North Dakota State University
NDSU Extension Service
Preface
Introduction: The NDSU Extension Service in 2004
Extension to the 21st Century: The Leadership
Restructuring Extension - County Organization
Restructuting Extension - Integrating Specialists with Academic Departments
Responding to Disasters
Adopting and Using Technology
Making an Impact
NDSU Extension Service Employees (88KB)
From its beginning, the cooperative extension concept involved three partners in funding and programming: federal, state and local (usually county). For many years North Dakota followed the traditional pattern of an extension office in every county (actually in 52 of the 53 counties with Billings and Stark counties having a joint office, plus an office located on the Ft. Berthold reservation). Some counties had a single agent; some had both an agricultural agent and an extension home economist; more populous counties might have multiple staff, possibly including youth agents or county horticulturists.
In 1985, this traditional county structure began to undergo some scrutiny. As Director Myron Johnsrud told staff in a July 19 informational letter, "This has been a rather interesting summer so far, with the uncertainty of the Federal budget for Extension and Research and the Governor's `trial balloon' concerning regionalizing Extension."
The regionalization suggestion came to light in a June meeting of an interim legislative committee charged with finding ways to reorganize higher education to decrease costs. Governor George Sinner's office, in the person of Budget Director Richard Rayl, said the legislature should consider cutting the higher education budget by consolidating the 53 county offices into a system of eight regional offices.
According to a June 15 article in the Grand Forks Herald, Rayl told the committee that the state's experiment stations and extension agents account for 13.6 percent of the states budget for higher education. Acknowledging that he did not know how much, if anything, the proposed consolidation would save, Rayl said that agricultural technology changes so fast that individual extension agents can't keep up to |date and that regional offices might be more helpful. Committee member Robert Nowatski of Langdon opposed the suggestion and rejected the idea that extension agents can't keep up with changes. "At this point in time," he said, "farmers need all the advice they can get as cheaply as they can get it," suggesting that the consolidation would probably result in farmers hiring consultants.
In other press coverage, state senator Donald Moore of Forbes was quoted as opposing the proposal, saying, "The proposed consolidation would weaken the Extension Service program by removing the vital `county agent' first link between farmers and North Dakota State University."
An Associated Press article in the July 3 issue of The Forum reported that extension officials welcomed a review of the system but doubted that the reorganization was possible. Johnsrud was quoted as saying, "We think we're pretty darn cost-effective. We feel currently we're organized as best we can be."
Johnsud also expressed concern about potential loss of funding from county governments, which provided some 21 percent of extension's total budget. "That's a rather substantial sum of money," he said. "I don't seriously think counties would graciously follow us into a consolidated system."
Opposition was also expressed in a Grand Forks Herald editorial: "An overzealous budget officer in the Sinner administration has suggested consolidating the 53 county agents of North Dakota into eight regional offices to save money. Budget Director Dick Rayl described his idea as a `trial balloon.' It's a balloon that doesn't deserve to fly."
Gov. Sinner, in a letter to the Herald published under a headline reading "The trial balloon is still aloft for cutting costs of Extension Service," agreed that extension agents played an important role for the state, and that extension had undergone some changes over the years to become more efficient. But, he said, "It is possible that additional changes are in order. Perhaps a way can be found to continue the same quality service while at the same time reducing the expense to the state."
Regionalization next came up in Sinner's 1989-91 budget recommendations, where he again proposed eight regional resource centers for extension. The legislature modified his plan but included $292,500 for creation of the centers, with funds from the current budget also to be reallocated for the plan.
Director Bill Pietsch appointed a team of extension staff to study the concept of placing specialists at 14 to 18 regional centers, and to recommend sites for those centers.
The plan, unveiled in July, called for 15 regional centers, each staffed with master's degree level specialists in areas including crop production, livestock production, farm management, 4-H and home economics. Each county in the state was to retain an extension presence in the form of a county extension director with at least a bachelor's degree. The centers were to serve from one to five counties, based on population. Cass County was the only single-county unit proposed.
Existing county staff were, understandably, concerned about the plan. A list of concerns and questions developed by the North Dakota Association of Extension Agents included the role and responsibilities of county extension directors, the staff assessment process, procedures for "grandfathering" agents for eligibility to apply for specialist positions and the relationship between county offices and centers.
Contrary to the original "trial balloon" suggested to cut costs, the regional concept was projected to cost about 15 percent more than the existing system, largely because of the number of master's degree level staff that would be hired. Based on the funding available, Pietsch said two centers would open in the next two years, most likely in the southwestern part of the state.
