Posts Tagged: Cooperative Extension

Schmitt-McQuitty named Director of County Cooperative Extension

I am pleased to announce the selection of Lynn Schmitt-McQuitty as Director of County Cooperative Extension effective Oct. 1. Lynn has served a 50% assignment as interim Director of County Cooperative Extension since David Bunn retired in September 2022 and 50% Director of our statewide 4-H Youth Development Program.

The Director of County Cooperative Extension position was created to provide leadership to the county office administration. The direct supervision of county director positions is something that we take very seriously and Lynn, who served as a county director for seven years, has and continues to provide the highest possible levels of guidance and oversight for our county offices and programs. Her vast experience with the land-grant system and her knowledge of ANR operations make her more than qualified to serve as the Director of County Cooperative Extension. I have absolute confidence in her abilities to lead in our organization.

While the 4-H leadership position is under recruitment, Lynn will serve as interim Statewide 4-H Director with continuing assistance from Keith Nathaniel and Steven Worker, who each have 25% Interim Assistant 4-H Youth Development Program Director roles.

Lynn is also serving as the Healthy Families and Communities Strategic Initiative Leader until a new leader is chosen to begin on Nov. 1.

Please join me in congratulating Lynn on her new leadership role.

Brent D. Hales
Associate Vice President for Research and Cooperative Extension

UC ANR Interim Director for County Cooperative Extension

As you know David Bunn, our recent Director of County Cooperative Extension, retired earlier this month. We have had a number of leadership changes recently and I am very cognizant of the need for internal continuity across the organization. After carefully considering options, we have arrived at an interim leadership structure to preserve the integrity and effectiveness of our county extension efforts. Key changes are outlined below and illustrated in the attached interim org chart.

I am pleased to announce that Lynn Schmitt-McQuitty has agreed to step into a 50% assignment as Interim Director of County Cooperative Extension. 

I know that all of you have worked with Lynn in her role as Director of our statewide 4-H Youth Development Program. Lynn also served as a County Director for 7 years and is very familiar with the work and opportunities of our county offices and programs. She is a strong champion of all county-based research and extension. All County Directors will report to Lynn. She will continue in her role as Director of the Statewide 4-H Youth Development Program (50%) and will also continue to serve as the Strategic Initiative Leader for Healthy Families & Communities.  

Keith Nathaniel and Steven Worker have each agreed to take on a 25% Interim Assistant 4-H Youth Development Program Director role. Keith will focus on leading the 4-H staffing plan and Steven will focus on implementation of the 4-H 2018-2028 Strategic Plan. Both Keith and Steven are well-suited for these roles as they were intimately involved with the development of these respective plans. Their knowledge and leadership will ensure a smooth transition for everyone. 

I know that we now have a number of interim leaders across the organization. I am grateful for their passion and dedication to the UC ANR mission and their desire to ensure that we continue to serve the communities of California as a strong and cohesive organization. The search for a permanent Associate Vice President is about to begin; we expect to be posting it shortly. Once that person is in place, we will take the opportunity to consider how our programmatic leadership structure can best position UC ANR for future success. While the search is underway, please offer these interim leaders your support in any way you can.

I will overview this new structure at the October 7 research and extension center and county directors meeting and at the October 20 Town Hall.

In addition, Lynn will host open “office hours” on Monday, October 3 from 11 a.m.-12 p.m. and again on October 4 from 2-3 p.m. If anyone would like to hop on a Zoom to ask questions or just chat, the Zoom links are listed below. 

• October 3 from 11 a.m. to noon: https://UCOP.zoom.us/j/95139507968?pwd=anIzQlFGTnRzS2RUa3JTempaaFc2QT09
• October 4 from 2 to 3 p.m.:  https://UCOP.zoom.us/j/97250695251?pwd=TkxoR1dsS2gyWTNaRU9ZSFJCVm43QT09

If you have any questions in the meantime, please do not hesitate to reach out to me, Deanne Meyer, Tu Tran or Kathy Eftekhari.  

Best wishes,

Glenda

Glenda Humiston
Vice President

UC ANR releases 10 UCCE positions for recruitment

I am extremely pleased to announce the following 10 UC Cooperative Extension positions are released for recruitment: 

• #11 Plant Pathology Area Advisor, Santa Cruz County
• #13 Soils and Irrigation Advisor, Kern County
• #15 Urban Agriculture/Small Farms Area Advisor, San Bernardino County
• #27 Community Nutrition & Innovative Technologies Specialist, UC Davis
• #31 Forest and Fuels Management Specialist, UC Berkeley
• #37 Subtropical Crops Pathology Specialist, UC Riverside
• #45 Diversified Agricultural Systems Area Advisor, Lake County
• #55 Forestry and Natural Resources Area Advisor, Sutter-Yuba counties
• #59 4-H Youth Development, San Mateo-San Francisco counties
• #63 Integrated Vineyard Systems Area Advisor, at Hopland Research and Extension Center

Note that only the office location is noted beside the title; the CE Advisor positions are multicounty positions. A full description of each position is available at the corresponding position number at the bottom of https://ucanr.edu/sites/anrstaff/Divisionwide_Planning/2018_Call_for_Positions, with some modifications.

In May 2021, Program Council identified 15 UC Cooperative Extension Advisor and five UCCE Specialist positions from the list of departures and the remaining positions from the 2018 position call process (updated in 2019) as critically urgent to fill. To avoid overwhelming our Human Resources colleagues, the other 10 positions of the 20 will be released in late September as we ramp up hiring for future recruitment.

We look forward to releasing additional positions for recruitment  – both academic and program support members – throughout the next several months. Rebuilding our UC Cooperative Extension footprint, to address California's emerging and future needs, is made possible by the historic 2021-22 state budget increase. We are extremely grateful for the support and look forward to working with our partners to leverage these resources.

