TUESDAY MORNING NOTES - August 13, 2013

Tue Aug 13 14:24:09 MST 2013

TMN submittal:
http://cals.arizona.edu/extension/tuesday/form/submittal_form.html 

Tuesday Morning Notes 

August 13, 2013

FROM THE DIRECTOR:

In the past year and a half I've had the opportunity to meet with many of
the County Extension Advisory Boards from around the state.  Based on that
experience I have come to at least two conclusions:  1) each county needs an
active and properly balanced Extension Advisory Council (EAC), and 2) I can
see the value of having an advisory council for Extension on a statewide
level.  Accordingly, I am considering the development of a statewide EAC.

The goal for a statewide EAC would be to provide an integrated
representation of all areas of CALS Cooperative Extension (CE) including
Agriculture & Natural Resources; Family, Consumer & Health Sciences; 4-H
Youth Development; and the American Indian or FRTEP programs.  This council
would also need to have balanced representation from both rural and urban
areas of Arizona.  At present, I'm considering the appropriate number of
people to serve on the council, the appropriate balance with regard to
programmatic and geographic representation, the frequency of the meetings,
and any needs to have possible subsets or specialized advisory councils for
CE.  The first step that I have taken in this direction is the formation of
an Extension Agricultural Advisory Council (EAAC).  This council is composed
of readily identifiable groups that represent all facets of the Arizona
agricultural industry.  In the past six weeks we've worked to form this EAAC
and we conducted our first meeting on Wednesday, 7 August in Phoenix at the
Maricopa County Extension Office.  The basic goals of that meeting were to:
1) provide a brief overview of the current situation or conditions in CALS
CE; 2) solicit input from each individual representative or facet of the
Arizona agricultural industry relative to their current relationship with
CALS CE, their anticipated needs, and any commentary relative to areas in
need of improvement; and 3) solicit the input from this council for critical
priorities in our agricultural and natural resource programs for CALS CE.
In my view, this was a very productive and successful session on 7 August.
We had a very open and honest discussion and the participants were very
forthright in communicating the nature of their associations' history,
current relationships, and identified needs with regard to working with CALS
CE.  We gained a lot of good information from that session and I can
certainly say that I found the discussion and the opportunity to listen and
learn quite beneficial.  We can use a lot of this information constructively
in the direction and management of CALS CE in the future.  The participants
in the EAAC meeting were also very positive about this effort and were very
clear in their interest in maintaining this council and meeting on at least
an annual basis.

I believe the next step is to consider the formation of a statewide EAC in
the next six months or so.  Therefore, I will be working with the Extension
Administrative Team to begin developing a list of potential participants in
this statewide EAC.  As always, we are certainly interested in having the
benefit of any suggestions or recommendations as we develop this statewide
EAC.  

FOCUS ON FACULTY:

shakunair

Dr. Shaku Nair joined the Arizona Pest Management Center on July 1 as a new
Assistant in Extension, Community IPM.  She will be working with the
Community IPM Leadership Team, an interdisciplinary team of extension and
research faculty from across the CALS to develop and implement priority
extension programs for Community Integrated Pest Management (IPM) statewide.
The current priority identified by the team is implementation of IPM
programs for indoor and outdoor environments in and around schools.  Shaku
earned her Ph.D. in Entomology from the University of Georgia (UGA). Prior
to joining UA, she was working as a post-doctoral researcher in landscape
IPM at UGA during which time she conducted research on pests of landscape
and turfgrasses.  Apart from research, she has been active in teaching,
extension and outreach activities, involving students and extension workers.
She was also involved in producing a number of research and extension
publications and media.  Shaku is enthusiastic about educating people about
sustainable pest management and hopes to put her prior experience to good
use in this new position.  Welcome, Dr. Nair!

FOCUS ON PROGRAMS:

The UA provided many of the technical based seminars at last week's SHADE
CONFERENCE held at the Renaissance Glendale Center last Friday, August 9.
There were over 400 in attendance and included professional landscapers,
installers, nursery growers, retail operators and arborists. Speakers and
topics included, "Yes there are successful community gardens" (Haley Paul);
Landscape Plant Reponses After Freezing (Ursula Schuch); Identifying and
Managing Problem Soils for Improved Landscape Urban Health (Jim Walworth);
Emerging Plant Pests Update (Kelly Young); Natural Enemies.Your Friend in
IPM (Ayman Mostafa); and Diagnosing Non-Disease Problems in Lawns (David
Kopec).  The ACNP Training program included Diseases of Plants, Weeds and
Weed Control, Fertilizer Math (Kelly Young); Insects in the Landscape and
Garden (Ayman Mostafa); and Turfgrass Fun Facts for the Retail Salesperson
(David Kopec).  A splendid time was had by all!

UPCOMING EVENTS:

National Extension Climate Science Initiative Conference and In-service
Workshop; October 28-30, Cloquet, Minnesota.  For more information check the
conference registration website
<http://sfec.cfans.umn.edu/Conference/index.htm>  or contact Chris Jones
<mailto:ckjones at cals.arizona.edu> .  All JCEP members are invited. 

The UA's Controlled Environment Agriculture Center (CEAC) has released the
dates of their 2014 Public Short Courses.  The Lettuce and Tomato specific
crop production courses will be offered January 5-12, 2014 and their Spring
Greenhouse & Crop Production Short Course will be March 23-28, 2014.  More
information can be found at the CEAC website <http://ag.arizona.edu/ceac/> ,
by phone (520.626.9566) or by email (ceac at ag.arizona.edu).

Jeffrey C. Silvertooth
Associate Dean

Director for Extension & Economic Development 

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
PO Box 210036
Tucson, AZ  85721-0036
520.621.7205
520.621.1314 (fax)

To submit tips, suggestions, ideas for changes and anything that could help
us be more effective, use  the "Director
<http://extension.arizona.edu/state/directors-suggestion-box> 's Suggestion
Box" - all submissions are anonymous.  

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://list.cals.arizona.edu/pipermail/ace_astf/attachments/20130813/52982cfa/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image001.jpg
Type: application/octet-stream
Size: 23489 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://list.cals.arizona.edu/pipermail/ace_astf/attachments/20130813/52982cfa/attachment.obj>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image003.jpg
Type: application/octet-stream
Size: 3682 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://list.cals.arizona.edu/pipermail/ace_astf/attachments/20130813/52982cfa/attachment-0001.obj>
-------------- next part --------------

_______________________________________________
ACE mailing list
ACE at CALS.arizona.edu
http://CALSmail.arizona.edu/mailman/listinfo/ace