November 13, 2018
A Lot of Great and a Little Bad
When you have some great topics and one bad topic to write about – a writer is often worried about sequencing. Let’s start this Tuesday Letter off with the most important great topic.
Sunday was Veterans Day, and many of us took Monday off to mark that day. While words or a day off cannot express enough appreciation for all that our past and present service members have done for our country, I offer a heart-felt “Thank you” on behalf of K-State Research and Extension to all of our colleagues who have served, are serving, or have family members who served or are serving.
Now, the one “bad” topic I will address in this Tuesday Letter. If you read the K-State Today last Thursday Morning, you know the university has declared a cash callback due to continued lower-than-anticipated student enrollment. That article can be found at https://www.k-state.edu/today/announcement.php?id=46435.
A callback is not the same as what we experienced this past spring. That was a permanent budget reduction. With a cash callback, we need to provide cash back to the university, but it does not permanently reduce our budget.
While this callback is bad news, it is tempered by the university’s commitment to shoulder most of the burden centrally. Extension’s current share of the callback is estimated to be relatively small, less than $200,000. Unless we see an increase in our bill, Dr. Minton and I plan to cover Extension’s callback centrally. While disappointing, we have endured far worse and continued to provide great Extension programs to the people we serve. We will continue to do so.
Let’s get back to the other great topics.
First, in addition to recently hiring the members of our Program Leader Coordinator Team, last week we announced that Jennifer Wilson accepted the responsibility of becoming our new Leader for Extension Operations. She will begin in that capacity on December 3, and will team with Stacey Warner in that capacity until Stacey’s retirement at the end of the year. While we know she will do a great job, let’s wish her well in this new and very important role.
Second, I want to commend the teams who participated in the Team Building: Harmony at Work workshops who have completed their Team Agreement Documents and their Increasing Extension Awareness Team Project Plans. Now that you have the Team Agreement Documents and Extension Awareness Plans in, let’s put them into practice, and, remember, team building is not a destination. It is a journey. Keep working to make your team an even better team!
Third, I want to congratulate our colleagues, Extension Council members, and county commissioners in Seward County, Haskell County, and Stevens County for your remarkable efforts in forming the first Extension district in southwest Kansas. While not all of the “i’s” are dotted and “t’s” have not been crossed, thank you for all the work put in to date! I do believe districting will enable you to better serve the people of Seward, Haskell, and Stevens Counties.
On a final note, I want to thank everyone for their continued great work. Remember, our profession allows us to help people to help themselves by providing them the education, research and facilitation they need to improve their lives, livelihoods and communities. Take pride in that, and continue to help people, organizations, and communities to become even better versions of themselves!