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Strategic Planning Committee Minutes, April 15, 2002
Strategic Planning (SPC) Committee Minutes
April 15, 2002
Members Present::Bruce Morton, Betsy Centa, Mary Noll, Jon Wraith, Bill Brown, Michelle McLendon, Jaynee Groseth, Kay Chafey, Mark Sheehan, John Carlsten, Greg Johnson.
Members Absent: None.
Others Present: Ben Sharp, David Bryant.
The meeting was convened at 3:00 PM by Chair Bruce Morton. Vice Provost and Director of the MSU Extension Service David Bryant was present to discuss Extension and his views of its place in university strategic planning.
According to Director Bryant, The Extension Service has been involved in a planning process since 1999. They have gone through a review process, updated the preliminary plan, and a task force sent recommendations to President Gamble. The plan was endorsed by the President and is now in the implementation stage.
A national review of Extension made recommendations similar to the Montana review. An issue is how to make better use of Extension to deliver programs and to have campus resources more widely available and known to people outside the university.
Nationally, Extension is known as the Cooperative Extension Service. In Montana, the name is the MSU Extension Service. In Montana, there are about 100 field faculty and 30 specialists. The Montana Extension Service budget is about $10 million. Of this, $4 million is provided through state funding, $4 million through county funding, and $2 million is provided through federal funding. The counties' share of funding has increased during the past years while base federal funding is flat or declining. Competitive federal grant funding has increased in Montana.
Extension continues to be active in traditional areas but has also extended its work into non-traditional areas. Plans are being made to sponsor an Alzheimers summit, and Montana Extension Service is part of a $1 million regional grant to work with AIDS and HIV issues in rural areas. In 1994, the tribal colleges became land grant institutions. Extension money now goes directly to the tribal colleges, and they can work with any land grant university in the country. All tribal colleges in Montana have chosen to partner with MSU.
On the MSU campus, Extension supports some extension courses in ag education, is involved in an agribility program (to develop specific equipment for disabled farmers and ranchers), oversees the 4-H program, and is involved in other areas. Although there is no official link between the Montana Manufacturing Extension Center and Extension, there are cooperative links.
The Strategic Planning Committee has identified economic development as one of MSU-Bozeman's opportunities in its preliminary SWOT analysis. How might the Extension Service help implement economic development?
- Extension has provided $12,000 to help fund a position in North Dakota to work with "value added" possibilities. Some of this work has been in Eastern Montana. A proposal was made to fund a full time value added position in Sydney, MT, but it was not funded in the current Extension budget.
- Although there are opportunities for faculty to work in areas of economic development, there needs to be more consideration given to how the university can give them time, aside from teaching, research and writing, to work in this area. Involving faculty in extension activities can aid economic development, but what does it take to involve non-Extension faculty?
- Because faculty working in Extension may rely on state funding instead of federal funding for their research and the issues they consider may be applied rather than pure research, awarding of tenure to these individuals can become an issue.
How does MSU determine that work in areas such as Alzheimers and AIDS/HIV are part of MSU's strategic plan? Director Bryant pointed out that these are real issues in rural communities, and as a land grant institution, MSU needs to be involved in them. However, there needs to be some kind of guideline for what is appropriate economic development and what is the appropriate time (and money) that Extension and the University should spend on economic development compared to undergraduate education and other areas.
In response to a question about whether Extension cooperation with the university is hampered by funding by counties, Director Bryant replied that any tension that may exist is lessened by the ability for field faculty to receive grants, such as those for the Montana Beef Network (to define and enhance the quality of beef), the Sheep Institute (to help the declining sheep industry), a regional weed project, and Undaunted Stewardship (federal funding for work on "Lewis and Clark" lands).
Many people in the counties see Extension as a part of MSU. Extension has received a recruitment grant to train field faculty to be better student recruiters. Student recruiting information is available in County Extension Offices, sometimes prominently displayed in areas Extension has in common with other community services. These recruiting efforts are more difficult in eastern Montana because of recruiting pressure by North Dakota and Wyoming. Extension's premise is that kids who want to go to college should be able to attend. Many job opportunities are available for students coming from rural backgrounds and interested in agriculture, engineering, business, and marketing.
As there were no further questions, the meeting adjourned at 4:10 PM.
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