In August, Hettinger and Dickinson were announced as the first towns to get area extension offices. Additional centers would be opened as the legislature provided funding for them, Pietsch said.
The plan would not be implemented, however. Funding for the plan, along with all budgets, was contingent on approval of the tax plan passed by the 1989 legislature. All three elements of the plan (increases in income, sales and gasoline taxes) were referred, and in a December 5 vote all three were rejected. Postponement of the regional centers was one move announced by Pietsch to meet the budget shortfall created by the referral.
Partial implementation took place later, with paired area centers at Dickinson and Hettinger and at Minot and Williston. Other area specialists were in place at Carrington, Devils Lake, Rolla, Valley City and East Grand Forks (a potato specialist shared with the University of Minnesota). Actually, area specialists were not new in North Dakota, with the first area positions created in the late 1970s. These had been located in county offices, at branch experiment stations or in area offices.
A "concept paper" on organization of the NDSU Extension Service prepared in 1992 considered scenarios for structural change to match available funding and program priorities. Possibilities suggested included: redrawing the boundaries of the 1989 restructuring plan to create larger areas, along with informal county clustering; a formal clustering concept with programs carried across county lines and each county staff member having a subject matter responsibility, and adopting a high technology delivery system that would require fewer staff to deliver programs and answer questions.
Governor Sinner's budget recommendations for the1993 legislative session (his last budget, as he did not seek re-election in 1992) included a radical restructuring of extension staff, eliminating state funding for county staff and replacing it with eight regional centers run by the state, a system similar to his "trial balloon" of 1985.
The proposal proved unpopular with legislators and the public. At the senate committee hearing on the bill, a spokesman for the North Dakota Stockmen's Association, lobbyists for the state Farmers Union and Farm Bureau and the director of the state Association of Counties all criticized the plan. No one testified in support the bill, and the committee voted unanimously to recommend its defeat. It was killed in the senate two days later. Senator Larry Robinson of Valley City said that defeat of the bill would allow extension to restructure itself from the bottom up rather than to have restructuring forced from the top down.
Extension continued to study the restructuring idea. Notes from extension cabinet meetings and information provided to extension staff continued to speak of structuring county operations in nine, ten or possibly 11 program units. Each unit would have at least two offices with multiple staff. All staff in these offices would have responsibility in all counties in the program unit, in the areas of agriculture, human development (including family and youth) and community or economic development. About 30 county offices would be staffed by one person, but extension would make a commitment to provide a full-time professional presence for counties that would pay half the cost to run the office.
The North Dakota annual report to the federal extension service described reorganization that had taken place at the both the field and campus level in 1994. It said, "All counties are now included in one of 10 multicounty program units which range in size from three to eight counties. County extension staff remain in the county offices but work closely with other extension staff within their multicounty unit. Each extension agent has a program emphasis area and carries program leadership for that area within the multicounty unit."
The MPU model was first piloted in unit 2 in north central North Dakota and unit 6 in the southeast, under the leadership of district directors Jay Fisher and Duane Hauck. Fisher recalls that getting started took "some visiting" with boards of county commissioners and working with staff to formalize working across county lines. Advisory councils also became more diverse with the multicounty organization.
Duane Hauck, who has served extension in both field and specialist roles and as a district director and agriculture program leader, calls adoption of the MPU concept a very significant part of the extension agenda. The MPU structure allows continuation of the traditional extension presence in every county, but also provides a greater access to subject matter expertise, with county agents playing more of a specialist role within their MPU and receiving more training within a selected subject matter area. North Dakota is one of very few states that still has a B.S. degree as the minimum requirement for county extension agents, with an M.S. preferred, says Hauck, with a philosophy of being willing to "grow" expertise through additional training.
Extension has adopted a concept of core competencies or skills that all staff need to perform their jobs. The five competency areas include subject matter, communication, information and educational technology, personal and organizational management, and program development and educational design. Subject matter competency is knowledge and expertise in a recognized discipline and the ability to communicate the science and application of the discipline. All county agents are expected to have a general knowledge of either agriculture and natural resources or family and consumer science, plus some basic competence in 4-H youth development and leadership. In addition, each agent will have specialized competence in a specific area, such as cropping systems, livestock systems, human development or nutrition and food safety. Self-assessments are conducted both to help staff determine their professional development needs and to identify what inservice training needs to be provided.