Glenda Humiston
Vice President

California Farm Bureau advocates for UC ANR

Policy advocate at the California Farm Bureau Federation, Taylor Roschen, wrote a 736-word commentary, published in AgAlert today, praising the value of UC Cooperative Extension advisors and advocating for an additional $20 million annual funding from the state of California.

Roschen provided highlights of UC ANR's public value, writing that:

• The breadth and depth of agricultural knowledge created by UC Agriculture and Natural Resources is unparalleled.
• Local Cooperative Extension staff, such as farm advisors and community education specialists, serve as translators, sharing the power of UC research with our farms, our families and our communities.
• 4-H youth leaders are 3.5 times more likely to contribute to their communities and nearly five times more likely to pursue higher education.

However, she continued, since 1990, the state's contribution to UCANR has decreased by 57%. California has lost more than 60% of its 4-H advisors since the 1990s and now have the equivalent of only 31 program representatives to serve the state's 58 counties.

To bring UC ANR programs "back from the brink," Roschen wrote, the California Farm Bureau is working with Assembly Agriculture Committee Chair Susan Eggman, D-Stockton, to fight for UCCE's future and save 4-H and local farm advisors and specialists.

"We are petitioning the state Legislature and the Newsom administration to provide an additional $20 million annually to UC ANR," she said.

UCCE positions recruitment hindered by budget constraints, town hall at 4 p.m. tomorrow (Thursday, Nov. 29)

Dear Colleagues,

Over the course of the past 11 months, UC ANR has undertaken a position call process to identify the priority UCCE Advisor and UCCE Specialist position needs to support the work of the division. After a great deal of work, 46 positions were identified by the UC ANR Program Council and divided into three categories (highest, high, and can wait).  Although we will utilize this categorization to the degree possible, the reality is that we need each and every one of those positions to serve our mission – all 46 positions are high priority to me. Furthermore, there are additional positions needed that were not on the list of 46 positions but are important gaps that have arisen over the course of the year. This includes three CE Advisor positions vacated within two years of hire and not re-opened for recruitment.

Despite that, and unlike past years, we will not be releasing a list of approved positions at this time. The current budget situation leaves us unable to recruit immediately for positions reviewed during the 2018 process. All positions will remain under consideration based on funding availability, including the opportunity to find funding partners to share position costs.

This difficult decision is part of a larger effort to manage a challenging financial situation that also includes reductions to statewide programs and less subsidy for research at our RECs. UC ANR has managed the past several years of budget cuts and unfunded obligations through judicious use of our reserves, increases to program fees, fundraising and excellent work by our academics to increase the capture of competitive grants. While those options allow us to maintain a strong program and continue to deliver our research and extension mission, sound fiscal management does not allow us to expand academic positions in the immediate future.

2019 recruitment depends on budget and partners

Having said that, it is my sincere intent to recruit for a small number of these 2018 positions during the 2019 calendar year. As the FY19/20 budget unfolds, we will closely watch retirement announcements, the impact of those retirements on critical gaps in service, and any other items that might affect the budget available for recruiting. In addition, we will actively seek opportunities to partner with various entities to jointly fund positions as a key strategy to maintain or, preferably, increase our academic numbers. As a result, the order of recruitments may vary from the categorized list provided to me and we may also need to reevaluate whether priorities have changed along the way.

More 2016 positions to be filled

Our academic numbers remain steady, not growing at a rate we wish to see, but steady nonetheless. This is in large part because academic HR, search committees, vice provosts, and campus departments have worked very hard over the last two years to recruit talent and fill positions identified during the 2014 and 2016 position call processes. All of the positions approved during the 2014 call have been filled; you might recall that at the time that the 2016 positions were approved, 25 of the positions approved in 2014 were still vacant. All but three of the 26 positions approved in the 2016 position call process are filled or under recruitment. The remaining positions (two CE Advisor and one CE Specialist positions) will be released for recruitment very soon. Additionally, the three FTE that were reserved for partnership opportunities have resulted in six new academics: three CE Advisor positions filled, one CE Advisor position under recruitment, and two CE Specialist positions under recruitment. This valuable tool allows us to jointly fund positions with external partners as well as other parts of the UC system; we will be exploring how best to expand and leverage this moving forward.

Recruitment and retention of top talent a priority

Recruitment and retention of top talent is a crucial strategic objective. Toward that end, I recently announced approval of year two of a four-year salary equity plan for CE Advisors that will bring their salaries into market norms. Offering competitive salaries to our academics and staff is of highest priority to me and the entire UC ANR leadership. Despite our budget challenges, we are pleased to be able to continue with this extremely important plan to improve academic salaries that had failed to keep pace with increased cost of living and academic norms for many years.

While the current budget situation for UC ANR is reminiscent of similar scenarios in the past, it is a strong wake-up call on the need to find new ways to fund our mission. State and federal support for the land grant mission has decreased or, at best, remained flat for the past few decades. UC ANR, the national Cooperative Extension system, the Agriculture Experiment Station system, and public research institutions in general, are at a crossroads – we must develop better ways to fund our mission, deliver our programs and leverage partnerships. This will include deployment of different business models. UC ANR is actively doing just that, while adapting to change along the way. I am confident that by remaining mission-focused we will grow stronger, more impactful, and more relevant to California and beyond.

To answer any questions you may have, and to provide more information, we will hold a Zoom town hall tomorrow (Thursday, Nov. 29) at 4 p.m. To join the discussion, please click this URL https://ucanr.zoom.us/j/292976675. (A recording of the town hall is at http://bit.ly/2BGvO73.)

Sincerely,

Glenda Humiston
Vice President

 

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This announcement is also posted and archived on the ANR Update pages.

 

 

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