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April 2004
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CommentariesFuturing: The Implementation of Anticipatory ExcellencePatricia M. Sobrero IntroductionIn the 21st century, futuring, the use of techniques to anticipate potential public issues, will give Extension the time needed to address emerging real-world issues before crises occur. Extension's programming will become increasingly relevant, and the people of each state will desire engagement with their land-grant university. Learning will be valued because Extension programs will be linked directly to the learning, discovery, and engagement missions of the land-grant university. The resources of the university will be readily available when learners desire to learn because we will have the processes in place that allow us to out-think and out-anticipate competitors. This cutting-edge advantage will draw residents of the state to Extension programming because they will find it meaningful and timely. Where Current Efforts Fall ShortSome may conjure a vision of a fortuneteller with a crystal ball when they think of futuring, but in the 21st century, futuring has become a respected science. This is evidenced by the fact that our nation's military community is highly effective in anticipating issues that inform strategies for the defense of our country. Some companies develop futuring newsletters and use anticipatory techniques to give the organization advantages in dealing with fast-paced change. Their goal is to enable company leaders and employees to stay on the cutting edge so that flexibility is expected for quick changes in a direction that will ensure viability. Futuring is not planning, but it overlaps with the first step in program development. Futuring follows the anticipatory techniques of:
Most Extension units skip steps 2-7. Extension often scans the environment, but this valuable information may not exist in a usable form that makes it easy to access. Even current data-based information is unlikely to be linked to ongoing learner input and local stakeholder listening results. Extension frequently relies on experts who can talk about potentials, yet many of these experts do not feel comfortable with providing scenarios, forecasts, or issue briefs. Often workshops focus on one aspect of futuring. Creating scenarios, without the entire sequence of techniques, does little to inform planning. By incorporating all of the steps for futuring, the results can be reported in a format that can be used electronically to inform research, Extension programming, funding partners, and the public. It may surprise you to find that there are networks of university partners developing futuring techniques while collaborating with leaders who cross the public, private, and corporate world. Some of these networks have become learning organizations stretching across the United States and the globe. It will be worth your time to look at futuring organizations and their Web sites to develop a more comprehensive understanding of the critical importance of anticipatory futuring techniques. The following are examples of companies and public alliances that value futuring results.
John D. Bransford, a cognitive theorist at Peabody College, Vanderbilt University, has researched intuition and expertise. He found that intuition (knowing without having to determine how it is known) comes from attaining a high level of expertise in an area or discipline that result in refined and nearly instant pattern recognition skills. The term "anticipation" has been used in the field of leadership development to encourage leaders to develop early pattern recognition of issues in a culture of change so they can lead timely action. I think of that old television show called, Name That Tune. Some contestants could not think of the name of the tune even after the entire tune was played. Others knew the name of the tune after hearing only four or five notes. The contestants who knew the tune by hearing only a few notes were experts who had mastered this field and had expert pattern recognition for songs. They were instantly anticipating the next note and quickly identifying the correct tune. This instant pattern recognition can be improved as we practice futuring. We will become more effective leaders in a culture of change, and we will more effectively engage learners in relevant and meaningful education when and where they desire to learn. It's Time to Put Theory into ActionExtension has all of the tools needed in order to implement futuring as a viable precursor to planning. Most state land-grant colleges have the technological resources to move from merely analyzing trends to projecting anticipated futures. Many states have access to science-based social, economic, environmental, technological, and political information that is needed to anticipate likely scenarios, develop forecasts, and write issue briefs. This kind of information synthesis can continually inform situational analysis and allow Extension educators to quickly change direction when fast-paced changes occur. Extension's preparation for development and updating a stakeholder-based program is built on the accuracy of situational data, its relevancy, and the timeliness of implementation. The organizational strategic direction and its priority programs are built upon the organization's expertise to continually and accurately interpret the needs and aspirations of learners. These broad areas include social, technological, economic, environmental, and political sectors. Futuring is critical to being prepared and becoming flexible, timely, and highly valued. The Land-Grant Association's Extension Committee on Organization and Policy (ECOP) re-organized at the beginning of 2003. The final report of the ECOP Strategic Planning Council recommended that the Extension System "embrace and use futuring to guide changes moving beyond the traditional mode of operating to a more visionary and anticipatory mode." In the new structure, ECOP chose to make futuring a primary function of the directors serving on ECOP. The reorganization of ECOP provides an opportunity to view the world differently. This change holds potential for facilitating timely and meaningful change for the Cooperative Extension System as