In 1997, the legislative session made changes in the North Dakota Century Code, replacing all references to "county agent" or "county agent work" to "extension agent" or "extension agent work." In addition, all language developed in 1989 indicating extension should move toward area centers was deleted from the Century Code.
According to a base policy established in 1996, the NDSU Extension Service is committed to maintaining an extension presence in all counties if the county provides a minimum financial commitment and a county presence is desired by local interests. The minimum financial commitment includes having the county pay 50 percent of the salary cost for county extension agents and all operating expenses. NDSU pays the other 50 percent of the salaries and all fringe benefits. Operating expenses include office space, travel, telephone, secretarial support and other costs relating to running an office such as paper, copying costs, mail, office supplies, etc.
Hauck speaks of the strong relationship between extension and county government and the high level of understanding about extension on the part of county commissioners. He points out that many North Dakota counties have voted a tax increase to support county extension work while county support has been diminishing in other states. The philosophy of a grassroots driven program has strengthened support at a time when support could easily be declining, he says.
Organization of extension service staffs and how they fit into the university structure varies greatly among U.S. land grant institutions. One common, at one time the most common, structure was for extension to function as a stand-alone division within the university with specialists reporting directly to extension administrators. Another structure, the more prevalent one in recent years, is for extension to be either a stand-alone division or part of another college or other administrative structure, but in either case with specialists integrated into academic departments of the university and reporting directly to department heads.
Into the 1990s, campus-based specialists of the NDSU Extension Service operated independently within the administrative structure of extension, an independent division of the university. Specialists carried academic rank and for the most part were officed with or near their counterparts in research and teaching, but they were not a part of the academic departments and did not report to department chairs but to an extension program leader in their discipline.
In agriculture, each discipline (or group of related disciplines) in extension had a section head who was not part of extension administration and did not have budget control. Section heads were mainly involved with program planning and served on the extension program council. They were involved in the hiring process for both specialist and clerical staff and in conducting personnel evaluations.
The director of extension reported directly to the university president rather than to a dean or vice president. The extension professional staff elected members to the faculty (later university) senate. Extension specialists served on standing committees of the senate, representing extension rather than a college.
When Jim Ozbun became NDSU president in 1988, he brought ideas for restructuring the university, including extension. A first change in the agriculture structure was the reporting lines of the extension and experiment station directors from reporting directly to the president to reporting to the vice president for academic affairs. He also favored integration of the extension specialists into their respective academic departments.
In July 1993, Ozbun appointed a task force to review the structure of the NDSU Extension Service and the Agricultural Experiment Station and "Advise him on how the President's Office could best serve North Dakota's largest industry, agriculture, and restructure and coordinate NDSU's Extension Service and Agricultural Research Experiment Station (sic) to most effectively meet the needs of North Dakota in the 21st century." (From the task force report.)
Chair of the task force was Robert Christman, interim director of extension, and management consultant Vern Freeh served as facilitator. Other members were Virginia Clark, dean of the College of Human Development and Education; C. Colin Kaltenbach, experiment station director at the University of Arizona; Paul Langseth, chair of the agricultural consultation board; Leo Lucas, director emeritus of the Nebraska extension service, and H.R. Lund, dean of agriculture and experiment station director.
The task force convened at NDSU from August 9 to August 12. During that time the group met with administrators, faculty and staff at NDSU, representatives of user groups, and members of the state board of higher education.
Among NDSU faculty and staff providing comments to the task force was a committee formed from the extension agriculture and natural resources group, consisting of Alan Dexter, sugarbeet weed specialist; Roger Haugen, animal scientist; Harlan Hughes, livestock marketing economist; Marcia McMullen, plant pathologist; Darnell Lundstrom, associate director, and Thomas Scherer, agricultural engineer. The committee told the task force that it was not the consensus of the group that specialists should be integrated into academic departments as the existing system produced good working relationships within departments and allowed split appointments for faculty who desired them.
If integration was to take place, the committee said, the role of extension within the university and its unique focus on serving the needs of North Dakota citizens must be preserved. Some of the issues the committee said must be resolved included administrative support for extension programming from department heads, secretarial support for extension specialists, guidelines for split appointments, maintaining operating funds within extension, program planning processes, and procedures for evaluation, promotion and tenure.
