Extension Program Council

December 14, 2005

9:00 am - 11:00 am

Present:    Roger Haugen, Duane Berglund, Brad Cogdill,  Margaret Tweten, Mike Hanson, George Flaskerud, Sean Brotherson, Gerald Sturn, Kathy Tweeten, Rachelle Vettern, Dean Aakre, and Becky Koch

Federal Plan of Work

Roger discussed the upcoming Federal Plan of Work for 2007-2011 and the changes.  In the long run he feels it will be positive.   Extension and Research will work on them together which they have been doing since around 1997.

Some of it will go around logic model.  Federal has five goals from USDA that we report against.   Roger showed the group the list of them on his PowerPoint presentation.   We are working on an extension of the original plan.  The new POW is a rolling plan of work and will begin October 1, 2006 and will be a five-year plan. 

The Federal Plan of Work will no longer work around five goals or key themes.   It will be state-identified planned program areas which we will determine.   CREES has established knowledge areas.   In that we will be asked what knowledge areas are being addressed.  For instance, urban forestry is new knowledge area.   There are 84 knowledge areas.  Each plan can have more than one knowledge area, but they didn’t want to lock us into five goals.  Roger will send URL with  knowledge areas to program council list serve.   The goal is to send combined report for extension and research.  

Name of program

Knowledge area classification

Program duration

Logic model

When reporting you will need to use program duration which is new and it is required to put a time frame into your program.   Research field may be more impacted by this.   Every program that goes into system needs a logic model.   Important to note--unless federal dollars attached to project they do not want it in the report.   Roger will email PowerPoint to group.  

A lot of states are not combining extension and research.  Duane asked group to help think through process of accomplishing this with research.   What we used to do is go to individual research specialists and ask for their input.   Not many dept. chairs involved, but hoping for increased interest with research. 

Goal is to link this with our state plan of work.   The minimum obligation with our federal POW is to be accountable with Smith Lever and matching state funds which is maybe half of our programming efforts.   They always want us to do more, but that is the minimum.  It is not important that we capture everything--just substantiate federal programs.   It is better to use better programs with good impacts and that is the way we should prepare our report.    

Examples of Assumptions:

New plan due June 1, 2006.   Was April l.

Force people to be more concise.  Initially this will be difficult.  Annual report still due April 1. 

One of the goals of the federal partnership is to have more multistate activities.  Duane would like us to look at what is going on with North Central Program Leaders which connects to all extension areas.   North Central region program leaders identified and connected with two or three areas.      In addition to the regional ones, we need to identify some from our own area.   Some of that is already done but needs to be packaged.  

Duane Berglund inquired if Ken Grafton will be working on this report on the research side and he was advised it would be Rod Lym working on it with Roger.

Duane is going to suggest Roger give this same presentation to dept. chairs.  Research is not used to logic model.

Team reports:

Kathy

Festival and events was very successful.  Lots of good evaluations.   State wide community development was successful.   The federal home loan bank was positive.  She asked them already about sponsorship. 

Rachelle

Horizons Project is wrapping up and Lynette is preparing last report and getting some evaluations from the agency to see impacts.   They will be able to report impacts later.

Community Capitol conference was attended and was framed around seven capitals passed out at prior meeting.    She feels she has a good idea how to do this after this meeting.

Kathy put out notice in CEDL to start sending in reports and sending EARS report.    

Rachelle is bringing people in early at spring conference even though they aren’t major team as they need to talk about impacts.

George

Both Ag Lenders and Tax Management conferences were well attended and continue to grow in attendance.  

Crop insurance conference in Jan. and some of their usual things are coming up.   Two new workshops include Annie’s (which is initiated by MN Association of Wheat Growers) and FAST TOOLS.   Whole economic team involved in Annie’s Project as well as  six ND communities (Fargo, Grand Forks, Cavalier, Grafton, Jamestown and Minot).   More communities could have been involved, but wanted to start as a pilot.

Dean

After requesting staff to provide him an update on 4-H he received reports from five and he provided a handout with reports from Julie Hassebroek, Randy Wald, Sharon Smith, Gail Slinde and Sue Isbell.

Nothing will change at Winter Show this year.  They are starting later to alleviate lodging problems.   The meeting in Valley City was attended by very few.  FFA is realigning their year and it will affect the length and time of livestock judging

Marcy has been replaced at State Fair.   Brad received worksheet for ES237 and it is now on hold and the process doesn’t seem to end.

