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College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences

CFAES

Communiqué January 7, 2015

Contents

Buckeye Voices: Keith Smith and OSU Extension

Source: OnCampus Today (December 8, 2014)

In honor of OSU Extension's 100th anniversary, retiring Director Keith Smith reflects on Extension's many successes and shares his hopes for the future: “There is no shortage of need for Extension's unique ability to bring the knowledge of the university to the people, so they can better their lives, businesses and communities.” Read full article at www.buckeyevoices.osu.edu.

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OSU Extension Annual Conference was a Tremendous Success

More than 500 Extension professionals attended the 2014 Annual Conference and Research Colloquium. Thanks to all who participated in the event. Dean Bruce A. McPheron provided a video summary about the conference activities during his December webinar; it is available online at http://youtu.be/4aKHYcm6M6c – between 39:30-44:10 minutes into the video. This also includes links to the presentations during the conference by Ohio State President Michael Drake, OSU Extension Director Keith L. Smith, and the dean.

Also, congratulations again to those who received special awards during the conference – specifically for excellence in extension within select areas and overall. The winners include:

  • CES Extension Support Staff Excellence Award – Dawn Ford Cramer
  • Charles W. Lifer Excellence in 4-H Award – Jason Hedrick
  • Marilyn Spiegel Excellence in Extension Family and Consumer Sciences Award – Lisa Barlage
  • Steve D. Ruhl Outstanding Agriculture and Natural Resources County Extension Educator Award – Chris Penrose
  • OSU Extension Excellence in Community Development Award – Nancy Bowen-Ellzey
  • ESP Excellence in Extension Award – Linnette Goard
  • ESP DSA Ruby Award – Karen Bruns

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OSU Extension Strategic Plan Update – December 2014

It has been slightly more than a year since the launch of Ohio State University Extension’s strategic plan. With all of the celebration of our first 100 years and conversations about our future, you may be asking what is being done in the present to prepare us for how we use the information we have explored in the VP Conversation and Extension Reconsidered.

Each of us gets so involved in our day-to-day assignments that sometimes, even when as an organization we reach a milestone moment in advancing our long-term plans, we fail to make a note of it. However, we can make great strides, one step at a time. A summary of highlights of our recent progress on the strategic plan goals are posted on the strategic plan page of the OSU Extension website at https://extension.osu.edu/about/osue-strategic-plan. See “Updates – December 2014.”

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Director’s Internal Advisory Committee Meeting Report

The Director’s Internal Advisory Committee met in early December. Keith shared the following topics with the group. All of these topics will be explained more in future issues of the Communiqué.

  • Budget – federal, state and county updates
  • Updates on the North Central Region cultural assessment survey and how it will be disseminated throughout the system.
  • Changes in the national eXtension system, and how OSU Extension continues to support eXtension. Ohio has opted for premium-level membership.
  • Replacements to address the family and consumer sciences assistant director and regional director retirements this spring, as well as updated on Research in View (RiV) and Central State University.

Reports were shared by the members of the committee, included the following topics: small fruits, farm bill, fertilizer certification, pesticide applicator training, Live Smart Ohio, Google Glass, ed techs, food hubs, farmers’ markets, Tri-State Diversity Conference, beef school, shale gas update, Small Farm College, STEM Pathways, Walk and Serve, Master Urban Farmer, Chick Quest, BRIDGE facilitator training, 4-H Tech Wizards, Youth and Families with Promise, Ohio State policy 1.50, solar energy, Local Government Leadership Academy, and community plans for small villages with population less than 1,000. There are many exciting programs happening around the state.

The next Director’s Internal Advisory Committee meeting will be held this spring. We will poll dates for that meeting, and new members will rotate onto the committee.

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OSU Extension Website Update

-Cheryl Buck, executive assistant to the director

The updated OSU Extension websites went live on December 3, and the counties are still coming up to full-speed on their new Drupal-based site. Thank you for bearing with us during the content migration.

We have now opened access to the county websites to anyone in your county office who needs to update content. However, users must be trained in Drupal 7 before they are given access to the county site. We will hold several training sessions around the state, starting in mid-January. The new training sessions are offered to those who have not been trained to date, and the sessions will be filled on a first come, first-served basis. After this concentrated round of training, CFAES Communications will add a regular training for the Extension websites on the 2015 training calendar. Those training sessions will be open to new hires or counties where someone new will begin handling the web content for a county.