Extension Agronomist Duane Berglund also addressed the task force in his role as president of the local chapter of Epsilon Sigma Phi, the extension professional society. He told the task force, "I do not advocate fixing things that aren't `broke.' We must ask ourselves if the NDSU Extension Service will be improved and more efficient with full integration of our campus-based extension specialist faculty. If this is indeed true then we should move forward, but with some caution." He cited potential benefits of integration including having more faculty involved in extension activities, recruitment of qualified faculty members, influence on applied research, better communication of program efforts and better access to laboratories, equipment and technician help, but cautioned that negatives might include loss of extension identity, conflicts about primary clientele, reporting to several supervisors, forced split appointments, program planning conflicts and evaluation criteria.
The task force written report dated August 12, 1993, carried the rather lengthy title, "Meeting the Needs of North Dakota's Citizens in the 21st Century by Providing Greater Visibility and Access for Agriculture and More Effective Coordination of Research and Extension at the Highest Administrative Level at North Dakota State University," and consisted of four recommendations.
The first recommendation stated, "The research, extension and teaching faculty on campus and the extension and research faculty at the research centers should be integrated in such a way as to encourage faculty and staff to work together most effectively and efficiently." The report went on to explain that the task force felt that for maximum efficiency and productivity on-campus extension specialists should be part of the same structure as research and teaching faculty, located in academic units and accountable to deans and department heads. The rationale cited was that the recommended structure was already in place at most land grant institutions and provides for greater interaction within the faculty and greater opportunities for joint planning and implementation of research and extension programs.
The second recommendation was to continue locating extension specialists at research centers. The feeling of the task force was that both research and appropriate extension specialists should be stationed at the research centers located throughout the state and that these centers should be called research and extension centers and operate through a common administrative structure.
Recommendation three stated, "NDSU should aggressively look for ways and means to most effectively and cost efficiently provide outreach programs which meet the needs of North Dakota citizens and its largest industry, agriculture, in the 21st century." Things that should be explored included accessing non-traditional funds and resources, innovative programming techniques which make maximum use of the latest technology, greater involvement of academic units, faculty and staff from throughout the university and the university system, and joint programming and coordination of programs with other institutions of higher education and other agencies in North Dakota and other states.
The fourth recommendation was: "Establish the position of Vice President for Agriculture and University Outreach (carrying the additional title of Director of the Agricultural Experiment Station and the Director of Extension)." The position would be: " responsible for the Agricultural Experiment Station and the Extension Service funds; responsible for the coordination of agricultural research and university outreach (extension) programs, faculty, staff and administrative services; responsible for recruitment, hire (sic), promotion and tenure of extension and agricultural research faculty; responsible for providing agriculture and extension with direct access to the President's Office; and serve as member of the President's Cabinet and the President's Council."
The task force recommendations were made public on August 17, immediately touching off controversy, mainly concerning the role of the proposed vice president and a suggested time line that would have an interim vice president appointed by September 15. Ozbun agreed to allow more time for the university senate, president's council and agriculture consultation board to study the proposals. On September 23 the state board of higher education approved a plan to create the post of vice president for agriculture and university outreach. The plan approved called for separate directors of the experiment station and extension service with the vice president responsible for administration of funding for both units.
Ozbun announced the appointment of Brendan Donnelly, director of the Northern Crops Institute, to the post of vice president for agriculture and university outreach on October 15. The appointment was on an interim basis; Ozbun had announced his intention to resign in 1995, so his successor would have the opportunity to select the permanent ag vice president.
Details for integrating extension specialists into the academic faculty remained to be worked out. To this end, a "Fine Structure Committee" was appointed to make recommendations on ways the new integrated system for teaching, extension and research could best function and respond to needs of clientele. Chair of the 12-member committee was Duane Berglund, extension plant science specialist. Other members were Gene Berry, veterinary and microbiological science; Henrik Meyer, entomology; John Dhuvetter, extension area livestock specialist; Thomas Olson, Stutsman County extension director; Margaret Tweten, Grand Forks County extension; Beverly Liebelt, animal science department clerical staff; John Gardner, superintendent of the Carrington research center; Al Schneiter, crop and weed sciences chair; Robert Christman, interim extension director, and Virginia Clark, dean of human development and education.
The committee identified five broad areas for discussion: budget management, policy and planning, programs and delivery, academic issues, and communication.
In his final report to vice president Donnelly, Berglund pointed out that how to handle funds and budgets was paramount to most other discussion. "It was clear that we need to assure people out in the state and on campus where the budget authority exists and not allow co-mingling of certain funds when appropriated for specific use," he said. The committee was also sensitive to county support groups and research center advisory committees that generate local funding.