well as its diverse stakeholders. They, too, believe it is an important process that cannot simply be delegated to others. SummaryJames Morrison and William C. Ashley say that change is no longer a characteristic of organizations; change is the essence of the organization. This means that futuring for Extension is critical for effective anticipatory decision-making, continual yet timely improvements, and strategic plans that frame valued programs. Futuring in the Extension System should inform programming, shape system-wide recruitment and staffing, enable new strategic alliances, and be accessible through a data-driven intelligence system available to the entire system. The Extension System has the tools for conducting quality futuring. Our challenge is to realize futuring is not the same as planning. Futuring results in environment intelligence, likely scenarios, forecasts, and issue briefs so that as an Extension System we are prepared to successfully embrace emerging issues and are flexible enough to prepare learners and communities for timely action. Historically, our world was more predictable and Extension was focused on problem solving. If the Extension culture continues to wait to respond until after a problem becomes complex, our ability to address fast-paced issues and challenges will be restricted, and many of our efforts will be out of date. In the future, decision-making must be timely, framed within a global context, and based upon multiple dynamic and complex scenarios. Futuring, informed and available through an electronic data driven intelligence system, is key to Extension remaining relevant and viable. Effective futuring will lead to:
We celebrate the milestones of past successes, such as the 100th anniversary of Seaman A. Knapp's work that gave rise to the Extension System. We celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Journal of Extension, its 10th anniversary as an electronic journal, and the scholarship it has fostered nationwide. Now, it is also appropriate that we turn toward the future and embrace the techniques that will position us for excellence and viability building on our successful heritage. The impact and consequences of decision-making today will frame success for future generations. Ultimately, the Extension System as well as stakeholders will be better prepared to shape their own destiny. Futuring, timely and proactive planning tied to meaningful engagement with the people in each state, will result in Extension becoming "the catalyst for connecting people to the wealth of relevant knowledge and research residing within various colleges and disciplines of the university" (NASULGC, 2002, Page 2). ReferencesAshley, W, C., & Morrison, J. L. (1995). Anticipatory Management: 10 Power Tools for Achieving Excellence Into the 21st Century. Leesburg, VA: Issue Action Publications. International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA). (October 2003). Retrieved November 2003, from http://www.iiasa.ac.at/docs/what-is-iiasa.html?sb=2 National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges (NASULGC), Extension Committee on Organization and Policy. (February 2002) The Extension System: A Vision for the 21st Century. Retrieved November 2003, from http://www.nasulgc.org/publications/Agriculture/ECOP2002_Vision.pdf Rand Corporation. (November 2003). Sources of futuring issue briefs. Retrieved November 2003, from http://www.rand.org/ The Michigan Virtual University. (2003). The Technology Source. Retrieved November 2003, from http://ts.mivu.org/
Which Universities Should Provide Extension Services?David N. Laband Bernard F. Lentz IntroductionGiven the importance of Extension within the agricultural sector, the relative merits of public versus private funding of Extension services surely command our collective scrutiny and debate (Dinar, 1992; Huffman & Just, 1994; Schuh, 1992; Scwartz & Zijp, 1994). Surprisingly, a related aspect of the discussion of the optimal provision of Extension services has been altogether missing: whether cost considerations justify the current structure of production in which one or more providers exists in virtually all of the contiguous U.S. states. Provision of Extension services has sizable cost implications for the host institutions. Yet, there has been virtually no analysis of the impact of Extension on higher education costs. Among a host of relevant questions, one might consider the following:
In an effort to provide an empirical starting point for addressing these and related questions pertaining to the impact of Extension on higher education, we used academic year 1995-96 data to estimate a multi-product cost function for 1,450 public institutions of higher education in the United States, including 65 that provide Extension services. We found evidence of significant economies of scale with respect to the provision of Extension services by smaller IHEs, significant diseconomies of scale for the largest IHEs, and evidence of small economies of scope between the provision of Extension and the production of research. Overview of Research Methodology and DataThe general methodology for estimating how provision of certain types or levels of academic "products" affects an institution's costs is straightforward. Using detailed data on costs and "outputs" (typically the number of full-time equivalent undergraduate or graduate students taught, number of degree programs or academic departments, amount of externally-funded research, and the like) for a large number of academic institutions, the researcher employs multivariate regression to estimate the relationship between the level and type of output produced and the institution's costs. This permits the researcher to then estimate whether production of these outputs is characterized by general and/or specific economies of scale or economies of scope. Production is characterized by general (dis)economies of scale when total institutional costs (rise) fall when the production of all outputs is increased simultaneously. Production is characterized by specific (dis)economies of scale when total institutional costs (rise) fall when the production of the specific output under consideration is increased, holding the production of all other outputs constant. An economy of scope is a cost savings triggered by