Today, as always, represents an opportunity to return to one of my favorite places in Missouri -- Cape Girardeau County -- and to talk about one of my favorite subjects, University of Missouri Extension . I have spent my professional career in Extension trying to explain what Extension does as an educational outreach of the University. Most individuals may only be familiar with one or two of our program areas, so the big picture does not come easily to the average resident -- or even our students and clientele.
The strategic message of University of Missouri Extension is “Live. And Learn.” As a truly unique asset to the state of Missouri , the University of Missouri shares its assets in teaching, research and extension work. As a land grant university with a statutory mission to make its knowledge available to our public, Extension nobly augments the sheer joy of learning by applying that learning practically, benefitting individuals and society as a whole.
This is a long handed way to say that extension educational efforts -- whether they are in agriculture, business development, community development, 4-H youth or human environmental sciences -- are designed to address the issues that are most important in people's lives. With help through university based research and information, our citizens become more equipped to make effective decisions in their lives.
Every time University of Missouri Extension embarks on a planning process, our many stakeholders, both internal and external, wonder what efforts are appropriate to embrace -- or to leave for someone else to address. With finite resources, it is a legitimate concern and one that each extension administrator, faculty and extension council must struggle with during periods of redefining ourselves. This challenge in Cape County (as it is in all of our Extension offices in the state) is a real one that is tempered by past expectations and outcomes, the historical roots of the organization, and the very real question of whether extension is simply a delivery organization or a mission expectation of a land grant university. I prefer to believe that Extension is not best served in terms of answering the last question in an “or” context, but in an “and” framework. Recent research shows there certainly is an identifiable organizational structure with a highly recognized brand identity associated with Extension in Missouri , but -- more fundamentally -- extension represents a mission component of a flagship, land grant and research extensive university. Failure to consider changes in educational programming efforts, audiences, and methods of delivery resigns Extension (as it would any organization) to eventual irrelevance. While now retired, I applaud the efforts of my former colleagues to continue asking the tough questions to Missourians in terms of their wants and expectations from this very unique resource in higher education, University of Missouri Extension .
The culmination of a comprehensive planning process that literally involved thousands of Missourians has recently been completed, and local and statewide educational issues and efforts have been identified to address the critical issues confronting Cape Girardeau and Southeast Missourians today and in the next several years.
In reviewing Cape Girardeau County 's program planning document, I was struck by the initial quote attributed to Mahatma Gandhi, “live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.” In Extension's words today, Live. And Learn.
Our society, individually and collectively, makes decisions about the use of financial and human resources on a minute by minute basis. I am always struck by the amount of both of these precious commodities spent to mitigate poor decisions by our fellow inhabitants of this world and country. One only has to look at few examples where the costs of the justice, medical, and social service systems have taxed, no pun intended, our capacity as a society to deal with these issues. Please don't misunderstand my focus. I am not saying that these areas only deal with the consequences of people's decision-making, or that the underserved should not have access to their fundamental needs. What I am saying is that we tend as a society to put many resources into solving the consequences of our actions, rather than adequately focusing on the educational efforts that minimize or mitigate poor decision-making while supporting good economic and personal outcomes for Missourians.
Extension's response to the myriad of inputs in the past year lies in three overall priorities:
Extension's ability to effectively respond to these aforementioned needs identified at federal, state and local levels has become an increasingly challenging assignment. More than a decade of inflation eroded, flat budgets at the federal level, actual overall funding reductions in our university budget since 2002, coupled with tight county budgets have required the Extension organization to look for continually more financially creative ways of responding to citizen's needs. This challenge is a particularly relevant one when the organization remains committed to serving a broad set of audiences that include some of our most financially vulnerable residents. Even as we have had to increasingly implement cost recovery efforts for some of our publications, services and educational efforts, extension as a whole and here in Cape County remains committed to not abandoning those limited resources individuals and families whose needs are just as great and maybe greater than their neighbors.
The growth of grant and contract-supported educational efforts with state, federal and local agencies as well as foundations will allow Extension to offer its expertise to more diverse and financially challenged residents of the state of Missouri . More recent efforts at the state and local level in developing gift and endowment programs highlight our commitment to being more entrepreneurial as an organization while remaining focused on our mission priorities. No better example exists than the effort here in Cape County to build this Extension office where we are meeting today. It represents a broad partnership of the University of Missouri , the local Extension Council, County's commissioners and private donors with a passion to support local program enhancement.
What do these fundamental changes mean to Extension today and into the near future? I believe you will see Extension moving forward with the best mix of “high touch-high tech” qualities in its educational efforts in a setting of being many things to many people but not all things to all people. The application of research-based knowledge in an increasingly complex society will only grow and Extension has positioned itself with its latest planning effort to respond to the needs of our state's residents.
As I reviewed the plan for the county, I noticed several examples of Extension's many educational efforts that resonate in this county (as they do in a number of Missouri locales). How can one ignore the need for crop and animal management systems' programming designed to address profitability and environmental issues facing the county's farming community? Likewise, is it any less important to see educational efforts directed to our youth in the area of character education, as practiced in the Show-Me Character program? Despite unparalleled affluence in our society in general, persistent pockets of families remain outside the mainstream of American financial well-being. These families are educated through our family-based nutrition program that is a model for land grant universities across the county. Finally, the notion of using education to assist individuals to more effectively create jobs and income at a community and personal level is certainly at the forefront of extension efforts in Cape County . Whether it is assisting new or existing entrepreneurs, or fostering community enterprise and entrepreneurial development, Extension has an over 40-year commitment in Missouri to assisting those integral contributors to our local economy.
As we take this moment to acknowledge this recommitment by the University of Missouri, and University of Missouri Extension in particular, to the citizens of Cape Girardeau and surrounding counties, I invite you to learn as much as you can about our interest and efforts in fulfilling the statement of “live as if you were to die tomorrow and learn as if you were to live forever.”
Thank you for the opportunity to share a few thoughts with you and reconnect with some of my extension roots in Cape County… and I would be glad to engage any of you in our audience today in a dialogue about my remarks, your thoughts about what I have shared, or answer any questions that you may have at this point in time.
Updated 8/21/06
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