The committee's general budget recommendations were that state and federal appropriations for extension programs or experiment station research should be managed by the vice president for agriculture in partnership with the appropriate director, while funds generated by service fees and other sources of income should remain in the unit where generated and used for the purpose that generated the income. Funding of department chair appointments should reflect the chairs' responsibilities for research, teaching and extension.
Extension service funds should be allocated from two sources: a central pool of operating funds for statewide extension programming (travel, supplies, printing, etc.) should remain in the extension assistant directors' office; a portion of the operating funds for extension programming should be allocated to the departments for discipline-related use and office management within the department. Printing and media support funds for extension programs and operating funds for extension county and area specialists should remain in the extension assistant directors' office.
In the policy area the committee recommended that superintendents of research extension centers should be responsible for integrating on-going research activities with extension programs in cooperation with extension district directors, including joint appointments in some cases. Joint appointments for faculty should be negotiated among individual faculty, unit heads, and deans and directors, and job descriptions should include any role change or added responsibility. Joint appointments should be identified as major and minor appointments; three-way appointments and 50:50 appointments should be avoided. The vice president for agriculture should have administrative responsibility for faculty with a predominant experiment station or extension appointment; those with a predominant teaching appointment should go through the vice president for academic affairs.
Under programs and delivery, the committee recommended interaction among research and extension faculty to establish communication and collaboration within the institution and between the institution and the public. Citizen advisory boards should be integrated or combined, with research center advisory boards linked with multi-county extension units and striving for participants interested in agriculture, natural resources, youth and family, and community education. The committee said the role of extension program leaders should be reviewed, and responsibilities should include direction and coordination of the program council. The program council should coordinate interdisciplinary programs with membership possibly including department chairs, area specialists, county staff, research center staff, district directors, state specialists or others under the administration of the vice president for agriculture.
Academic issues were an area of concern among state specialists. The committee said job descriptions emphasizing the unique mission and focus of the land grant university should be completed for all faculty, and that job descriptions should be used as the primary criteria for determination of promotion and tenure. Deans should ensure that all faculty -- teaching, research and extension -- are represented by their peers on college promotion, tenure and evaluation committees.
The committee recommended that the current extension communication unit be combined with other resources focused on communication within the experiment station to form a single unit under the vice president for agriculture. The committee stressed that the extension mission of the unit should not be diluted and that communication services to counties and research extension centers should be maintained or increased.
Some of the concerns within extension and of some clientele groups regarding integration were that the extension role would be diluted and specialists would become less accessible to county staff and the public as they began reporting to department chairs rather than extension administration. Duane Berglund recalls the integration process as "a little painful for extension." There was concern that extension interests would be lost within the departments and that specialists might be forced into research roles at the expense of extension programming. The structures committee was particularly firm that three-way split appointments with responsibility for research, teaching and extension be avoided. Teaching and extension responsibilities are not usually compatible, as a regular class schedule interferes with the ability to do extension programming, and travel involved with extension work makes a teacher inaccessible to students, he says. Extension and research splits usually work better.
Regarding the fear that specialists integrated into academic departments would become less accessible to extension field staff and the public, Duane Hauck, who served as an extension district director and later added agriculture program leader duties, says just the opposite has been the case in North Dakota. He says the integration of specialists was a "very visible change," with specialists recognized as members of the faculty and creating closer relations with department chairs and department faculty. "Not only have we maintained a state specialist that is very strong and connected but enhanced the level of connectedness of other faculty to extension agents and the people of the state," he says.
Hauck credits a "strong group" of state specialists who became actively involved in the integration process and made sure that extension did not get lost along the way.
Darnell Lundstrom, agriculture program leader when the integration process took place, recalls some "rocky times as things got straightened out," with some specialists a bit frustrated, especially in larger departments where department chairs involved with overall management of the department did not seem to have time for extension programming. This demonstrated a need for continued overall program leadership from extension, especially in regard to interdisciplinary programs, he says.
But the process worked well in the end, he says, with North Dakota having "as fine a group of ag specialists as can be found."
In her e-mail staff update on May 1, 1995, Director Sharon Anderson reported that George Flaskerud, extension marketing specialist, had been granted tenure in the Department of Agricultural Economics, the first extension faculty member to work through the promotion and tenure process since integration.
Extension to the 21st Century, June 2005
NDSU Extension Service, North Dakota State University of Agriculture
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