INNOVATION IN EXTENSION: Texas A&M University

The following describes an innovative person.

Region: Southern

Contact information for this innovator: Susan Ballabina
Job title / position: Associate Director for Program Development

Contact number: 979-862-3932

Email address: Susan.Ballabina@agnet.tamu.edu

Brief description of innovator as provided in online survey: Dr. Ballabina is creative, resourceful and always looking for the next big thing.


The following describes an innovative person.

Region: Southern

Contact information for this innovator: Chris Boleman
Job title / position: Assistant Director, State 4-H Youth Development Program Leader

Contact number: 979-845-1211

Email address: cboleman@ag.tamu.edu

Brief description of innovator as provided in online survey: Chris is an avid reader who stays current with leadership theory and motivational techniques.

Notes from phone interview:

He does a great job interacting through social media in connecting. He's learned some great things with the 4-H staff, and continues to be a leader, and doing updates via technology, and actually including kids with special Tweeter nights where they can interact via Tweeter feeds. That's been unique.


The following describes an innovation.

Region: Southern

Main contact information for this innovation: Same as above (Dr. Susan Ballabina)

Main contact job title / position:

Main contact number:

Main contact email address:

Innovation name: Next Talks

Brief description of innovation as provided in online survey: Frequently scheduled webinars by thought leaders on current events or topics that impact Extension professionals.

Notes from phone interview:

We started seeing that a lot of what we were doing was in reaction to things that were already old news by the time we got to them. A good example would be the Ebola scare, and an extension response to that could be West Nile virus and the impact on humans. A lot of the GMOs and what does it mean? If it's an Act product is it genetically modified organism, and those kind of things. We thought, "Let's get ahead of that," and so we started Next Talks, which is internal. It's web-based and we can put a talk up in as little as 24 hours if we need to.

One of the recent topics in Texas, really across the country, was measles in children and what does that mean. Within two days we brought together a-- the campus recognized really a national expert from our Health Science Center that helped our educators understand if you have those kind of questions of what is the appropriate response? What does the research say? What do we need to be concerned over and where about? But we're moving forward. We've done that with anything from red meat to-- we've had I think, eight or nine topics that have gone online now. And then the other value of that is you can prerecord them and it's in a location where our people can go look at them later. And my experience in extension is sometimes we're a little bit late for the game. And this is one of our attempts to use technology to make sure we're on the cutting edge of what's happening, and what the appropriate educated response could, or should be through extension work.


The following describes an innovation.

Region: Southern

Main contact information for this innovation: Dr. Steven Green

Main contact job title / position: Extension Specialist

Main contact number: 979-845-6468

Main contact email address:  s-green@tamu.edu

Innovation name: Distance Education

Brief description of innovation as provided in online survey: High touch vesus high tech. Nation’s number one provider of online childcare credits. There is some concern about the transfer of knowledge.

Notes from phone interview:

We are currently now the nation's number one online for childcare provider credit, and we put a lot of into that. As we've been able to put more stuff online, for people to get their continued education that way, we see less people coming through the doors of a building to attend a weekend training, and get their CEUs. You always have to be concerned about the transfer of that knowledge. Even if they can do the work online and pass the quiz online, are they still getting the same kind of quality as if they had an instructor and audience participants to interact with? But, that's something we've done very very well, is the childcare provider series.

And that's probably another innovator we have is Dr. Steven Green that runs that program. In fact he was just recognized as a regents fellow, which is a high honor for extension in our state. And you always have to balance what are the trade-offs. And are people still getting the same kind of experience. I think when you get to be innovators, if you look at most of their work on a doctor's, you only got that certain kid at the very front end. They're kind of anxious and waiting to be engaged in the very front of something. And you got those laggers at the tail end that will probably come on much later than everybody else. So where do you strike the middle of the bell curve, where you reach the majority of your audience? That's another thing that we have a hard time evaluating and measuring.

That's probably one of our better grant-funded programs, through one of our state agencies, that are in charge of making sure these fees are made available. And they keep funding us so obviously they're very happy with the results that they're seeing. It does make it more accessible to the childcare providers across the state in that it is a fee-based program. But, it's not 100% cost recovery. But it is fee based. I think for so long at extension we have lived under this dark cloud that says, "We're already taxpayer supported, and so we can't charge for programs." And the reality is, I know in a state like Texas, the actual tax-base support we get dwindles every year. And I think last year one of our largest growing areas was in our agreeance in program fees. It's now making up almost 25% of our budget to replace the lack of state and federal funding we've been receiving. I think there's a place there to look for long-term sustainability. But that is another concern within innovation is if it goes and goes well, and takes off, how do you sustain it? And we do try to have the resources available to make that possible.

I think the last time I talked to Steve we have over 300, he has over 300 classes online. It takes a lot of manpower to make sure the system is working right, their thing's refreshed, that we're getting new information put on there as it becomes available. We're filling in the gaps. I know we're now working on a segment with special needs children, and how do you work with them in a childcare setting.


The following describes an innovative person.

Region: Southern

Contact information for this innovator: Courtney Dodd
Job title / position: 4-H and Youth Development, Extension Specialist

Contact number: 979-845-6533

Email address: cfdodd@ag.tamu.edu

Brief description of innovator as provided in online survey: State Volunteer Conference, Virtual Volunteer Conference, innovative, replicating Food Wars, Cupcake Wars, 4-H food challenge at the state fair.

Notes from phone interview:

And about two years ago we kept seeing dwindling attendance at our 4-H volunteer conference. A state that has 18, 19, 20 thousand volunteers, and we were getting less than 200 to come to a state conference. And a couple of years ago Courtney started a virtual volunteer conference. And what we've learned from that experience is the majority of the volunteers that are now connecting and participating that way actually connect over their lunch break. We don't know if that's because they give them personal time release, or they just tap into their computer equipment at the office, or if they're sitting there eating their lunch and doing it. But it helped us rethink of how we reach out to what we thought was great traditional audios, it was also looking to receive information in a different kind of way. That [crosstalk] was very successful.

It's Dodd, and I could have very easily put her on that list. We just now recently asked her to become our associate-- well no because Chris is the system director, but she's maybe the associate assistant director. We opened her a number 2 spot in 4-H. And one of the reasons we did that is she had been an innovator. She is also an individual who looks for what's happening next. She actually is the one that started replicating on all the food shows. You see the food channels, and Food Wars, and whatever else they call them, cupcake battles, and she actually in Texas started the 4-H Food Challenge. And last year we hosted and also sponsored the first national 4-H Food Challenge we did during the state fair in Texas. People going to the state fair can go through the auditorium, they see all these teams competing, and all of a sudden they say, "Well I didn't know that 4-H was involved in food and nutrition in such a fun way." Courtney looked for a way to take an old project of food nutrition, and modernize it. In fact, we have almost as many young men participating now, and its been adapted. They've done it with wild game cooking for our areas that are very involved in those kind of activities. She has just been a-- she is a really somebody that has taken some risks, but does it in a way that we've seen great rewards in the passed. We hope she's going to be with us for a long time to come.