We have already connected with all of the county Extension directors about current trainees, but you can refer to the December 15 all-Extension email message for complete details.

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Research in View (RiV) Reminders

-Debby Lewis, leader, Program Development and Evaluation

As announced in May, Ohio State will be selecting a replacement for Research in View (RiV)...eventually. However, until that happens, we must continue to use RiV to report our annual Extension programming efforts. So here are a few reminders for you...

The deadline to complete your 2014 RiV documentation is January 15, 2015.

We posted a new “OSU Extension RiV Quick Start Guide” and "Extension Annual Report Help Sheet" on our website at http://go.osu.edu/OSUErivHelp (see "helpful documents"). The quick start guide has 25 tips to help you use the NON-DOSSIER Extension section of RiV. Please make sure you review the section on GOALS. You will be able to access recordings of our 2013 RiV training CarmenConnect sessions at that link as well (see "RiV training recordings"). The recordings have bookmarks in them, so you can skip around to the part you are interested in viewing.

Tip for copying: Keep in mind this basic principle…Copy PROGRAMS from year-to-year…Copy your EVENTS WITHIN a year only. When you DO copy an EVENT within a year, don’t forget to click the “related” button, which is the very last field in the “copy” window IF the EVENT is a repeat of one you did earlier in the year. Making the EVENT a “related” copy of the original will ensure the event appears as one line in the EXTENSION EVENTS table of your promotion/dossier document.

If you have questions about RiV and how to document your work with OSU Extension, please contact Debby Lewis (lewis.205@osu.edu) or Kim Showalter (showalter.56@osu.edu). If you are having technical difficulties with RiV (e.g., your RiV profile is not accessible), please use the riv@osu.edu email address to send a message to the RiV team.

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Karen Bruns Announces Retirement

Karen Bruns, assistant director for OSU Extension family and consumer sciences, has announced that she will retire on March 31. Per Karen’s announcement in November, “Over these next few months, we will continue to focus on strengthening family and consumer sciences so that we can meet the needs of Ohioans and set the stage for new leadership. I look forward to being one of your colleagues until March 31, and will forever be a supporter of the outstanding work of OSU Extension and the family and consumer sciences program.”

Keith Smith, director of OSU Extension, is working with Dean McPheron on a timeline for interviewing and hiring a new FCS assistant director soon. “Our FCS program is a priority,” said Keith. “Karen has done a great job with family and consumer sciences – enabling and leading many new programs in FCS, as well as continued excellence and collaboration with OSU CARES.” Ken Martin has agreed to chair the search committee. More information will be coming soon.

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Bruns Inducted as Inaugural Member of Academy of Community Engagement Scholarship

Congratulations to Karen Bruns, who was inducted in October as one of the 14 inaugural members of the Academy of Community Engagement Scholarship (ACES) at the 2014 Engagement Scholarship Consortium meeting in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Bruns is assistant director of OSU Extension’s family and consumer sciences program and is the leader of OSU CARES.

Bruns “is a grounded servant leader of community engagement scholarship and is a major leader strengthening the movement,” the academy’s website says. “She consistently and courageously endorses and models community engagement scholarship across the structural silos of higher education and within communities. Her team successes provide the foundation for ACES.”

The academy, its website also says, works “to serve the public good by recognizing and contributing to high-quality scholarship that — in active collaboration with participating community partners — has a positive impact on complex societal needs and issues.” The 14 inaugural members “all represent public research universities, and many of them have played leadership roles in advancing the outreach and engagement agenda of APLU and member universities,” says a story in A Public Voice, the newsletter of the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities.

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Extension Promotion Workshop – January 27

Has it been 10 years since you were tenured? Do you have an interest in applying for promotion? Do you want to better understand the role of review committees, the review process, and performance expectations? Do you want help getting your arms around the OSU Extension APT document or faculty and A&P promotion guidelines?

