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As a student in the GP Idea masters in youth development program, and as an AP Extension Coordinator, I strongly defend the academic professionalism associated with youth development. The first course offered through the GP Idea was on Communtiy Youth Development. In my final integration paper, I proposed that a youth development professional position should be funded in every county to coordinate youth/community development efforts and programs. I further proposed that Extension Offices were the ideal choice for these positions. The cost of one professional's salary is far less than the cost of just one youth in our juvenile justice system. It is more than a service, it is a sound investment.

There is extensive research from a wide range of fields including psychology, sociology, human development, education, and physiology that are interwoven into the theories and practices of Positive Youth Development and Community Youth Development.

With approximately forty students in the first class of the GP Idea youth development program, Extension and 4-H professionals were well represented. The 4-H program itself is in many ways already a model of Positive Youth Development and of Community Youth Development in its approaches and practices. Land Grant Universities are well positioned to take the lead in the movement toward professionalism in youth development. Not to do so would be sheer folly.

 

By Dale Leidheiser on Monday, December 15, 2003 - 07:13 pm :

Kirk,
First, I appreciate your thoughts and insights on this topic and the opportunity for greater dialogue.

In systems where rank and tenure are not an integral part of the youth development program, scholarship is, by and large, not identified in position descriptions or a part of performance appraisal. Agents in these situations feel tha scholarship is an added, and perhaps unneeded, responsibility. We have, at best, omitted information in position descriptions about the full scope of responsibility of 4-H youth development professionals, including scholarship, to new applicants. Our clientele see agents working on events and activities, organizing training sessions, solving problems, and other assorted work but don't have an understanding of those other "duties as assigned."

As our own worst enemy, we have had colleagues who assail the university for requiring a level of evaluation, impact and accountability of their work. They say, "my work is in the county and these other requirements keep me from doing my job." We have given lip service to research based information as the foundation of our curriculum and waffle between using it when it's convenient and relying upon personal beliefs when it's not.

In my own experience of working in a system where an academic home was part of the job and getting tenure was the only way to keep it, there was continual emphasis on evaluation and sharing the results. While there were challenges in dealing with the academic department and its committees, the time demands of publishing, and working on the documentation required for promotion, the benefits came in the form of shared information and programs which benefitted other professionals.

One of the larger challenges we face is the location of an academic home. Should it be in Human Development? Education? Adult Education? Continuing Education? Communications? Business and Management? Social work? How many campus based departments would be open to, or uderstanding of, 4-H youth development professionals? I don't think we "fit" very well in existing tenure and promotion systems or would fare very well in their reviews. Given the multi-disciplinary, community based work of extension professionals, how can we advocate for a different model? True peer review can best be accomplished by an academic department comprised of those engaged in, and understanding of, community youth development - 4-H professionals. While there are hurdles to be cleared in establishing new departments, it would be the best possible situation for our profession.

Ultimately, I think the long term benefits of recognizing and supporting scholarship and improving institutional ties are worth tackling the challenges. We have an opportunity to face these challenges and change the face of our land grant universities.

 

By Kirk A. Astroth on Tuesday, December 16, 2003 - 03:37 pm :

Hello Dale,

Good points all and I appreciate your thoughtful input. 4-H as its own department (such as exists at Oregon State, among others) is in my estimation the best alternative because you're right--we don't fit in other areas very well. And I would disagree with George McDowell (see his book, p.147) that by being our own department that we can't be integrated with other disciplines on campus.

Regardless of position, title or academic rank, all of us working in 4-H youth development must pay attention to scholarship. It's the only thing that distinguishes us from dillettantes. But you are also correct--we need to be upfront about this in our job announcements and position descriptions.

As long as we remain the "cooperative" extension service, while some people may feel their "job is in the county," it is also funded and supported by at least two other partners--the state and USDA. And as long as we retain our academic ties to land-grant universities, all of us must see ourselves as responsible for taking the university to the people--and that means scholarship. We must break out of the activity trap; we must quit seeing that as our only job.

As I wrote in my paper on scholarship: "All Extension staff have an obligation to link community needs and university expertise, thus giving relevance to scholarship. Without connecting our everyday practice to academic scholarship, we risk being merely dilettantes masquerading as experts. Obviously, not every Extension agent needs to be a research ãscholar,ä just as not every college faculty member must be such a scholar. But every Extension professional needs to be a scholar of application, accessing and applying scholarship to inform and improve everyday practice."

Additionally: "At the same time, though, just conducting excellent 4-H programs does not constitute any kind of scholarship. Or worse, waiting around for the phone to ring, running livestock auctions, or weighing and tagging steers, is not even considered a program. Programs are planned educational efforts based on the needs of people. The scholarly practitioner designs these planned educational programs to take advantage of their own or othersâ scholarship."

You raise good points and hope to learn from the feedback of others in this forum. Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts.

 

By Jan Scholl on Thursday, January 22, 2004 - 11:27 am:

In the 1980s, Dr. Mary Greenwood, Administrator ES/USDA, authorized and funded a national study of attitudes and perceptions of state leaders, program leaders and specialists to "Strengthen the Research Base for Extension Programs." In response to the findings of the study, Don Stormer (1986) reported that the home economics and 4-H research bases were sufficiently inadequate to ensure the future viability of these programs.

George McDowell, in his 2001 book, "Land-Grant Universitites and Extension into the 21st Century" noted that there has always been a distortion regarding the intellectual investment in 4-H programming. In his words, "we always knew more about the calves and other animals than we did about the kids" (p. 165).

