FOCUS on Extension Programs

I spent a day in Gainesville on the University of Florida campus last week, meeting with my colleagues from throughout the state to discuss our goals and program focus for the organization and administration of Cooperative Extension. Each Extension faculty member in Florida is expected to participate on one or more of these goal teams. The University of Florida recognizes its county extension faculty members as full partners in the scholarship of the university. Extension scholarship is demonstrated through our service to the university, in our professional associations, and in the annual review of our portfolio of work and accomplishment in our local assignments. You can learn more about the goals and focus teams by looking at the information posted at http://pdec.ifas.ufl.edu/foci/. Some of the information is password protected for Extension faculty use, but you will see that the five faculty members here in Nassau County are active on many of the state teams.

The goals and focus teams continually strive to refine the mission of the Extension service. We help identify resources, request and provide inservice training for ourselves and our peers, and we write annual evaluation reports to document our local progress towards both local and state-wide efforts. I will continue to present highlights of these reports to the Nassau County Board of County Commissioners, and post links to these highlights through this blog. Your comments are always welcome.