News June 2015
NACDEP Newsletter
June 2015

In This Issue...

  1. President's Column

  2. 2015 Conference Recap

  3. Western Region Update

  4. Southern Region Conference Report

  5. Communications Committee Meeting

  6. Recognition Committee Update

  7. Global Climate Change Fact Sheet

 Save the Dates!

Please register for CSU in the City: Evolving from Program-Based Extension to Project-Based in Denver, Colorado – Hot Shots, Dream Teams and Setting a National Model by Reinventing Extension in Urban Areas

Jun 25, 2015 12:00 PM PDT.

Register Now! There is no cost to attend but you must pre-register at:

https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/355808926939403521

Hear how CSU in the City (formerly Denver Extension) is transforming the landscape of Extension in Colorado and setting a national example. Learn about the deliberate shift from program-based Extension to project-based activities that will generate revenue to preserve core and traditional programming in Denver.

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.

Submitted by Brad Gaolach


Extension Climate Science Conference


Dec. 8-10, 2015

Montana State University, Bozeman, MT

 You’ll learn about:

  • Climate Science Basics
  • Montana and Regional Climate Trends
  • Stakeholder Perspectives
  • Tools and Resources for Extension Programming
  • Effective Communication Techniques
  • Program-focused Discussions and Opportunities to Collaborate
 
Sponsored by Montana State University Extension and U.S. Dept. of Agriculture Northern Plains Regional Climate Hub

Submitted by Paul Lachapelle

 


Greetings NACDEP Colleagues and welcome to the June 2015 edition of the newsletter.  We start out with a letter from the President.  We have a recap of the recent 2015 Conference in Little Rock.  We have a note from the Western Region and a report from the Southern Region.   Brian Raison has given us a lot to think about from the Communications Committee, and Michael Dougherty has provided us with a lot of information about the Recognition Committee.  We have a few “save the date” notes,  and I have taken the opportunity to tell you about my recently published, fairly comprehensive Extension fact sheet: Global Climate Change: Update 2015.  I hope you will find it useful, plus it will give you an idea of what I am doing when I am not editing the newsletter!

Thomas W. Blaine, PhD
NACDEP Newsletter Editor


President's Column

It’s hard to believe it’s been a month since our 2015 Conference. I thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to visit with many of you who were fortunate enough to attend. Upon reflecting back at everything I observed leading up to the conference, during the conference, and the communication afterwards, one thing became definitively obvious to me. NACDEP is a community, and we are thriving.

There is a positive energy within and surrounding NACDEP. People are talking. People are listening. People are engaged. People truly care about the work they are doing and the future of community development work in Extension. People are taking risks, embracing new ideas and trying new things. This was evident through the concurrent session and poster presentations, the Monday Morning Buzz and new activities offered at this year’s conference. Finally, NACDEP members are thinking about the future. Yes, there are challenges. Budgets are tight. Our ranks are thinning in many states. But, never did I hear someone say they were ready to give up. Our members are adapting to a continuously changing environment, leveraging existing resources, and seeking new opportunities to make a difference through Extension.

As we look toward the future I ask you, my fellow NACDEP members, to do two things. First, take a fresh look at your colleagues. Is there someone who would benefit from getting involved with NACDEP? If you haven’t seen the blog post from NACDEP newbie Jamie Mullins that is linked on our Facebook page (http://ht.ly/2ZMUhr), check it out. I received similarly positive feedback from the six county agents from my state who attended the conference this year for the first time. None of these agents are “CD” agents, but they are already thinking about what they can do to secure the resources to attend next year’s conference. Engaging our colleagues across all disciplines is one of the keys to increasing our organizational capacity with respect to community development work and keeping us relevant and visible.

Second, consider whether you are maximizing your investment in NACDEP. Are you “giving” and “taking” everything you can? Have you followed up with that colleague you met at the conference? When was the last time you updated your member profile or used it to identify a colleague who might have resources you can use in your work? Are you actively involved with a committee? Did you nominate yourself or a peer who is doing outstanding work for an award? Do you have an idea about something NACDEP can do to better support members, and have you communicated that idea to a Board member? Do you want to become a Board member? There are many ways to engage with NACDEP throughout the year, and each of us has unique needs and goals. I encourage you to consider your current circumstance and connect to NACDEP in a meaningful way.

I’m excited about the future and hope you are too. As your President, I am committed to ensuring that NACDEP stays true to its mission and continues to move in a positive direction. I hope you will actively join me in this endeavor. Have a fabulous summer!

