January 28, 2025
Strong Partnerships Across Kansas Essential for University Relations
There are currently 67 local extension units across Kansas that are organized into 21 extension districts (multi-county units) and 46 independent counties. Each of the 105 Kansas counties has an extension office. They help employ nearly 250 extension agents and more than 150 program assistants and office professionals.
As with most anything that K-State Research and Extension accomplishes, our organization’s reach includes thousands of volunteers that live in the respective communities. These volunteers serve because they are believers of the work that is done through extension that directly affects the lives of the people in their counties and districts.
K-State Research and Extension is unique from most other extension organizations across the nation because of the partnership with local units that have executive authority, versus being advisory. While thousands of volunteers help conduct extension programming, managing local extension units is accomplished through partnership with elected volunteers.
There are a total of 650 elected extension board/governing body members, 236 representing extension districts and 414 representing counties. Additionally, there are 2,520 members on Program Development Committees, elected in counties and appointed in districts.
Technically, every board member from counties can change annually and elections for a quarter of the governing body members in districts occur on odd years. Thus, newly elected people have new responsibilities along with the various levels of experienced board members.
K-State Research and Extension, and therefore K-State, is embedded in Kansas communities and we have a foundational partnership and a responsibility for constant communication. You would think it would be easier with the tools available through technology, yet it can still be challenging as different folks use different systems. In some circumstances there is a communication overload that can lead to ignoring important messages.
One of the most significant systems we have is communicating through our agents and local unit support professionals. They are a link to a long chain of community and university contacts. When it comes to our partnership with the local extension unit governing bodies, regional extension directors are located off-campus and interact with board members to staff, budget and manage personnel.
Other efforts include quarterly partnership meetings for dialogue directly between extension administration and local board members. A quarterly newsletter is distributed to all local unit board members, and we maintain dozens of listservs with current board members to inform them of important and upcoming events.
Local extension boards have a representative body known as the State Extension Advisory Council (SEAC). This 21-member board is composed of elected representatives from the local extension boards across the state. This body meets with extension administration to help set K-State Research and Extension priorities and address any issues they receive as representatives of the local units.
As K-State faculty become more engaged with greater Kansas, we should make a sincere effort to communicate that we are ‘One K-State’ and ensure that we recognize and value the outstanding partnership that we have with our K-State partners in our communities.
If you need a place to start or would like further information, anyone in our extension system can point you in the right direction.