December 2023 – Extension Foundation

Extension Foundation Selects Ashley Griffin as New Chief Operating Officer

Ashley Griffin, Chief Operating Officer, Extension Foundation

The Extension Foundation’s Chief Operating Officer Search Committee, led by Dr. Scott Reed, advertised an application for a new Chief Operating Officer beginning in November, 2023. As a result of this search, the Extension Foundation has selected Ashley Griffin as its new Chief Operating Officer effective January 1st, 2024. Griffin has served as the Interim Chief Operating Officer for the past 12 months.

Griffin’s career with Cooperative Extension began in 1996 at the University of Kentucky as an Extension Associate for Equine Youth Activities. From 2002-2005, Griffin served as a Communications Specialist for the University of Kentucky, Agricultural Communications Services, Creative Applications for Learning Environments Lab (CALE). In 2005, Griffin became the Content Design Leader for what was then called the National eXtension Initiative. This included leading the start-up, planning, and maintenance of national Communities of Practice “best-of-the-best” content in their subject areas and training communities on using and managing eXtension’s legacy tools and systems. In 2011, Griffin became a Community Engagement Consultant for the eXtension Foundation serving as the primary contact for over 5,500 university faculty and Extension educators participating in over 100 Communities of Practice and Learning Networks from 75 Land-grant universities in the United States.

Griffin then served as the Extension Foundation’s Program Manager from 2017-2022. Her leadership in this role included leading the Extension Foundation’s evaluation and reporting efforts, developing toolkits and playbooks for clients and partners engaged in Extension Foundation programs, and playing a leading role in the Extension Foundation’s Impact Collaborative program managing a network of 107 trained Innovation Facilitators and delivering professional development events for 211 local and national project teams for over 3000 Extension professionals.

During her 12 months in the Interim Chief Operating Officer role, Griffin oversaw the day-to-day operations of the Extension Foundation, coordinating efforts across various Team Leaders and staff/contractors that support the Foundation’s grants and national programs. Additionally, she played a key role in strengthening the Extension Foundation’s Human Resource services and support for staff while developing operational processes to scale the staff and contractor pool for new grant awards. Additionally, she continued to lead the Extension Foundation’s Publications team to guide the direction and delivery of sharing impactful works with over 50 publications and reports published to date.

As the Chief Operating Operation Officer, Griffin will be responsible for the daily operations of the Extension Foundation to include talent acquisition and onboarding, personnel, grant development and administration, supporting the development and implementation of a strategic plan, and overall leadership for the internal operations of the Extension Foundation.

According to Griffin, “I’ve had the good fortune to be part of this wonderful organization for nearly two decades, which started as a grant-funded initiative known as the National eXtension Initiative back in 2005, and has grown into the operating Foundation that it is today. I’m excited about the future of this organization and what its dedicated team of professionals can do for the Cooperative Extension System, and I look forward to continuing to deliver on our commitment to our partners across the system to help make a greater impact at the local level.”

December 18, 2023/by Aaron Weibe

New Publication Available: Teaching Youth Food Safety – A Game-Based Approach

News, Publications

The Extension Foundation (EXF) has issued Teaching Youth Food Safety: A Game-Based Experience, a publication written by a team from the New Mexico State University Learning Games Lab.

The publication details how the team is addressing food safety through game-based learning. Their ideas ties into research that indicates youth prefer to learn about food safety topics through interactive educational tools. The publication details how the team developed “Theme Park Cafe”, a food safety game for youth. In the game, players engage in different themed kitchens to serve delicious and safe meals to clients. It’s a redesign of “Ninja Kitchen,” launched in 2011 to teach kids food handling skills. In this publication, the game designers talk about increasing the game’s cultural sensitivity, working with kids to create the reboot, and other elements of using gamification to teach educational content.

This new game, one of several food-related projects funded by the New Technologies in Ag Extension (NTAE) 2022-2023 grant program, is part of a growing trend in Extension: using multimedia products to educate and engage diverse audiences.

The authors of the publication are: Barbara Chamberlin, PhD; Matheus Cezarotto, PhD; and Pamela Martinez, Ed.D, all from New Mexico State University.