Stacey McCullough
NACDEP President


2015 Conference Recap

The 2015 NACDEP Conference is in the books. With 70 concurrent session workshops, seven mobile workshops, posters presentations, a panel of federal partners, and four fast-paced “ignite” presentations, the conference was action packed. Keynote speakers were Dr. Nancy Franz, Professor Emeritus-Iowa State University, and Pierre Ferrari, President and CEO of Heifer International. New opportunities for networking included The Morning Buzz: Big Ideas and Trending Topics in Community Development, Speed Networking, and yes, even karaoke.

Missed this year’s conference or need to take a look back? NACDEP has you covered. The conference program, awards program, presentations, photos and other materials are being archived on the NACDEP website at http://www.nacdep.net/past-nacdep-conferences.  Check back regularly as items are being uploaded as they are received. All presenters should have received a Dropbox invitation to upload your presentation. If you need assistance with this process, please contact Ricky Atkins at [email protected].

Want to see some of the less formal moments from the conference? Use your favorite Internet search engine to look for #NACDEP15 or visit our Facebook page (www.facebook.com/NACDEP) or Twitter feed (www.twitter.com/NACDEP).

Thanks to all who participated in this year’s conference and made it a fun, productive and invigorating experience!




Western Region Update

Greetings NACDEP members! I’m extremely excited to join the NACDEP board as the new Western Region Rep. Since the conference, I have been working on revamping the Western Region newsletter, and am excited for that to be released this summer. For those of you in the Western Region, Ashley Kent with Montana State University created a NACDEP-Western Region Linked-In Group for us to share ideas and communicate. Please join this group here https://www.linkedin.com/groups?home=&gid=8306885&trk=eml-group_invt-b-button-viewgroup&midToken=AQEZbUCZu0hi0w&fromEmail=fromEmail&ut=0e83uMkKTFISM1

Roslynn G.H.Brain
Utah State University Moab




 Southern Region Conference Report

Twenty-nine NACDEP members from the Southern Region met in Little Rock for awards recognition, a report from the Southern Rural Development Center and a discussion of focus areas for collaboration across the region. The ten areas identified were: Funding and Financing, Community Initiatives, Food Systems, Climate Change, Youth Entrepreneurship, Non-Traditional Ballot Issue Participants, Creative Place-making, Community Infrastructure, Hospital Closures/Food Insecurity/Farm Worker Health, CRD Training. Any member who would like to be included as a possible collaborator in any of the focus areas should contact Susan Kelly at [email protected]

Many thanks to fellow Southern Region members, the fantastic Arkansas Team for their role in supporting an outstanding conference!

Susan A. Kelly
North Carolina State University

 


Communications Committee Meeting 5/19

Our Charge:  “The Communications Committee is responsible for overseeing the development and coordination of all communications with the NACDEP membership and outside the association including the website, list serve and other means of information sharing.”

Meeting Notes:  

We welcomed three new members to the ComCom at our breakfast meeting during the 2015 NACDEP Conference in Little Rock.

This past year was really busy with the change-over to our new association management team; but thanks to Susan Kelly’s leadership, the web site, our member portal, and “member clicks” are all now ready to use. Remember, the “member portal” is an external marketing tool that can show all the disciplines being used in CD (and sorted by state). The new “member clicks” allows us to communicate internally, sharing ideas, programs, grant proposals, etc. PLEASE sign in and use these tools. They’re designed for us!

 We reviewed the mission and history of the team, and asked, “What else?” Our team envisions formalizing some working groups to tackle individual or short-term projects on an as-needed basis. We’re also are considering new NACDEP list serves that focus on particular topics (e.g. climate change, economic development, international programming… but ALL in relation to Community Development.) This could be beneficial on many levels; but we have not had anyone run with it yet.

For our Facebook page and website (general reviewer): we need 2 persons _____________, _______________.  Who might become our new “National Social Media Campaign Chair” for Com Com? (Sounds like a good CV item!) Please insert your name above! (and contact Brian to sign up).

Submitted by Brian Raison,
ComCom Chair



From the Recognition Committee

Every year, one of the questions that the Recognition Committee gets asked about the NACDEP awards are how many people applied in each category.  This varies from year to year. But as we have gone through three awards cycles where the top two places in each category have been recognized, the committee thought this would be a good time to provide some basic background data on how many award applications are received, from where they come, and what types of awards are being sought.

