Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting

Achievements for 2010 as reported at the 2011 Annual Meeting: General Achievements during 2010: Many of these strategies were employed this year to further the objectives of this activity. The group held conference calls on the first Friday of every month to update progress, discuss problems or issues, make assignments and make any adjustments necessary to the project. The group also used its association with various professional development groups to raise awareness of our efforts and gather support from other ag communicators. We presented to various administrative groups including the APLU Administrative Heads and the ESCOP Marking Committee. As mentioned above, we did identify a liaison from an 1890s college and secured funding to support participation, though the liaison did not attend the annual meeting. We will continue to work with the liaison to encourage input and participation. Group members worked to keep administrators informed with varying degrees of effort and success. During the 2010 meeting, a challenge was issued to keep administrators updated and the Outreach Team agreed to develop an elevator speech and talking points that group members could use to discuss the project with their administrators and others. Objective One: Create a culture of strategic issues management within our institutions. Procedures and activities involved in achieving this objective: " Assess the body of knowledge " Create a knowledge repository " Identify existing tools " Monitor environment " Identify trends " Prioritize issues " Define potential impact " Make strategic decisions " Implement " Evaluate Objective One achievements during 2010: A. Research The following activities were accomplished in 2010. Activities included both research and outreach objectives " SAAS 2010 meeting general session: Faith Peppers, Mark Tucker, and Inez Ponce de Leon presented a paper titled Advancing the Land Grant Mission through Responsible Issues Management, identifying characteristics of successful issues-minded organizations and discusses considerations on implementing such practices at land-grant institutions. It was very well attended and the audience engaged in the post presentation discussion. " Annual ACE meeting, June 2010 in St. Louis: Mark Tucker presented an updated version of the Responsible Issues Management paper. " The Tucker/Ponce de Leon paper was submitted to a peer review led by Linda Benedict. The following have also been completed and are being peer reviewed: o a book review (Peppers and Tucker) o best practices for issues management for land grant institutions (Peppers) o issues management case studies (Meyers) o Traci Iranis work on public issues education These materials form the foundation of the symposium scheduled for June 2011. § The symposium is scheduled to be part of the June 2011 ACE conference in Denver, Colorado. " Suzanne Steel , Frankie Gould, Pam Kam Rice, and Faith Peppers presented case studies in issue management at the annual ACE meeting June 2010 in St. Louis " University of Georgia is conducting an analysis of the 2010 budget crisis campaign looking at the budget crisis messaging as a case study. " Summer 2010: Traci Irani and Faith Peppers presented a case study on nutrient loading in water affecting southern states. Traci presented results from focus groups on the impact on IFAFs reputation. o Presented to Southern region PLN Ag and Natural Resource program leaders; Extension and research directors " Overview of the problem; damage to IFASs reputation/Extensions reputation. " Two Purdue University masters students are emphasizing issue management as part of their theses; one in animal science and one in poultry science In 2010 this group also sought to meet Year 4 objectives of evaluating the land-grant system, looking for impact of Issues management processes; identify universities who are using Issues management. Limited advancement was accomplished and this objective is renewed for 2011. Objective Two: Link current research into the development of best communication practices for land grant institutions. Procedures and activities involved in achieving this objective: " Conduct research " Assess body of knowledge " Conduct a gap analysis " Create a knowledge repository " Develop best practices " Disseminate through appropriate channels including peer reviewed publications Objective Two Milestones Achieved in 2010 " Worked to develop the methodology for the survey of land-grant institutions to assess Issues management capacity and conduct an environmental scan was completed but more work needs to be done " The body of knowledge and literature review was completed " A research agenda for issues management continued to be developed " A meta analysis of case studies was initiated " A best practices compilation was started Objective Three: Enhance institutional communication capacity at land-grant institutions Procedures and activities involved in achieving this objective: " Engage 1862, 1890, and 1994 institutions in a collective effort " Initiate a professional development system targeting administrators, faculty, Extension educators, staff, students " Implement a marketing strategy to inform and engage land-grant institutions " Create an eXtension Community of Practice " Design a tool kit " Design a certificate program in Issues management [Great Plains approach] Objective Three Milestones achieved in 2010 Professional development The training team successfully completed a number of objectives and developed workshop curriculum to be delivered in 2011. " Program Leader Network (PLN) Southern Region joint training and research " Communication leaders Frankie Gould and Robin Adams along with Dr. Ray McKinney, NC A&T Extension Administrator and Dr. Paul Coriel, LSU AgCenter Extension Director, coordinated and presented at the Southern Region PLN meeting in Memphis. This session on the importance of issues management and the role of communications furthering the future of Land Grant universities and the role of communicators as strategic advisors. " SAAS 2010 Panel of Deans: At SAAS 2010 in Orlando, three College of Agriculture deans participated in a panel presentation regarding the importance of issue management at land grant universities. This included an overview of this project and question and answers. The audience was engaged with great support from researchers across disciplines. " Prepared materials for a strategic issues management workshops to be held February 28 through March 2 for University of Georgia communications leadership, UGA college of agriculture leaders and then for Georgia external agricultural stakeholders. " Faith