This publication was produced through the New Technologies for Ag Extension (NTAE) program. NTAE is a cooperative agreement between USDA NIFA, Oklahoma State University, and the Extension Foundation. The goal of the New Technologies for Ag Extension (NTAE) grant is to incubate, accelerate, and expand promising work that will increase the impact of the Cooperative Extension System (CES) in the communities it serves, and provide models that can be adopted or adapted by Extension teams across the nation.

You can learn more about the team’s work in this recent feature article – Leveling Up – published in October 2023. The team also wrote about an alternative to full game design – the game jam process – in an earlier publication. You can access that publication here.

The Extension Foundation has released two dozen publications this fall, including the 2022-2023 NTAE Yearbook, which presents the work of dozens of Extension project teams from across the U.S. in a lively magazine format. You can find the entire library of publications (now numbering nearly five dozen) here.

December 14, 2023/by Aaron Weibe

2023 Extension Foundation Professional Development Needs Assessment Report

News, Newsroom, Uncategorized

This work was supported through funding from USDA-NIFA, New Technologies for Ag Extension, grant number 2020-41595-30123 from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this report are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the view of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The purpose of the study was to identify professional development needs for Extension professionals at 1862, 1890, and 1994 Land-grant universities in the US and US territories. The Extension Foundation issued a request for applications for a Fellowship to complete this needs assessment. Dr. Karen Vines, Assistant Professor, Continuing Professional Education Specialist, Agricultural, Leadership, and Community Education at Virginia Tech was selected as the Fellow and researcher for this project.

A committee composed of the researcher and selected members of the Extension Foundation leadership team served as a panel of experts carrying out a two-stage approach including key informant interviews followed by a national survey of Extension professionals. The survey provided insight into the top challenges Extension professionals feel can be alleviated by professional development training or other resources, training needs across Extension, and training that Extension professionals find to be impactful, or that adds value to their personal or professional lives. Respondents selected from pre-identified categories followed by subcategories to provide further insight into their original selections. In addition, respondents were encouraged to select “other” throughout the survey to provide open-ended comments.

A total of 1168 responses were received, with 737 complete responses. Responses represented all 1862, 95% of 1890, and 37.5% of 1994 Land-grants. Extension professionals in numerous roles participated in the survey. Community-based faculty and staff being the largest at 40%, followed by campus-based faculty, staff and Land-grant coordinator at 18.93%, and administrative faculty including directors, deans, associate leadership, and program leaders coming in 3rd at 16.01%. Years of service for the respondents ranged from 0.4 to 53 years. The maximum years of service for the 1862 and 1890 Land-grants were 53 and 50 years, respectively, and 29 years in the 1994s. Respondents were also identified in a stratified breakdown of years of service as well as by self-identified career stages. The largest career stage represented in the survey was the colleague stage at 36.83%.

Challenges

The top three challenges selected across 1862, and 1890 Land-grants were 1) Funding and Other Resources, 2) Professional Development, and 3) Institutional Support. Institutional support includes funding and other resources and limited staff capacity/resources (small staff) also referenced in funding and other resources. This category also includes linkages across the Land-grant missions of Extension, research, and teaching. The subcategory that is unique to the institutional support category is organizational trust.

The top three challenges selected by the 1994 Land-grants were 1) Institutional Support, 2) Funding and Other Resources, and 3) Strengthening the National Extension Organization. Subcategories within each of the challenges helped to add meaning to the category. Limited staff capacity and resources associated with small staff was the top contributor as identified by 20.55% of those selecting the funding and other resources category across all institutions. Employee retention and burnout were the top contributors to professional development with 12.90 and 12.85% by those across all institutions selecting these subcategories. The limited staff capacity along with funding and other resources were the primary selections of those selecting the institutional support category at 28.88 and 25.17% across all organizations. Organizational trust and linkages across the missions of the Land-grant were selected by 16.11 to 13.06% of the respondents. Over 50% of those selecting the Strengthening the National Extension Organization Category across all organizations indicated the need for developing connections to positions across Extension organizations (50.98%) with linkages across Land-grant types also highly selected (45.10%).