Over the period of 2013, 2014, and 2015, there has been an average of 40 total submissions for all the available awards.  On average, these submissions come from about 18 states – although the number from any state in a given year varies from one to more than half a dozen.

The region most active in submitting awards packets is the North Central. Usually more than half the applications and nominations come from that region – an average of 22 per year. Additionally, there have never been less than 20 submissions in any recent year from the region.  This is not surprising as the North Central Region is home to several states which have had traditionally had a strong emphasis in community and economic development as part of their Extension Service – and roughly half of NACDEP’s membership comes from the region.

Meanwhile, each of the other regions have averaged less than 10 awards submissions per year over the period – 8 from the South, 6 from the West, and 4 from the Northeast.  However, there has been great variability in the submissions from these regions during the period, ranging from one region only having a couple of submissions one year to another region having nearly a dozen submissions in another year.

Also, there have been on average about 50 percent more team award submissions (24) each year than individual submissions (16). The numbers varied from year-to-year but there were always more teams seeking honors than individuals.

Among the various awards categories, one-quarter of all awards submissions have been for one category: Excellence in Community Development (an average of 10 per year).   Almost all of these came in the team category.

The next most popular category is Educational Materials (an average of 8 per year). However, the average may be a little bit higher than otherwise expected because it includes the submissions for the two awards – Educational Package and Educational Piece – that were merged last year to create this new category.

The other categories usually generate just a few to a couple of entries each year. This includes Educational Technology (5 per year), Excellence in Teamwork (4 per year), Cross-Program Excellence (2 per year) and Diversity (2 per year).  These include both individual and team submissions – except for Excellence in Teamwork which is a team-only honor. Finally, it is too early to have complete data for the new Innovation and Creativity Award.

Please note that since these are three-year averages and the numbers are quite small, one year of data can have a substantial impact on these numbers. That being said, the general trends represented by the reported data generally hold true over time.

And there is only one way to increase these numbers – for more people and teams to seek awards, especially in the categories that have not traditionally received as many award applications.  The call for nominations for the next cycle of awards will go out in January.


Michael Dougherty,
NACDEP Recognition Chair

 

The NACDEP Recognition Committee would like to congratulate all of the winners who were honored at the 11th Annual Conference in Little Rock.

The national winners are listed below.  Complete information on all the honorees at the national and regional levels is available at: http://www.nacdep.net/assets/docs/awards/past-winners/2015_nacdep_awardwinners_merged.pdf

  • NACDEP Diversity Award Individual: Daniel L. Fagerlie, Washington State University Extension

  • NACDEP Diversity Award Team: Michigan Tribal Governance Team, Michigan State University Extension

  • NACDEP Excellence in Teamwork: SR530 Mudslide Recovery Team, Washington State University Extension

  • NACDEP Educational Technology Individual Award: Mary Martin, University of Wyoming Extension

  • NACDEP Educational Technology Team Award: Local Government Database Project, Montana State University Extension

  • NACDEP Excellence in Community Development Work Individual Award: Roslynn Brain, Utah State University Extension

  • NACDEP Excellence in Community Development Work Team Award: Alabama Cooperative Extension Service

  • NACDEP Cross-Program Team Award:  Ohio State University Extension

  • NACDEP Educational Materials Individual Award: Gary Taylor, Iowa State University Extension and Outreach

  • NACDEP Educational Materials Team Award: University of Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service

  • NACDEP Innovation and Creativity Award: Sarah Halstead, West Virginia State University Extension

  • NACDEP Distinguished Career Award: Nancy Bowen, Ohio State University Extension

  • NACDEP Distinguished National Service Award: Michael Darger, University of Minnesota Extension and Michael Wilcox, Purdue Extension

 


OSU Global Climate Fact Sheet Now Online

Since global climate change continues to be a topic with which community development educators are involved, I wanted to let all of you know that my recent fact sheet, Global Climate Change: Update 2015 is now available on-line at:  http://ohioline.osu.edu/cd-fact/pdf/CDFS_203_15.pdf  

This is one of the most comprehensive fact sheets on the topic, updating my previous fact sheet from 1996, which is cited and linked in the new version, and serves as an introduction.  The new fact sheet helps answer the basic questions people often ask: Isn’t climate change natural?  Hasn’t the Earth been much hotter in the past than it is today?  How did global warming cause the ice ages to end - and what caused them to begin in the first place?  Are humans currently causing climate change? 

I hope you will read the fact sheet and consider using it in your educational efforts or encourage colleagues who are involved in climate change education to use it. 


Thomas W. Blaine
Ohio State University Extension

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