Extension Program Council
April 12, 2005
9:00 am - 11:00 am
PRESENT: Dean Aakre, George Flaskerud, Sean Brotherson, Roger Haugen , Karen Zotz, Margaret Tweten, Jackie Buckley, Karl Hoppe, Gerald Sturn, Kathy Tweeten, Duane Berglund, Rachelle Vettern, Brad Cogdill, Kevin Sedivec, Becky Koch, Mike Hanson, Dave Franzen, Greg Lardy and Maxine
Nordick
Duane Berglund discussed the procedures his team went through during the program planning process in 2001-2002. He provided the group with a handout of this information. He felt that one of the things he would change with the survey would be having less research questions and more education and delivery questions....more on extension. He would probably have the key people in the counties and other government agencies complete the survey. Agri-business was not included in the survey or no-till.
Kathy Tweeten indicated that the MPUs did a lot to help with their process. A situation statement was written and they had help from the advisory council and used the logic model.
At spring conference they decided on their priorities. Too many components were chosen. It would be best if you only chose four as the maximum. There was lots of input.
Rachelle Vettern talked about the second round for CEDL. The agents were asked on the process and it was decided no more surveys. Appreciative inquiry was used.
During fall conference they met as a group and developed appreciative inquiry questions. In December Marie did appreciative inquiry and the questions were tested. January and February were used as information gathering. Data was brought to three different meeting sites. There was one logic model in three areas. One disappointment was that agents didn't feel they had to do anything. Although most agents took the appreciative inquiry training they didn't do the process. Probably only the members of the team were the ones who did it. Gerald indicated that he thought many are scared of community development since it was a relatively new area and many had no training in this area.
Kevin Sedivec talked about how his area, Natural Resource and the Environmental Management, is only four years old. The struggle is the hodge podge of eight themes.
They met and broke into groups and used the logic model. They struggled with how to pick the key areas and concentrate on important areas. Almost all the programs run independently. He feels they need to start over in the next go-around and have county agents in each theme. Some
themes fall into different groups. They plan to meet in the fall.
Sean Brotherson, Human Development, said his team looked at what already existed since there is lots of good data out there including Kids Count data; national and state data. The current data already identifies key trends to look at. A survey was created. There were 15-20 key topics decided from data sets and research. With these topics they had a survey on-line and a paper one. They wanted to survey extension agents, community professionals and citizens.
They received 900 responses--some from every county. The urban and rural responses were about even. The on-line survey company they used is good and very reasonable. It's called surveymonkey.com. Using the rating system of 1 to 10 does not work very well. It's better to ask individuals to rank the answers in order of importance from 1 to 10. They had the survey going for about four months. They received very good information. Bullying was high on the list as were lifestyle issues. Agents were emailed the survey or surveys were brought to meetings.
George Flaskerud, Farm Economics, said that his survey was too long. He had several agents review it prior to sending out. The biggest problem he faced was that his survey was changed by MPU leaders and who also split the survey into family/farm. This made it almost impossible for Rich Rathge (who designed it) to generate data from the survey. It was a huge headache for him. His advice is to keep the survey short. They received back about 700 surveys. Debb Pankow did some focus groups for the family portion of economics, but George did not.
Dean Aakre. 4-H Youth Development, spent two days at conference on his process and narrowed it down to three components. They struggled with narrowing them so they still have a struggle. Dean also provided a handout outlining his process.
Roger Haugen speaking for the Animal Systems team, discussed how the animal program planning process worked. The program plan was sent out to agents with questions to the livestock group. During spring conference some of the components were dropped. He had good participation in the process.
It was discussed whether it had been a good idea to drop spring conference and whether some time with the program planning teams was compromised by it. It was also thought that maybe it just takes awhile to get used to new process. It was decided that having spring conference should be revisited.
TEAM REPORTS:
Greg Lardy, Animal Systems- It is a slow time for the animal team right now. Mid- March there was a feedlot school with 17 participants. Karl had a steer feed out. Also a feed lot tour is scheduled for June 21. Karl and John have a new component "Integrated Cows and Crops". Southwest and southeast are still facing drought conditions. Greg will begin a series of drought conference calls starting on Thursday, April 14.
Upcoming things include: Charlie is working on health and biosecurity. Lisa will be working at 4-H camp. Surveying feed lots and ethanol plans in Richardton, ND and Underwood, MN.
Dean Aakre, 4-H Youth Development - Shared a handout with what is happening in 4-H. Shooting sports in schools is a topic. The 4-H updates will be more on training on April 26 in Carrington and May 4 in Beulah.
George Flaskerud, Farm Economics - He is sending out a survey on the marketing club directory. Updating information on web.
Farm business records are summarized, but he he's not sure it's on the web. UPDATE: http://www.ag.ndsu.nodak.edu/aginfo/farmmgmt/ndfbm/fbm.htm
Electronic recordkeeping has been going well as are the clubs with Tim Petry.
Sean Brotherson, Human Development- Julie Garden-Robinson has a family table newsletter out. Resource development is working on having the newsletter on fathers in Spanish. Karin B. is working with Minnesota on a divorce curriculum. Subject matter training is April 11 and 12.
Kevin Sedivec, Natural Resources and Environmental Management - Specialists have field demos. Bridget is working on a South Dakota roundtable on the program. TSP program will end in August. SARE has filled position starting July 1 with a 70/30 (Assistant Director). Drought continues to be an issue.
Duane Berglund, Cropping Systems, (provided handout):
-11 CD PowerPoint training sessions were held January-March.
-Northern Great Plains Cropping Systems Conference was held on March 22-23 with 78 people attending.
-Crops Update Training Sessions were held for the ND Crop Production agents on March 22 -April 14 and 15 will be a teleconference on planning for the coming crop season.
-Crop and Pest conference calls will start on April 26.
-Crop and Pest newsletters will be handled in Plant Path because of Phil's resignation. Search started for his replacement.
Kathy Tweeten, Community Economic Development & Leadership, (provided handout):
-Youth/Adult partnerships training sessions were conducted on March 14-18, 2005
-Leadership Plenty -Three youth and chaperone attended National 4-H conference April 1-6, 2005 and met with Senators Dorgan and Rep. Pomeroy.
-Continued leadership development work with soil conservation districts. Provided a workshop on time management and organizational skills. -Brian Gion, Dale Naze, Raquel Dugan-Dibble and Teresa Baumann will be presenting at six nature based tourism meetings around the state. -IBID sample projects.
-Agents shared into obtained from appreciative inquiry process.
-Program planning team meets - May 11 in Bismarck. -RLND seminar in Oakes on March 31-April 2
No Program Council meeting until September. Exact date is not set.
Adjourned,
Melanie Ziegler