Strengthening the National Extension Organization
Strengthening the National Extension Organization refers to going beyond individual Land-grants and states and considering where Extension as a whole should be going in order to remain relevant and sustainable. Subcategories in this category included connections across Extension organizations and linkages across Land- grant types. This category was added as a result of the preliminary interviews. Strengthening the National Extension Organization ranked most highly at third for 1994 Land-grants while being near the bottom of the list for the other Land-grant types. While there are only two subcategories, there were differences in ranking with 1862 and 1994 Land-grants ranking connection to positions across Extension organizations highest and the 1890 ranking linkages across Land-grant types highest (Table 14).
Table 14 Challenges ranked from greatest to least based on percent responses associated with strengthening the National Extension Organization provided by Land-grant institution type.
Institutional Rank from Highest to Lowest % Responses All Institutions 1862 1890 1994
Strengthening the National Extension Organization Subcategories Connections to positions across Extension organizations
1 - 50.98
1 - 51.93
2 - 25.00
1 - 53.85
Linkages across Land-grant types
2 - 45.10
2 - 43.65
1 - 75.00
2 - 46.15
No Response
Other (please explain)
3 - 3.92
3- 4.42
No Response
13
Number of Question Responses
204
181
8
Respondents from 1862 Land-grants provided a variety of “other” responses in this category. These are listed here verbatim:
Need for “accountability and guidance for implementation of evidence -based approaches
Different spaces which allow us to enter where we are but also find advanced spaces to have more detailed conversation
No means of sharing programs/outreach – reinventing the “wheel”
Poor strategic communication about extension
Siloed disciplines creating different ways of working community
Staff at the local level are not given the tools to make linkages with 1994 Land-grants in the state. They should be invited to our annual meetings, introduced, and we need to learn about their programming and their needs.
22
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