PACE Dialogue Session – Kearney Research and Extension Center, Jan. 16, 2013
These are the raw notes, representing the sequence of the conversation. Comments cross-over key
topics.
ACTION ITEMS
 Share current description of clientele included in new specialist position descriptions
 Do network analysis (so relationships aren’t lost with retirees)
 Explore ways to improve how grant money is shared (to promote collaboration)
 Be transparent about specialist support money
 Conduct job satisfaction survey
GENERAL COMMENTS
 Need for more transparency about why decisions are made
 Need to maintain flexibility to adjust to emerging issues/needs (UC vs. ANR)
 Strength in quality of people; remain committed to filling positions
 Need to improve process to fill urgent/unanticipated position needs (be careful to not be too
political)
 How will we maintain CDs? Need more dialogue about how to fill these positions, and about
leadership development and mentorship.
 This geographic area is still commodity driven (keep in mind during grants process)
 Retention real issue  Support Staff
 This process useful but only do again if something comes out
CLIENTELE
 Category for Specialist is “Extending Knowledge.” There is no differential between doing that in
CA and internationally
 Publications and grants not only driven by merit/promotion but also programming (funding)
 Less money for extension and more scrutiny on how research money spent
 Lack of flexibility/cottage industry
 To help collaboration make sharing money easier
 Lack of staff to support specialists on extension; lack of funds specific to extension
 Some departments define extension as work international or national (ANR defines as in CA) –
make this more clear
 When define position need to identify potential for impact.
 Not just influence at department level but also college level
 Expectation for international recognition  reward; can’t be all you do
 Extension separate from international and national work
 Tension between university and clientele expectations
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There has not been an ongoing transition of people in positions; there is not a range of years of
service in positions; there is a lack of mid career people
Challenges of retirements is not only lose expertise but also relationships
Look at network nodes (do academic analysis) as strategy to address lose of relationships with
retirements
AES faculty used to work closely with specialist and advisors on applied research; led to changes
in specialist positions and new reality of relationships
Have expectation/reward for close work with advisors
Departments and campuses vary in their expectations (ex. UCD vs. UCR)
Department culture and campus affects relationships. Some focused only on research gaps
People do the work they are rewarded for (for specialists publications and grants are drivers)
Easier for off-campus specialists to build community relationships
Can balance research expertise with emphasis on outreach (UCD vs. UCR)
Need to be clear about expectations. Specialist need to recognize role with advisors. Having
expectations based on the old model could cause a great rift
Having targeted audience increases impact (ex. nutrition education programs)
Advisors not “clientele” but colleagues; need for cooperation not specialist telling/teaching
Some specialist don’t work with advisors; they do “outreach for departments”
Specialist with broad expertise may work with range of advisors especially those without same
expertise (contextual)
Specialist work with advisors varies by individual
Now that specialist positions aren’t so commodity based, the clientele is more difficult to define
Specialists work with advisors since they have more contacts; other projects with large growers;
with AES (project based clientele; context specific)
Specialists, farm advisors, and Pest Control Industry all provide information to growers
Specialists sometimes need to define clientele; will depend on hire expertise given broad
position description.
Advisor clientele is whoever we need to help; wherever behavior needs to be changed
Advisor clientele well documented in position descriptions, what about for specialists?
Post Harvest is a unique area for specialists since there are no advisors working in this area
Specialist defines clientele as helping farm advisors as needed, as well as having diverse clientele
of growers, consumers etc.
Do specialists have to have clientele defined by Dept.?
o Yes expected. If not defined then adversely affects merit/promotion
ROLES/RELATIONSHIPS
 Concern about challenges of new advisor positions: more in competition with specialists for
extramural funds?
 Promoted on discipline expertise not philosophies (ex. IPM, sustainable ag.)
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There are issue-based advisors; need to focus on solving problems
Problems with commodity positions are Departments are not training that way anymore, not in
the US anyway
In the past, more funding solved these challenges; but, what do we do it now?
Future advisors need statewide expertise. Need to hire people who can change and are more
generalist by commodity and discipline
IDEAL ROLES/RELATIONSHIPS?
 Changing clientele has affected roles; continuum change internal and external
 Doesn’t seem like we have shared understanding of various roles (lines blurry)
 If advisors become more like regional specialists, what will the expectations be?
o Need to be more general rather than more specialized like some specialists
o New advisor positions concern about expectations and merit/promotion
 Issue driven positions make sense for AES but advisor positions make more sense to be
commodity based (clientele needs change)
 What is working well is the ANR Program Support Unit support for Extension
 Issue of accountability of Specialist support from ANR; it goes to Departments but not specialists
 Can specialist support money be targeted to Extension? But not require specific
reporting/accounting
 Have research grants being different but connected to Extension grants (ex. UC IPM program
grants)
COLLABORATION
 Evaluated on performance not collaboration; this is an issue; there is a distinction
 Artificial, token, un-meaningful collaboration requirement on grants; does not foster authentic
collaboration (sometimes has worked); more an issue of intellectual contribution
 Not a one way trickle down; continuum not a good description County
Campus or
 WSU and others have guidelines on co-authorship
 Journals have clear descriptions on guest writer guidelines
 Mechanisms to foster personal relationships?
o WGs work better than newer larger settings
 If collaboration so important then need to be rewarded accordingly
 Campus tends to reward individual contributions more than ANR
 Dis-incentivize if there is not county support
 Fix reward system, instead of changing title structure
 UCD specialist review work well with peer-reviewers (but depends on department) where peer
review process can work, move toward this model; need ability to go back and forth for
accountability (advisor  specialist and specialist  advisor)
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Worried that specialists and advisors don’t know about where in the system to find each other?
