Next week I am heading to Redding and north to spend some time with Larry Forero, Yana Valachovic and their offices. The United flight I was on earlier this week ran an advertisement for Redding on the video entertainment system which has me once again in awe of the resources in California. But the state has nothing over UC ANR as far as impressing me. Last week seemed to be full of recognitions for a number of people in UC ANR. Here's just a few that you may or may not have heard about:
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Tim Paine, professor and AES researcher at UC Riverside, was named the inaugural Tokuji and Bettie L. Furuta Endowed Chair, recognizing his work in IPM for woody ornamentals. It was a really nice reception with Furuta family members present and a strong turnout from Dr. Paine's colleagues. John Kabashima and Loren Oki, to name just two, were among presenters who had great memories to share of both Dr. Furuta and Dr. Paine. Dr. Paine gave an eloquent acceptance speech; highlighting that is was collaborations throughout his career that fostered his success.
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David Lewis, UCCE watershed advisor and County Director of UCCE in Marin and Napa Counties, was named one of the two recipients for the 2017 Bradford Rominger Agricultural Sustainability Leadership Award by the Agricultural Sustainability Institute. The award recognizes the work David has done to help communities find practical, science-based ways to protect salmon habitat from agricultural erosion, cleaning up oyster beds polluted by dairy operations, riparian ecosystem restoration and conservation, and water quality planning to protect the Napa and Sonoma Rivers. Way to go David!
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Sheri Zidenberg-Cherr, CE Specialist at UC Davis, was awarded the 2017 Academic Federation Award for Excellence in Research in recognition of the impact and significance of her recent work on school nutrition education and scientific literacy, school gardens to teach nutrition, and multicomponent interventions to reduce the incidence of childhood obesity. Congratulations Sheri!
I suspect I missed some recognitions so if you are aware of any, please feel free to share as a Comment to this blog.
And while those recognitions are acknowledgement of career successes, a number of new hires are just beginning their UC ANR careers. While attending the Western Extension Directors Association spring meeting this week we met with the Western Region Program Leaders Council (UC is represented by Chris Greer) and heard about the many, many plans that group has to develop resources for new, and experienced, academics including program evaluation and assessment videos and a new idea to develop an innovative way of sharing program approaches and successes that could have multiple uses, would be peer-reviewed and is an outlet for deliverables that are focused on engagement beyond what a journal article can provide. Here's just one example of their work to develop resources: http://extension.wsu.edu/wrpl/.
Enjoy your day off tomorrow in recognition of Caesar Chavez. If you get a chance, try to locate and watch “The Wrath of Grapes”. Did I mention that the Western Extension Directors Association spring meeting was held in Kona? There are definitely some advantages to being located in the Western Region. I wouldn't be surprised if the Midwestern Region meeting is held in someplace like Mankato or Omaha – equally as expensive to get to without the view. So before I head back and get some more reading done on the flight, I am going to take advantage of the 3-day weekend and go up 14,000 feet or so to see what snow pack remains on Mauna Kea. Hopefully the ‘vog' isn't too thick.
