selected by the director. The deadline for receiving nominations for the May issue of the newsletter is April 16.

NOTE:
After being distributed, issues of Extension Directions will be archived at: http://www.extension.psu.edu/Newsletters/archives.htm.

Please sent submissions to Margaret Koble, mak10@psu.edu.