CASE 4: TO CENTRALIZE OR TO DECENTRALIZE? THATIS THE QUESTION
“Whether 'tisnobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrowsof outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And, by opposing, end them?”
The Setting
Urbanization, urbanization, urbanization. Yadda. Yadda. Yadda. In this state, rural rules. Twomajor cities, the capital and one on the very edge of the state continue to grow, but the heartbeat is still rural and small town. Local pride is alive and well. Holiday parades with the mayor in the lead car, the Town Queen and her entourage in the convertibles, and the two lone firetrucks pulling up the rear draw 90% of town residents. The LGU is less a campus place than it is a network. There are 12 satellite campuses around the state’s 50 counties, with more faculty and together larger budgets than the central campus. Each has its own Chancellor, its own faculty, its own athletic teams, and its own mascot. The LGU itself is more a loosely organized consortium. It is what marketers wouldcall a “House of Brands,” rather thana “Branded House,” witheach facility positioning itself in the marketplace for students, academic experts, an d public recognition. Extension is equally decentralized. Agents orbit the 12 campuses, organizing andpresenting content that is specific to the needs and desires of their areas. They are very “customer oriented,” responding and orienting their work not to central priorities of the main LGU campus but to the demands of the people they servewhere they serve them. The result is erosion of any central planning or strategy process for Extension, and little real central knowledge about what, in fact, is defining Extension locally. Yet, even as this centripetal force continues, under the surface, things are changing in ways, some subtle and some not so subtle. What had been a state largelyof family and extended family farms, is commercializing. Farms have been combining and are being sold. As operations get bigger and families retire, there is an increase in migrant workers in rural areas. Many are no longer “migrant” in that they are settling down in the smaller towns and opening up micro-businesses in such services as cleaning. Extensionagents are beginning to see some of that change, with less demand for their materials and services, and fewer people attending meetings. But the system is so decentralized that, as agents individually feel the changedpulse on the ground, there is little common sense of change at scale, nor any organized strategy to respond in a systematic way.
4-H Follows Suit
4-H educators in the counties report to county ExtensionDirectors. As with the LGU and Extension, each programresponds to and accommodates local needs and especially the interests of local volunteers. County educators develop their own programs in their own ways. In several counties, the decentralizationof the process is “baked into” the overall support structure for 4-H. Several county 4-H volunteer leaders are alsocounty commissioners, with their fingers on the purse strings as well as on the programs. And they are happy to ensure that county 4-H educators understand the relationshipbetween their happiness and resources.
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