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Cooperative
Extension, the outreach arm of the land-grant system, may be a victim
of its own success, according to George R. McDowell, author of "Land-Grant
Universities and Extension into the 21st Century."
"The success
of the agricultural research/ extension establishment and the increased
productive capacity of the farmer made it possible to produce the
nation's food with ever fewer farms." McDowell writes.
"Indeed,
as more successful farmers survive and less successful farmers go
out of business, farm business size has grown and farm numbers have
declined."
Nearly 400,000 fewer farms existed in 1997 than 20 years
earlier, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. As a result,
support for extension at state and national levels has eroded.
Can
extension programs and other outreach contribute in areas outside
of agriculture?
"Of course they can," McDowell asserts. "Indeed,
that may be the only thing that will make land-grant universities
distinct from the other public and private research universities.
It may be the only thing that justifies continued public investments
in them and that redefines their social contract and makes them
once again, 'the people universities'."
He points to positive signs
at land-grant universities around the country.
At North Carolina
State University, the College of Humanities and Social Sciences
and the agricultural extension service have collaborated to offer
free public seminars on such topics as "The Small Town in American
Literature" and "First Amendment Freedoms." The topics have resulted
in requests from teachers for educational materials for their classrooms.
A publications program has been created to support demand.
Wisconsin's
community resource development program offered by extension enjoys
as much public support as its agricultural programs and constitutes
a much larger portion of extension's budget than the norm nationwide.
In the 1950s, a few county agricultural committees, including elected
officials, asked agricultural agents to work on non-agricultural
problems. The state extension office supported the requests and
demand has driven the program.
Oregon State University is undergoing
a cultural change. All extension field faculty have been integrated
into academic departments, some into colleges at the institution's
college of agriculture.
The leader of extension is now a university-wide
officer and scholarship has been redefined and may take different
forms, including "research contributing to a body of knowledge;
development of new technology, materials or methods; integration
of knowledge or technology leading to new interpretations or applications;
creations and interpretation in the arts."
In Minnesota, an educational
program for divorced parents has spread to 61 of the state's 81
counties and is endorsed by the Minnesota Supreme Court. The program
was initiated at the grass-roots level by one field faculty member
and supported by the campus faculty. |
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| McDowell
is a professor in the department of agriculture and applied
economics at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.
His book was published in 2001 by Iowa State University Press. |
"University faculty often talk of knowledge-based extension programming, presuming that all knowledge is at the university," McDowell writes. "We seldom talk of research or a research agenda derived from the knowledge and experience of field faculty, much less citizens; this is an example of such a program."
Obstacles lie in the path of change, but change must come, he asserts.
"Both by virtue of their scholarly aims and whom they would serve, the land-grant universities were established as people's universities. This was their social contract.
"It has been their engagement as people's universities that made the land-grant universities better than Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Humboldt, Cambridge, or Oxford in renewing culture, interpreting the past and expanding our understanding of the human condition.
"Unless they carry out that renegotiation and return to their roots, they stand in danger of being no better. From their beginnings, in the values of American democracy, the land-grant institutions were to be better than the elite institutions and were to make the democracy itself better, in part on the basis of whom they admitted to their classrooms.
"Now they must achieve their greatness on the basis of how much of the university is engaged with America and with whom they engage. There is much to be done in renewing and fulfilling the land-grant universities' social contract with America into the 21st century."
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