producing one output in the presence of another. For example, it might well be the case that there is an economy of scope between production of graduate students and production of undergraduate students, when the former help provide low-cost instruction for the latter. Our data came from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) 1995-96 fiscal year surveys on IHE finances, enrollments, and compensation. We identified a usable sample of 1,450 public institutions, of which 65 provided Extension services. In most states, Extension services were provided exclusively by the major land-grant university (the 1862 schools). However, in 16 states the production/distribution of Extension services was shared among multiple IHEs, typically the major land-grant school and a smaller, historically black institution (the 1890 schools). So the set of Extension-producing schools tends to be dominated by the state land-grant schools, which are large, research-oriented institutions with undergraduate and graduate programs. The specific model and estimation technique we employed in our analysis can be found in Laband and Lentz (2003); the only difference is that the current discussion is based on our having added Extension as one of the products produced by public universities. FindingsWe estimated a "fixed cost" of providing ANY Extension services of nearly $26 million in 1996. That is, holding other factors constant, public universities that produced Extension services, regardless of level of service, had total (annual) costs that averaged nearly $26 million more than public universities that did not produce Extension services. Note that this is an annual "carrying cost" on the required start-up capital--at a 5% rate of interest, such an annual carrying cost implies an initial capital cost of approximately $520 million. We then calculated the marginal impact of an additional dollar spent on Extension, starting from the mean level of Extension spending of the schools that produce Extension ($21,099,000). At that level of Extension spending, an additional dollar spent decreased total university costs by approximately $0.35. On average, then, Extension-producing universities are characterized by economies of scale. In Figure 1 we graph the relationship between Extension spending and total IHE costs. Economies of scale are exhausted at a level of Extension spending of approximately $23 million annually. Figure. 1.
We also found a slight, but statistically significant, economy of scope between production of Extension services and research. However, we find no evidence of either economies or diseconomies of scope between production of Extension and production of either undergraduate or graduate education. ConclusionIn 1996, there were 27 universities that had Extension expenditures in excess of $23 million, which means that they were operating in a region of diseconomies of scale. The largest of these schools, with Extension expenditures near or above $55 million in 1996, saw their total institutional costs increase by $3 for every $1 increase in Extension spending. It is not unreasonable to ask who paid this marginal cost. More generally, one might contemplate the extent to which the production of Extension under conditions of diseconomies of scale may be contributing to the increase in tuition at a number of the large, state land-grant universities (Kronholz, 2003). Thirteen of the large 1862 universities operating under diseconomies of scale were located in states with considerably lower-funded 1890 institutions characterized by strong economies of scale. Indeed, when we consider just the set of states with multiple providers of Extension services, the mean expenditure by the large 1862 institutions was $32,562,268, whereas the mean expenditure by the small 1890 institutions was $6,496,843. Purely from a cost perspective, a strong case can be made to shift some of the Extension funding away from the 1862 institutions in favor of the 1890 institutions. There also may be cost economies obtainable by regionalizing the production of Extension in some cases. For example, every single one of the New England states has an IHE that provides Extension. Every single one operates at a level of spending that is characterized by strong economies of scale. Assuming that at least some of the Extension outputs produced are applicable across state lines, there would appear to be a strong case for regionalizing the production of Extension in one or two New England universities, rather than the six that do so now. More generally, our analysis of costs suggests that structural reorganization and/or redistribution of Extension funding might be justified. ReferencesDinar, A. (1992). Extension commercialization: How much to charge for Extension services. American Journal of Agricultural Economics. 78: 1-12. Huffman, W. E., & Just, R. E. (1994). Funding, structure, and management of public agricultural research in the United States. American Journal of Agricultural Economics. 76: 744-59. Kronholz, J. (2003). College education becomes costlier. Wall Street Journal. February 11: D2. Laband, D. N., & Lentz, B. F. (2003). New estimates of economies of scale and scope in higher education. Southern Economic Journal. 70: 172-83. Schuh, G. E. (1992). Privatization of agricultural research at land grant universities. Emerging agricultural technologies: Issues for the 1990's. U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment. Scwartz, L. A., & Zijp, W. (1994). Public and private roles in delivery of Extension services. Public and private sector roles in the provision of agricultural support services. Proceedings of the World Bank International Symposium, San Jose, Costa Rica, 17-19 May 1993. Washington D.C.: The World Bank. Copyright © by Extension Journal, Inc. ISSN 1077-5315. Articles appearing in the Journal become the property of the Journal. Single copies of articles may be reproduced in electronic or print form for use in educational or training activities. Inclusion of articles in other publications, electronic sources, or systematic large-scale distribution may be done only with prior electronic or written permission of the Journal Editorial Office, joe-ed@joe.org. If you have difficulties viewing or printing this page, please contact JOE Technical Support. |