Plan to attend the upcoming Extension promotion workshop on January 27 – Agricultural Administration Building auditorium, main campus. The workshop will focus on the items above, review the Department of Extension’s dossier outline, discuss curriculum and quality indicators, demonstrate the need to maintain documentation of your accomplishments, and more. Extension professionals with all levels of experience with the process are invited as we share and learn from each other. Registration fee is $25. The registration deadline is January 12. Visit the following link to register --- https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/PIEWRKSHOP012715.

Please note: These workshops are NOT Research in View (RiV) trainings, but techniques to effectively document your accomplishments in RiV will be discussed. For more information, contact:

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Outreach and Engagement Grant Opportunities – Proposals due by February 16

OSU CARES/OSU Extension, the Service-Learning Initiative and the Office of Outreach and Engagement are pleased to offer this year’s OSU CARES/OSU Extension Seed Grants, Service-Learning Grants, and Engagement Impact Grants to support scholarly engagement efforts of university faculty and staff.

More than $300,000 is available to support programs that establish and expand innovative, creative, scholarly engagement to address compelling challenges and critical needs in communities. The proposal submission deadline is February 16 (4pm).

January 22 Information Session: An information session will be hosted on January 22 at 11am (MLK Lounge in Hale Hall). For more information, visit http://outreachgrants.osu.edu.

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Tri-State Diversity Conference Diversity Champion Award – Nominations due by February 16

The goal of the Tri-State Diversity Conference (to be held February 19-20) is to network and link people and resources together to better integrate diversity into programs, policies, and practices for creating community well-being. The 2015 theme is “reThinking Diversity: Addressing the Cultural Shift in America.” For more information, visit http://ces.ca.uky.edu/tristatediversityconference.

The 2015 nomination form for the Tri-State Diversity Champion Awards is attached; the form is also available on the conference website. Please nominate yourself or others for one of these awards. The nomination deadline is January 16. Send nominations to Pat Holmes at holmes.86@osu.edu. An individual award and a team award will be presented during the Tri-State Diversity Conference luncheon on February 19.

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OSUE Administrative Cabinet Recognition

Administrative Cabinet is pleased to recognize a few individuals for their particularly outstanding work on some key projects. Beginning in mid-2014, we are publishing the recipients’ names regularly in the Communiqué. Cabinet acknowledged the following individuals during the second half of 2014:

  • July 2014 – Jeff McCutcheon, educator, ANR • for his work successfully balancing a variety of state and local activities while finishing his dissertation.
  • August 2014 – Allen Auck, program manager, 4-H • for his Ohio State Fair leadership, as well as 4-H building oversight and other state-level 4-H events such as Ohio Volunteer Conference and Teen Conference.
  • September 2014 – John Smith, educator, ANR • for his work with the Conservation Tillage and Technology Conference.
  • October 2014 – Teresa Funk, office administrative associate, ANR • for her work with the Farm Science Review and numerous other ANR activities.
  • November 2014 – Lisa Barlage and Michelle Treber, educators, FCS • for their Live Healthy Live Well social media campaign leadership.
  • December 2014 – Kirk Bloir, interim associate state 4-H leader • for his work with Ohio State policy 1.50 to distribute information, answer questions, and serve as a liaison for OSUE to the university.

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CFAES Human Resources Generalists

-Elayne M. Siegfried, Esq., Human Resources director, College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences

Amy Burns started in early September as a Human Resources generalist for the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences. She is working from the Agricultural Administration building and is assigned to manage HR responsibilities for Extension. Amy (burns.897@osu.edu) came to us from Columbus State Community College, where she served as a human resources business partner, Title IX investigator.

Dawnielle Essig also started in September as a Human Resources generalist for the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences. Dawnielle is assigned to manage HR responsibilities for OARDC. Dawnielle is working from the Research Services Building on the Wooster campus. Dawnielle (essig.33@osu.edu) came to us from Owens Corning where she served as a human resources generalist.

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CFAES Crisis Communications Plan is Updated

The CFAES Crisis Communications Plan has been updated. All CFAES faculty and staff should be familiar with this plan and use it in case a problematic situation arises. Please forward this to all faculty and staff in your unit. The PDF is available at https://cfaes.osu.edu/commtech/resources/crisis-communications-plan.

Questions or feedback may be directed to Martha Filipic, College Communications and Technology (614-292-9833; filipic.3@osu.edu).

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