Volunteer leader forum was held with 34 volunteers and they are excited about recruiting new volunteers.   

Brad wanted to point out the youth citizenship piece.   It’s contribution back to society is emerging as piece as it relates to 4-H.  

Duane

A lot of crop meetings have been held.   Crop Production Guide was put together with 525 pages and was distributed to all counties and REC centers.  They are breaking it down and putting it on web into seven different sections.  

Joel Ransom is making sure data is put on web sites with help from Dave Rice. 

Andrew Thostenson is in the 8^th year of preparing CDs to all specialists in crops and area agronomists.   January 7 is target to have them ready to distribute.   He doesn’t know if they are doing training or not on them this year.   They found last year that they didn’t have lots of interest in that aspect.   They use more of the notes in PowerPoint and they can be self-taught.     There are two irrigation workshops.   Joel Ransom is giving four wheat schools--January 30 in Valley City; January 31 in Dickinson, February 27 in Grand Forks and February 28 in Mohall.  

Wide world of weeds will take place on January 24.  This is a great day of information for agents.   January 25 Franzen will give his soil fertility workshop.  A lot of discussion on high cost of fertilizer is anticipated.   Scout schools also coming up.   Crop Management field school will take place on June 22. 

Sean

He is working on:

Building Strong Families.

• National Extension Relationship and Marriage Education Network – completed first draft of conceptual framework.
• Completing new web page designed for Extension Human Development.
• Building Connections Grant – report for 2004-05 year completed to federal government.

Parent Education.

• Draft of ND Assessment of Parent Education survey.
• Parenting Pipeline newsletter
• Bright Beginnings parent education program
• Father Times newsletter
• Presented review of father involved in ND Head State sites.

Child and Adolescent Well Being. 

• Reach Out and Read program which promotes literacy is for ages 0-5.  He is on state committee on this.     ND is only state that did not have this project.  There are two sites (Grand Forks and Fargo).   Model can be copied in other parts of the states.
• Bullying is a topic of interest.

Individual and Family Wellness; Managing Individual and Family Challenges. 

• Development of family meals newsletter.
• Father involvement in child welfare circumstances.   Conference in AZ showed interest in Father Times newsletter.  

Spring conference

Becky indicated the spring conference committee has met once.   It may not be four full days in Bismarck.  Crops and Food will meet Tuesday from 10AM-Noon (not Monday PM) which Duane Berglund thought was plenty of time.   Invitations to any team that wants to meet that morning will be sent out.  It was felt that they should totally cross off breakfast on Tuesday.    It was difficult scheduling as it is during the same time as national associations meet.    It was discussed to consider lunch meetings for national meetings.       

Mini awards will be at each conference for ESP, Program Excellence and years of service.   

Spring Conference is for updates and not in-depth sessions as at Fall Conference.  The tours went over well and plan to do more.  

Discussion was held on part time people attending nutrition council at same time taking place on Thursday and car pool problems.

Emerging issues

Duane Hauck.

Just a couple of things to think about.  

Program Council needs to help extension think about hot topics, emerging issues.  It gets difficult to figure out what that is at time.  We have had RLND, outdoor shooting skills, horizons program, BQA, marketing clubs, biotech project, food safety which were hot topics.   Need more multidisciplinary looks, more than ongoing programs, great stuff, but blends into everyday activities.     These include Other topics that we can build more effort around.     What are new ones in Ext.????   

Duane Berglund brought up an idea of his-- field to table.  There could be three to four disciplines on this.    What do we need to do?  Richland County is doing a project on white wheat.  Dale the crop side; Colleen is taking wheat process on bread baking; and Jane Edwards the nutritional side.   Kathy involved in the community development part.  Basically a pilot county exploring this specialty area.  

Energy piece is another hot topic.  

Duane H. wonders how can we market some new ideas?   

NEXT PROGRAM COUNCIL: 

Duane would like to have as a goal that everyone bring some of this stuff to the meeting.   

It should be elevated ongoing work--more than a single event.  It should be significant involvement not just extension.   Something that creates a “buzz”.  

Another top topic is obesity and diabetes.   How about rural meth use and impacts?

Effort needs to be shared because those hot topics can take up a lot of time.   They should be multi-disciplinary.   Give this some thought among yourselves as chairs and prior to next meeting (February 1, 2006).  Please come to meeting with some discussion.

Adjourned,

Melanie Ziegler