The April 2019 academic footprint numbers are in. Now granted there were a number of colleagues who departed just this past week, but, overall, the numbers are promising. CE Specialist numbers are at the highest (n = 119) since I first started tracking the numbers. CE Advisor numbers are tied with a year ago (n = 173) and just 2 persons less than the October 2018 high of 175 CE Advisors. Academic Coordinator numbers are where they have been most of the quarters (n = 31) and Academic Administrators remain steady (n = 7). The non-CE ANR Academic numbers tend to be most variable but are higher than 2018 numbers.
Speaking of CE Specialists, please welcome Dr. Susana Matias Medrano. Today was Dr. Medrano's first day as Assistant CE Specialist in Obesity, in the Department of Nutritional Sciences and Toxicology in the College of Natural Resources at UC Berkeley. And, adding to the CE Advisor numbers, Mohamed Nouri started today as Assistant CE Orchard Systems Advisor, based in Stockton with programmatic responsibilities in San Joaquin County.
It seems that it has been a while since I welcomed new academics to UC ANR through this blog. I believe the last time was at the very end of May. Perhaps I've missed a couple of new hires; I suspect we didn't hire any during June. Either way it is nice to see some new hires.
We have slowed the hiring over the last few months. While we are moving forward with a few of the 2018 position call process positions, we have not released a wave of positions to be filled over a 2-year period. The CE Specialist positions from the 2016 position call are now offered, accepted, or filled. A few CE Advisor positions from the 2016 position call remain under recruitment. In spite of the slowed hiring, the academic footprint numbers look really good. I'd have to guess that is in part due to taking a new approach to funding some positions. Imagine what they would look like if we didn't have two consecutive years of a flat budget!
Perhaps I need to add to my ‘to do' list a plan to determine how best to track program staff numbers. This group is so critical to delivering the mission, it is as important to build that footprint as it is the academic footprint. I will have to think about this a bit over the upcoming long weekend.