June 11, 2019
News about Our 2019 Annual Conference
Submitted by Gregg Hadley and Martin Draper
“INNOVATE!” is what Cooperative Extension has empowered the public to do ever since its creation in 1914. We are credited with facilitating advances in food, health, community vitality, natural resources and leadership development. We have always helped our society to innovate!
INNOVATE! is also the theme for this year’s annual conference. On Tuesday, October 22, through Thursday, October 24, 2019 – we will gather together to explore innovation and ways our system can innovate to better serve the public.
In the spirit of the INNOVATE! theme, our annual conference will look and feel a little different this year. For starters, Epsilon Sigma Phi has graciously given up their traditional Tuesday evening social and awards banquet to enable us to hold an all K-State Research and Extension event. This evening activity promises to be very different than previous annual conference events. It will be refreshingly new, fun, and rewarding.
On Wednesday morning, we have invited Paul Hill – the Director of Utah State University Extension’s Washington County office and co-author of The Innovation Imperative – to share his perspectives on the importance of innovation and provide practical suggestions for how systems like K-State Research and Extension can empower innovation. Instead of having our usual breakout session seminars, we will follow up on Mr. Hill’s presentation by engaging in fun and thought provoking activities that will help us determine how we as individual research and extension professionals and as a system can use the power of innovation to better serve the people of Kansas. Wednesday evening we will continue the tradition of association social events. We hope that INNOVATE! will influence conversations and merriment through the evening.
Thursday morning our focus on innovation will continue. We will gather together prior to our Program Focus Team meetings to discuss how to incorporate innovation in our Program Focus Team work, develop multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary programs, and how to reinforce the research and extension bonds that should permeate everything we do. We are K-State Research and Extension! You can help shape what a truly integrated research and extension program looks like by sharing your dreams for how we can better address the needs of the people of Kansas.
This year’s conference will be a humdinger! Stay tuned for more details as they unfold.