Dean's Update on Long-Range Planning; March 8, 1999
March 8, 1999
MEMORANDUM
| TO: | County Extension Faculty |
| FROM: | Christine T. Waddill |
| RE: | Extension Long-Range Planning Update |
I am pleased to bring you this up-date on the progress being made in preparation for long-range planning for 2000-2003. We are moving along with a number of items designed to provide support for county programming. Please be alert for information and materials sent to you by E-mail. Also, check the Program Development and Evaluation Center Web site for materials posted on that site.
Here's the status of things to date:
Florida Citizens Viewpoint 1999 Survey
This state-wide survey of citizen's perceptions of the importance of selected issues and educational needs for their communities will be conducted by telephone during the week of March 15. The survey will generate a list of potential program priorities in these areas. The priorities will be shared with each county as a means of facilitating thinking and discussion by advisory committees about issues and educational needs existing at the county level. Our goal is to provide this information to you no later than the end of March.
The "Citizens Viewpoint 1999" survey instrument can be readily adapted for use at the county level to collect information on local issues and educational needs. I encourage you to make use of it. The instrument can be very easily used as a distributed questionnaire or, with more detailed planning, used as a mail or telephone survey. The instrument and suggestions for its use have been sent to each county by E-mail as a Word Perfect attachment. In this format, the survey can be easily down-loaded and modified as desired to fit the specific needs of the county. You can also find the instrument and suggestions for its use on the Program Development and Evaluation Center Web site under UF/IFAS Administration; Long-Range Program, 2000-2003. If your county has not received these documents by E-mail, or cannot down load them, or if you experience difficulty in accessing or printing the documents from the Web, please contact Dr. Steve Jacob, (sgj@ifas.ufl.edu), SUN 622-0386, for assistance.
Situation Updates
Design Team Leaders have been requested to update the situational information that was provided for the FY 96-99 planning effort, and provide it in "bullet" format for ease of use. I appreciate their prompt response to this request. The information will be provided to each county in the form of a "Situation Data Book", which will also contain relevant census and statistical data useful to each program area. These documents will also be put on the Web. Hopefully, this information will be helpful in your work with your advisory committees in setting priorities and drafting long-range program goals and objectives. Our goal is to have this information to you before the end of March.
Video Tape
I have made a short video tape in conjunction with Vice President Martin that is designed to be used with local advisory committees. On the tape, I briefly discuss our four-year planning endeavor, and attempt to challenge and encourage our advisory committees to think broadly in their identification of issues and concerns affecting their communities, and in the specification of priorities for the Extension program. Vice President Martin reviews the Florida FIRST strategic planning effort, and how it and our Extension four-year planning effort complement each other. Hopefully, the tape will help set the stage for the effective involvement of our advisory committees in the four-year planning process. One copy of the tape will be sent to each county and should be to you in a couple of weeks.
Florida FIRST Base Papers
The base papers are coming along well, and should be available by the end of March. I will arrange for each county to receive a set of the papers, or at least summaries, as quickly as possible following their release. Hopefully, these documents will be a useful information resource to you in your planning efforts.
I hope that you will find the above materials helpful to you. In closing, I would like to stress the importance of working closely with your advisory committees in the planning process. As you know, we are developing a plan for a four-year period--the beginning of the new millennium! We want it to be on target to the fullest extent, with comprehensive programs addressing high priority areas--programs and areas that our local people have had a major part in identifying, and consider themselves to be stakeholders in their success. I hope that as you work with your advisory groups, you will convey their importance in this regard, and how much their work and input is valued. I also hope that you will give attention to providing a planning structure and environment that will facilitate the committee's work to the fullest extent. This includes providing key situational information in readily usable form, the opportunity for committee members to study and digest that information and to inject their own thoughts about local issues and needs, ample opportunity for discussion and priority setting, and the facilitation of consensus by all parties. To achieve this will require preparation on both your and the committee's part, and sufficient opportunity and time for interaction and deliberation. I can easily envision this requiring more than one meeting to accomplish. As you are aware, the long-range planning scenario identifies April and May for working with advisory committees in this process.
I thank you for your dedication and attention to sound planning, and wish you well as you engage in this important effort. Our administrative group will be looking forward to hearing of your program priorities, and your experiences with the planning process in our meetings with the County Extension Directors the last of May and through the month of June.
cc: Administrative Council and Design Team Leaders
These pages are maintained for archival purposes only. Please see the current Extension Long-range Plan for the latest information and updates.
Last update: January 13, 2003
