(A friendly caveat – this post does not lend itself well to images. So the pictures here are simply eye candy from my 2019 trip to London to reward you for considering this visually drab but important topic.)
I’ve been involved in Extension education for 17 years and one of the most important things I’ve learned is that Extension audiences want information that’s easily understood and has obvious practical use.… Continue reading this article “Not all Extension publications are created equal”
About 6 months ago I wrote a little article about what I perceived to be the most significant problem within extension, which is that extension personnel, and specifically tenured and tenure track faculty, simply don’t receive recognition or credit for accomplishing their job. In this essay I’m going to give a specific example of this problem.
Normally, when someone does what they are assigned to do, they are rewarded, or at least an acknowledgement is made that they are performing satisfactorily.… Continue reading this article “Extension….Again”
For long-time readers of this blog, you know how much I love arborist wood chip mulches. Now my new WSU Extension fact sheet has just come out – feel free to share it with your gardening friends.
For those of you who are out of the academic loop, Extension is that part of academia tasked with delivering research based information to those who can use it. You’ll hear other definitions, but I think that this basic one is the most useful for the following discussion. Extension, as a general rule, is tightly tied to agricultural sciences though it may include everything from child care to math or even computer science.
For fifteen years I was a part of Extension at the University level.… Continue reading this article “Some Thoughts on Extension”
Seemingly once a week we see a report in the news about how Science and Math education in the US lags behind many developed countries around the world. http://articles.cnn.com/2011-05-15/us/education.obrien.response_1_math-and-science-national-robotics-competition-education?_s=PM:US
While we typically think of Chemistry and Physics when discussing science education, biology is in there too.
I bring this up because I am continually amazed at how little many people know about basic biology. Some of this funnels its way into extension calls and e-mails. … Continue reading this article “Science Education and Lichens”
Am just heading out the door for Fairfax, Virginia – part of the greater Northern Virginia metro area, with traffic that scares the pants off of us country mice. I’m doing the Master Gardener training for the Fairfax Master Gardener Association. Their attendance is so huge, they have to split into a morning session (150 people) and an evening session (100+). Two and a half hours of training on “herbaceous plants” twice in one day – that’s a lot of yakking even for yours truly. … Continue reading this article “More Master Gardener Fun!”
I hate to be the downer this week, given Bert and Holly’s inspired posts, but reality continues to hit – or bite. The budget crises in Washington state continues to gut higher education, and one of the hardest hit areas at WSU is Extension. Land-grant institutions have a federal mandate to provide Extension services, and this sets WSU and similar universities apart from other state schools. Unfortunately, Extension generates relatively little in terms of outside grants and contracts. … Continue reading this article “The decline of Extension and the increased need for science-based information”
We’re on the topic of communication this week…how can Extension personnel communicate best with their audience/stakeholders. It used to be via racks of Xeroxed “Fact Sheets” at your local Extension office. A few of these are said to still exist, but with states gutting their extension budgets, the costs of printing have become prohibitive. And more critically…where do YOU go for information? A musty file full of handouts? Heck no. Electronic media is tailor-made for extension.… Continue reading this article ““Leave” Them Alone…Adventures in Extension Podcasting”
We recently received a question on one of my old posts (Dec. 12, 2009) from a blog reader in Iran (yes, Iran) regarding agricultural extension and asking what’s new in how we disseminate science-based information. There’s no doubt that things have evolved in agricultrual extension over the years. There’s an old joke: Guy walks into a county extension office and the agent is sitting behind his desk, crying. The visitor asks, “What’s the matter?” Agent replies, “My farmer died.” … Continue reading this article “Not your father’s extension service”
“The Texas A&M University System is moving ahead with a controversial method of evaluating how much professors are worth, based on their salaries, how much research money they bring in, and how much money they generate from teaching, The Bryan-College Station Eagle reports. Under the proposal, officials will add the money generated by each professor and subtract that amount from his or her salary to get a bottom-line value for each, according to the article.”
This bodes ill for faculty like myself who have Extension appointments. … Continue reading this article “Further decline of “public” education”