Hard to identify potential collaborators. Might be due to fact specialist Extension effort not
rewarded.
ANR should put specialist position out for bid. ANR drives the process; doesn’t come out of
College/Dept academic planning. Has been tried and some colleges not interested (ex. UCR)
Other state land grants the advisors, specialists, and AES have equivalent status; CA doesn’t
“Class” issues in system need to be broken down; is it better to have one CE title?
In Oregon everyone does research, teaching, extensions (county agents do more extension)
Support to keep trying new models (look outside UC)
UCR spec position proposal might be narrow give selection process/lack control
Support department structure. Fix what is there
More variety in specialist position affiliation/administration will add to confusion.
Specialist in departments provides richness to continuum; have advanced weigh in on
merit/promotion process and vice versa (less for latter)
CE specialist need to be driving/leading, rather than AES, the development of specialist position
proposals and be on the search committees
o Decide who + where
o Define position hire and mentor
POSITIONS NOT LOCATED STANDARD LOCATIONS?
 Will ANR be defining the expectations for these specialist positions vs. those for advisor
 Departments (specific) sometimes narrow in defining/proposing postings
o Not thinking outside the box
o Because of specialist selection process
 If not in department then lose valuable subject tie-in and lose ability to have graduate students;;
less competitive with extramural funding opportunities
 Instead of addressing issues with current specialist creating a new role that will have a new set
of problems
 Other hand ex. Where spec working well; control problem; don’t punish success
 Specialists not located on campus are not invited as much to department
activities/responsibilities. They should to serve on search committees and to give seminars
 Just putting more money won’t solve issues; need to be clear about expectations; need to make
positions attractive to potential candidates
 Disconnect in how training students: ex. commodity focused specialist not always getting
Extension training (at least not in CA)
 Many specialists were previously advisors; how can we continue to do this? Seem to have
gotten away from model
 Need to find right personality, not just based on expertise
o Person needs to have the desire, people skills, and mission orientation
o What do we mean when we say “Extension expertise?”
o Search committees need to understand this
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o Need way to get people off the bus if not embracing new models
If new advisor is more like regional specialist need salary/rank compensation
Need to teach better evaluation of teaching and impact in merit/promotion package
Needs to be on paper and in practice when hiring and during evaluation
PROGRAM PLANNING
 New position process works better
 Improve AES relationship
 Senate faculty would need to be held accountable/recognized for AES appointment (Jim
MacDonald focused on this).
 Issue of disconnect bet. clientele needs and merit/promotion expectations
 UCB redefined mission to be more global with less focus on local issues. Similarly ANR leadership
thinking more broadly.
 Suggestion, ANR leaders rearticulate vision and more clear and direct at what we will no longer
do and how is LA going to feed itself?
 ANR need to demonstrate coordinated cross disc. Effort rather than funding disconnected small
projects to state/federal partners
 Nature of positions not silo’d
 Probably too many WGs; consolidate some
 WG success depends on leadership (encourage 20+ year people to step up)
 Blogs as ANR resource has connected people
 Concerned @ externally funded positions, given other university have had failed searches, and
there is potential for conflict of interest.
o But, it is similar to getting other Commodity Board funding to ANR
 Issues of SIs for policy change but some commodities don’t want more policy
change/regulations; Strategic Initiatives are big gamble that these will benefit ANR
 Strategic Initiatives do not work well to coordinate
 May not work for Ag, EIPD, NR/Livestock; but, for NFCS area and Water do. The Strategic
Initiatives and Program Teams work differently for different program areas.) {Too
broad/diverse}
 Strategic Vision didn’t get to next step of developing Action Plan; need to set priorities
 More disruptive than helpful
 Workgroups work well; Reinvigorate challenge to get to next level of issue (cross silos)
 Strategic Initiatives and Strategic Vision are for legislative audience, Commodity Boards, etc.
Some academics don’t see themselves in them so it is hard to build program.
 Large grants in ANR program distraction to collaboration; should evaluate/review how new
programs working; needs to be more transparent, lack of feedback loop, number of hours spent
 Narrow objectives to streamline process and be more efficient
 Historical lack of AES meaningful contribution to planning
 Suggestion to narrow focus working on mission to have more impact
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Strategic Initiatives too focused on policy change (research to informal policy okay);are
misdirecting emphasis
A lot of activity in limited areas that may not be relevant to all
Consolidation of grants program led to loss of collaboration. Other grant program with small
grants worked well.
Smaller grants could work well to focus on extension, to advance focus, for travel support
o Still possible make more clear that these are still available
o Lost opportunity with less seed money
Meeting Evaluation
Worked Well
+
Great facilitation
Openness
Note Taking
Make it better
++
More diverse (but not bigger)
Consider not having large UCD group; break-up
into smaller groups
Spend more time on action item/ things that can
be done and actually happen (short practical list)
Facility
Well organized
Location
Size
Survey before dialogue session (provided format)
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