Training Needs Identified

The top three training needs selected by 1862 Land-grants were community engagement, telling our story, and career progression at 10.99%, 10.86%, and 9.90%, respectively. The top three training needs for the 1890 Land-grants were telling our story, supervisory skills, and community engagement at 12.01%, 10.39%, and 10.06% respectively. The top training need for the 1994 Land-grants was professional development (12.04%) with telling our story and funding and other resources tied for second, both at 11.11%, and community engagement ranking third at 10.19%.

Finally, respondents were asked to reflect on meaningful training in which they have participated. First, the focus was on impactful training provided by their home institution. The top three categories of impactful training provided by 1862 Land-grants were Core Values, Reporting, and Program Development at 14.05%, 12.89%, and 12.24%, respectively. There was a three-way tie for the top impactful training provided in the 1890 Land-grants with Core Values, Reporting, and Community Engagement all being selected by 10.37% of the respondents. The top two impactful trainings selected for 1994 Land-grants were Program Specific Topics and Community Engagement at 23.53% and 14.71%, respectively. The 1994s reported a two-way tie for third with Core Values and Career Progression both being selected by 11.76% of the respondents. Respondents were also asked to identify training that added value to their personal or professional lives provided at the regional or national level in Extension or by an external organization to Extension.

Recommendations

This report concludes with recommendations to use the data provided by this study to develop collaborative efforts to strengthen Extension professional development training that encourages effective resource management. The Extension Foundation is recommended as an organization to facilitate national discussions leading to the development of a framework for courses and curriculum that can be tailored to multiple audiences. This will facilitate the sharing of resources, providing not only strengthened professional development training across all Land-grants at the national level but also supporting the development of an Extension certificate program that may be attractive to current and prospective Extension professionals. Recommendations for further study related to survey findings and the use of this instrument for future needs assessment are also provided.

Extension Foundation Response

In response to the needs identified in the 2023 Extension Foundation Professional Development Needs Assessment, the Extension Foundation has tailored its 2024 professional development offerings for its members at 69 Land-grant universities to help meet these needs. Professional development events aligned with these needs are connected to the major needs categories and include:

Extension Skills (Monthly): Telling Your Extension Story, Community Engagement, Finding and Securing Funding Opportunities
Dynamic Discussions (Monthly): Effective Communication and Outreach, Discussing Equity Needs in Cooperative Extension, Workforce Development

Additionally, several Leadership and Team Development offerings will be provided throughout 2024 including a personal leadership boot camp, trust-building initiatives, coaching for overcoming challenges, distributed leadership training, Crucial Conversations for mastering dialogue, and Crucial Influence for effective personal, social, and structural influence.

Members can visit www.extension.org to learn more about each of these offerings and register for 2024 professional and leadership development events.

The Full Report for this 2023 Professional Development Needs Assessment is available at this link.

December 14, 2023/by Aaron Weibe

Extension Foundation Issues University of Illinois Compost Summit Report

News, Publications

The Extension Foundation has issued a Compost Summit Report written by University of Illinois Extension educator Kathryn Pereira.

This report documents the May 2023 Compost Summit hosted by the University of Illinois Extension, which gathered several dozen compost professionals. Over the course of the Summit the group explored the challenges, the current status of work, and opportunities to improve the composting ecosystem in greater Chicagoland.

The intent of the report is to inspire and further work in building a culture of composting in greater Chicagoland. Information from this report has the potential to influence policies, educational programming, and infrastructure improvements, leading to a growing culture of composting in the region. This report may be of use to other Extension organizations.

This publication was produced through the New Technologies for Ag Extension (NTAE) program. NTAE is a cooperative agreement between USDA NIFA, Oklahoma State University, and the Extension Foundation. The goal of the New Technologies for Ag Extension (NTAE) grant is to incubate, accelerate, and expand promising work that will increase the impact of the Cooperative Extension System (CES) in the communities it serves, and provide models that can be adopted or adapted by Extension teams across the nation.

The Extension Foundation has released two dozen publications in recent months, including the 2022-2023 NTAE Yearbook, which presents the work of dozens of Extension project teams from across the U.S. in a lively magazine format. You can find the entire library of publications (now numbering nearly five dozen) here.

December 1, 2023/by Aaron Weibe