Peppers conducted training on issues management for June 2010 national meeting of NADA [National Association of Agricultural and Development Administrators] . Presented on the difference between issues management and crisis communications. Marketing/ Outreach " The main focus of the Outreach Team in 2010 has been to update the NCERA 209 page on the eXtension web site. The teams work has enhanced the effectiveness of the group, creating and posting a number of critical issues management documents and keeping the minutes up to date. " Elevator speech written and posted " Talking points written and posted " Website reorganized, emphasizing issues management information useful to land-grant institutions and de-emphasizing [but still including] organizational meeting minutes " APLU presentations by Faith Peppers and Ruth Borger " PLN presentation [Program Leader Network] August 2010 in Memphis: Faith Peppers presented the project and its value to this regional Extension group. " Faith Peppers met with Robin Adams [1890 NC A&T] regarding the involvement of NC A & T in this project. Toolkit " The Toolkit Team posted case studies to the website. " Annual ACE Meeting June 2010 in St. Louis. Elaine Edwards presented work completed so far on Toolkit. Asked for submissions from those attending. " APLU November Meeting Presentations: Faith Peppers and Ruth Borger attended the ESCOP and Administrative Heads Section meetings that were part of the 2010 APLU meetings. Faith Peppers presented the case for support of the National impacts Database and for funding for the curriculum for the issues management workshops. " Dr. Sonny Ramaswamy did a direct ask for financial support of AHS . There was some support from Iowa State, Alaska [then rescinded], MSU and Nebraska. These funds need o be collected. Additional Outputs In addition to these milestones, the group continued to coordinate the production of a new national impact reporting system for land-grant universities to be housed on eXtension. Led by Suzanne Steel at Ohio State University, this group acts as a task force of this activity group. They have begun meetings, are processing necessary forms with eXtension and actively seeking funding to support the project. Presentations and requests for funding were made at the ESCOP and AHS group at the 2010 APLU annual meeting. II. Project Objectives and Planning for 2011 A. 2011 research activities and objectives: " Symposium to be held as part of ACE/NETC meeting in June 2011 " Advance the inventory of the issue management practices used by land grant universities. Draft of a questionnaire has been developed Traci Naile [Texas A & M] " Lets get our data in  get questionnaire out " Questionnaire discussion: Need to settle on the final content for the questionnaire an identify population who gets the questionnaire. Ag Com Heads Deans Extension and Research directors " Need to focus attention on creating opportunities for graduate students with a scholarship base to support this project. " Need to address the culture of higher education and how it supports or doesnt support an issue management strategy. " Work to collect research that is already being done and have it posted [if possible] to eXtension web site. " Find funds for ongoing research activity. " Continue to present issues management topics at SAAS. B. 2011 Training Objectives " Conduct issues identification and management pilot workshops Feb 28 through March 2 " Evaluate effectiveness and revise as a national workshop opportunity in the model of Media Relations Made Easy, and Extension Disaster Education Network Do we have the entire curriculum we need Agenda and budget Team: F. Peppers, C. Sigurdson, F. Gould, L. Benedict C. 2011 Outreach Objectives " Promote the June Symposium with save the date emailings and other tactics " Keep posting things from toolkit work team " Continue to work with Toolkit, Research and Training teams to post information on the eXtension website to expand use of issues management practices in land grant universities. " Continue to promote eXtension site and listserve as a means of communication and networking regarding issues management " Identify and post on web a list of conferences, meetings where NCDC 224 members should be talking about this project i.e. opportunities for speaking, networking at ACE , APLU, Extension Committee on Policy; Experiment Station Committee on Policy, Board of Agriculture, Administrative Heads Section, other groups " Promote issues management symposium lunch speaker at ACE [possibly the leader of the Center for Consumer Freedom which provides leadership for some critical issues facing agriculture). " Continue to present issues management topics at Southern Region PLN meetings through the communication section and others. D. 2011 Tool Kit Objectives " Add experts list " Add a funding case study [could use MSU, Georgia as case studies] " Add possible case study on restructuring [Ohio State, Michigan State, Penn State and Georgia] " Add training / profession development opportunities e.g. Media Relations made easy, Symposium, etc.] " Add bibliography, list of literature resources " Consider posting the research papers after the symposium " Options for how to integrate issue management into communications department structure and college infrastructure " Once inventory completed, post information " Post classes/academic opportunities for issues management " Post news stories/university stories on issues " Provide social media examples, suggestions " Possibly develop a banner exhibit and push cards to help promote the initiative. E. 2011 Funding Objectives " Secure funding for project needs: Curriculum development, training, materials, National Impact Database National Impacts Database: Set up a national database of success stories of Land Grant universities addressing what we are doing to address critical issues. This will be a repository of stories that we can go to and pull out information helpful in communicating about the issues. Secure funding to establish the database, sustain database and market it: " $75000 foundation funds development database " $200,000 maintain database and support issue campaigns Our workgroup needs to support this effort. III. Structure discussion: There was discussion as to whether the current work teams are supporting the project . A new idea to organize around topic area, e.g. food safety, nutrient management, water quality, land use, animal welfare, etc. It was the general consensus to keep the functional areas and assign tasks to each area. Consensus to retain telephone conference calls: keep them efficient. . Use ACE Meeting to meet again; strongly encourage participation at ACE symposium