Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting

2. Call to order & approval of minutes from the 2007 Technical Committee meeting: Minutes were approved unanimously. 3. Brief discussion of annual reports from participants: Wisconsin- Dr. Cynthia Jasper Three focus groups of professional women have been completed and data have been transcribed. Qualitative data software has not been used yet, but preliminary results show that women are using media more for entertainment and less than expected for understanding and learning about work/family issues. Minnesota- Dr. Kathryn Rettig Eight focus groups of professional women have been completed and 6 have been transcribed. Graduate student is using qualitative data software. Kathy prefers hands on qualitative data analysis with investigator doing the interpretation. One grad student is using the data for a paper. Preliminary results indicate that media is used for recreation, not for acquiring information on work/ family issues. Magazines are read for pleasure. TV in homes is usually turned off. Mississippi-Dr. Dorothy Berglund Four focus groups were conducted: one was with professional women; two were with semi-professionals, and one with working class women. A graduate student working on the project is getting another professional group together. Preliminary results show that professional women have every minute of the day scheduled. Semi-professionals seem to find time for themselves by finding a place to hide. Participants report using the internet to find information regarding childrens illnesses but primarily rely on the church, female relatives, and lots of trial and error to understand work/family issues. Media is used mostly for entertainment not acquiring information. New Mexico: Drs. Robert, Diana & Rob DelCampo Four focus groups have been conducted: one with professional women and three with working class Latina groups. Data analysis will be done summer 2008. Preliminary results show that a common theme for working class women is that they have no time for self, only for family and work. They also appear to have less egalitarian partner relationships than the professional group of women. Next year focus groups for 1 working class and 3 professionals will be conducted in order to equal a total of 8 focus groups. Findings show that media is not used by the women very much. Also, it was discovered that the number of 5-6 women in a group allows more participation; 8 was too many participants for one group. Dr. Kourtney Vaillancourt has used software to analyze qualitative data, Atlas TI. She is willing to provide an in-service training on it, perhaps on CENTRA or another delivery system to those members interested. It is possible to review the training manual first. It can be scanned into PDF and sent before the training. It allows for independently coded data which will make the results stronger. One can learn how to use the software in about 1-2 hours. 4. USDA/CSREES Representatives comments - Dr. Caroline Crocoll Farm Bill was passed. CSREES will change to become NIFA, National Institute of Food and Agriculture, as of fiscal year 2009. This is an elevation in status to recognize the research and education functions that the agency performs. Dr. Crocoll also discussed dissemination opportunities she can assist with (see # 7 below). 5. Concerns of group members: Kathy had questions about providing justification for studying professional women in her project in Minnesota. A students paper was reviewed by a university committee and the student was asked to provide more justification for studying professional women. She suggested we may want to collect more information on this issue to add to all our studies justification and rationale. Bob reminded members that we are not studying farm & ranch women now since those members who were studying them have dropped out and are no longer members of the technical committee. 6. Addressing Objective 3: Examine and evaluate the messages and information that reach the target populations through media and information outlets identified by the focus groups. Issue: Since preliminary results of focus groups show that women are not using media to understand work/family issues, it is not necessary to examine or evaluate the messages that reach the target populations. Discussion: Bob stated WI and MN were doing this already; NM & MS will be doing it shortly- were all on target for obj. 3 for year 4. Kathy stated that since were not doing content analysis in a more scientific way, she doesnt feel she is meeting this objective. There was some disagreement over what a content analysis would be and if we can or need to do it. Cynthia and Dorothy dont think we need to do it. Kathy suggested we might want to rewrite the objective. Caroline (advisor to the group) suggested that written reports need to respond to the objective by stating current findings and how that information is guiding the direction of the project. Caroline agreed that objective 3 was probably not applicable now since the research findings are showing that women are not using media for information, only entertainment, but the group still needs to address the objective. Consider that a content analysis may be done in the future or it may be a completely new future project. The group needs to acknowledge that this opportunity is available. Resolution: The group decided that it was not necessary to complete this objective, but to reply to it in written reports. Since members are not finding that media is used by the target population, there is no reason to pursue the objective. Comments on this decision will be requested from Jim Christenson. 7. Ideas and plans for dissemination of results: Issue: How will the groups results be disseminated in the future? Discussion: Bob suggested providing a symposium at the Nov. 2009 NCFR. Cynthia added that one paper could be presented from group but not everyone has to be there. Kathy did one symposium at NCFR previously, so thinks its a good idea. Maybe a symposium at a different professional organization could be presented. Cynthia suggested presenting at the conference, American Counsel on Consumer Interest (ACCI). Caroline wants to bring visibility to projects and has lots of ways to do this. She has written to university administrators regarding projects. Members can apply for research awards; attend and present at varied Washington D.C. events. She can facilitate connecting to other funding sources and providing other dissemination avenues. For example, Annies project is for women who are inheriting or have access to working lands; the projects goal is empowering farm women. Planning an event in D.C to disseminate results requires further discussion to work out goals and details. It depends on what you want to do and the size of the event. For example, the Ag Outlook Forum could be a venue. The Social Science Academy at USDA may be another opportunity; we could show how human development fits into agriculture. We could do presentations through distance technology. Posters in Carolines USDA building lobby provide an opportunity to showcase our work. The poster needs to be quality; get specifics on size and content from Caroline and mail to her. We may want to do tri-fold brochure also. Some members felt we could do presentations in the future when more results are available. Most members want to do written publications, then presentations; thats where they want to put their time first. They want to concentrate on the written products and keep oral presentations to a minimum. Resolution: Give one presentation, but focus mostly on written pubs. Perhaps do a poster for USDA when we get all the information and a commitment of resources from group members to produce a poster. 8. Election of Officers for the 2009 Technical Committee Meeting Chair: 2008-2009 Cynthia Jasper 2009-2010 Kathy Rettig Secretary: 2008-2009 Dorothy Berglund 2009-2010 TBA

1. Data from this project will be utilized by graduate students to develop masters thesis and doctoral exam projects. 2. Data will be shared with selected legislative groups to make policy recommendations. 3. Data will be shared with youth development programs such as 4-H, to foster quality citizenship development program for American youth. 4. Extension personnel will be given the results of this project for dissemination. 5. In regard to professional dissemination, papers will be published in journals and seminars will be given at professional meetings. 6. Thousands of people will receive information through Extension Publications in the participating states on issues related to balancing work and family. 7. Information based upon the results of this project will be disseminated through television and radio appearances by participants in this project. 8. Information and findings related to this project will be disseminated online.

D. Del Campo, R. Del Campo. Understanding Work, Family and Personal Issues for Latina Women. Proceedings of the International Association of Business & Economics, Las Vegas, NV, October, 2007 (refereed). D. Del Campo, R. Del Campo. Latinas: Understanding Work, Family & Personal issues. Pittsburgh, PA, Annual Meeting of the National Council on Family Relations. (poster presentation) November 6-10, 2007. (refereed)