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My
land-grant involvement began when I came to WSU as a new master's
student in 1966. Now 35 years later, I have returned to WSU as provost,
responsible for the academic programs of a university that reaches
all corners of the state and is nationally and internationally prominent.
Between
that early beginning and the present, there was a continuous thread
of land-grant institution experience at Colorado State University
and Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. What I
have learned is that the richness and value of what was contained
in the original vision for the land-grant educational system is
applicable beyond the traditionally strong areas of agriculture
and mechanical engineering which were so essential to life in the
late 1800s.I thought a great deal about what it meant to be a land-grant
provost as I made the decision to come to Washington State University.
In answering this question, I think it is important to look broadly
at the current challenges and opportunities land-grant universities
are facing. These challenges and opportunities have been described
extremely well by our colleagues in the Kellogg
Commission on the Future of State and Land-Grant Universities.
In February 1999, the commission released its report "Returning
to Our Roots: The Engaged Institution." My vision of a land-grant
provost is certainly informed by this outstanding work. The commission
calls on land-grant universities to "redesign their approaches
to teaching, research and extension service functions." A proposed
term that captures the essence of what this means is engagement.
WSU is poised to take full advantage of this more inclusive terminology
and you will find the word engagement in our mission statement and
as one of our core values.
Our
challenge is to nurture this goal of engagement so that WSU is a
recognized leader among the land-grants with engagement being central
and fundamental to our strategy of nurturing a world-class environment
for research, scholarship, graduate education, and the arts. To
achieve this outcome we must work in a partnership in which both
partners participate for mutual benefit if we are to sustain true
engagement.
The
Vision for the 21st Century report gives us some guidance on how
to proceed by outlining seven characteristics of engagement. These
seven characteristics are: responsiveness; respect for partners;
academic neutrality; accessibility; integration; coordination; and
resource partnerships. I believe that one of my primary responsibilities,
as Provost at WSU is to provide the catalyst for implementing processes
and procedures that fully incorporate these characteristics into
the work and broad reach of our faculty. If we do this well, in
not too many years we will be regarded as a model, if not the premier
land-grant institution.
We
are making progress in many ways. One of the steps has been the
formation of the Outreach Council with Mike Tate's leadership and
the full support of our administrative team. The council will have
the responsibility of helping the institution integrate the concepts
of an engaged university in our programming efforts.
Our
Center to Bridge the Digital Divide, offered by Extension, has leveraged
significant funding from the Gates Foundation, Microsoft and other
sources partly because the College of Education is also a partner.
The Center's work on the "Connecting Schools and Communities"
project benefited from input and relationships that Education brought
to the table.
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Robert
C. Bates began duties
as provost and academic vice-
president in February. He came to
WSU fromVirginia Polytechnic
Institute and State University. |
These
are just samples of the progress Extension is making at a very critical
time in our state. We all recognize that the current budget climate
is a challenge. It is clear to me that Extension has positioned
itself well to weather this challenge.
We have talked a great deal about new directions, new partnerships,
and new revenue sources. All are important, but equally important
is the notion of doing a good job of maintaining and enhancing our
current programs and relationships. The integration of the three
elements of the historic land-grant mission gives us many opportunities
to ensure that we are taking good care of our current relationships.
I want everyone to understand that I believe WSU must be known for
both its leadership in basic research and the relevance of its applied
research. We must more fully involve Extension as we set our research
agenda. Our ten community based learning centers are also directly
supporting the instruction mission of the university. By making
it possible for place bound adults to complete an undergraduate
education in their home community, we are clearly supporting instruction,
and at the same time, furthering our work in the delivery of non-formal/non-credit
education opportunities.
Another challenge for Extension presented in the 21st Century vision
document is to "respond to the needs of families and to the
diversity of the communities while remaining cognizant of the distinct
generational, social and ethnic diversity that will define our society
in the future." An excellent example of how we are responding
to the unique needs of a particular ethnic audience is the award
winning Abuela Project, where Extension responded to an urgent need
for scientifically based food safety information to deal with an
outbreak of food poisoning among Hispanic residents in the Yakima
Valley.
I appreciate the opportunity to contribute to CE Focus. Soon, I
hope to have an opportunity to visit many of you across the state.
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