In my estimation, what is not being said about Extension scholarship has to do with what we know to be true and how we are applying it in programs. In the movie, Born Yesterday, the character played by Melanie Griffith, found that people in government were doing a lot of talking about great writings; quoting this study and that, touting new initiatives, but very few knew the basis of those studies or the purpose of the initiatives. Most people acted on their perceptions and what their boss and everyone else said was important.

The Journal of Extension captures much of the scholarship about extension. (How many of us read more than one or two articles a month?) But, it is not the only place scholarship about extension is exists (Read any reports from Agricultural Experiment Station projects lately?) nor should it be.

For the past few years, I have been working with the National Ag Library (NAL) to catalog documents about the 4-H: national program intern reports, ECOP 4-H minutes, and staff, development training materials. Most of these, unfortunately, are headed for the dumpster or will be cataloged together never to be found again--because there are not mechanisms (and funding) in place that will secure our scholarship. Many Extension bulletins and reports are not being sent to land-grant libraries or NAL anymore.

To prove that McDowell was wrong about the dearth of 4-H research, I compiled and analyzed 1550 theses and dissertations about 4-H, spanning 93 years. These studies are from 130 institutions world-wide and include wonderful information not only about project topics, but about adolescent development and needs, family issues, competition and recognition--even things not commonly known about 4-H history.

It is important to create new scholarship, but what do we really know about the "research based" scholarship that exists? Shouldn't there be a systematic approach to developing studies that fill the gaps in our knowledge? Shouldn't we value scholarship enough to make sure it is in a location that people can find and use? I think so.

 

By Anonymous on Thursday, January 22, 2004 - 03:31 pm:

I have put off writing this, but see that others are still responding, so I add this to the mix:

Over the years, I have seen a lot of 4-H faculty that have not reached tenure because 1) they couldn't publish enough or otherwise meet the requirements of tenure or 2) because they "ignored" their extension responsibilities (extension educators wrote letters to the administration complaining about them). The tenure route for 4-H specialists in particular is a very difficult one.

Extension has created "models" to help 4-H faculty reach tenure, but so often this results in the their having to fulfill the model as well all the publishing requirements of other tenure-track faculty. 4-H faculty on a tenured track are often given graduate students so they can be "included as authors" on a piece that they might have to spent days or weeks trying to get the student to work on.

Unlike many other faculty, 4-H faculty not only need to be excellent writers for the scientific community, but for youth of all ages and adult volunteers with varying degrees of education. They must use "hands on" teaching to train agents, students in academic settings and be seen as the state's (if not the world's) greatest expert on youth development as well as another discipline or two.

Many of them spend hours a day answering questions about programs and curricula (which never seems to count toward tenure). Many still travel out to communities to do workshops as well as write for radio, produce television, have web-sites, write grants and the list goes on. Sure non-tenured faculty and agents do this, too (Are we nuts?) but tenured faculty are under the pressure to so much more, under a limited amount of time and be excellent at everything. Also, the problems of maintaining a respected position in a department once tenure is reached is something else again.

4-H faculty are evaluated by everyone: peers, peers outside of the state, agents, administrators, youth, students. Once I was evaluated by my own secretary and this evaluation was part of my tenure packet!

Despite the lip service to reduce the load for faculty, I believe no 4-H program is ever truly dropped for an individual until they quit! Considering our economic times and cut-backs, it is also not unusual for a state 4-H leader or department head to add a project taking 3 or more months to plan and execute with less than 3 weeks notice. Once that program is executed, the program is attached to the person, like a label. How many times can a faculty member rescheduled personal and family time? How many times does a person need to work nights and weekends to TRY to catch up? (The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind....)

I am not saying that 4-H faculty should not be tenured. But, isn't it the status the organization is seeking here? Status is important, but are we humiliating and demoralizing people (working them to death)to elevate organizational credibility? As an individual benefit, is "tenure" truly tenure anymore when universities are endorsing five year reviews?

Of all the 4-H faculty I have known, those without the tenure burden seem to be the happiest and more productive, they create scholarship and more of it actually reaches the public. They are more able to relax during their vacation, not worrying about cranking out yet another article or finding another grant that they can't manage. They don't have to worry if an article is rejected after waiting almost a year to hear of its demise (sorry JOE!)

If we value tenured extension 4-H faculty, we should see they are not charged with the entire mission of the land-grant university--especially if it is not in their job description. They should be evaluated fairly. We should challenge and them and limit "other work as assigned".

Administrators need to "take the heat" once a decision has been made to drop a program and see that it doesn't fall back on the faculty shoulders. (I could write the book on this one!)Perhaps there needs to be a layer (and there may be in some states) where tenure-track 4-H faculty do not have to plan, coordinate and execute incredible numbers of programs. The trade off may be that they are able to counsel extension educators and meet critical needs as they come up. They may actually be able to publish more and they will be able to live more.

Some contend that the "gold standard" is when research and program work in harmony. I agree, but in many ways that is the problem. Research and extension can become the person's life to the detriment of that person's true self. When they don't get tenure, when they don't find a sense of fulfillment, what happen's next?

There was a cartoon I remember from the Chronicle of Higher Education showing a faculty member, laden with publications approaching the bench of St. Peter. St. Peter remarks that he is not interested in all that "stuff". He doesn't care about the "titles". But he did care what we did and said that made a difference in people's lives. Something to think about!

 

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