Mid Rivers Newsmagazine 3-7-18

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March 7, 2018
MID RIVERS NEWSMAGAZINE
I NEWS I 13
University of Missouri Extension looks to broaden its offerings
By BRIAN FLINCHPAUGH
The state university outreach
program that has been
best known for working on
agriculture issues for more
than a century is shifting its
focus to something besides
4-H clubs and providing
information on planting the
right kind of petunias.
The University of Missouri
Extension now is
moving toward broadening its focus
throughout the state. The Extension has an
office in each of the state’s 114 counties.
Those offices provide research and expertise
– traditionally, in agriculture but also
offer courses in health care, law enforcement
and business development.
St. Charles County provides $100,000 in
its annual budget to the county’s Extension
office for office space and other expenses.
Over the last two years, university
officials have been gathering input and
rethinking the Extension’s role throughout
the state. To that end, Extension specialists
came before the St. Charles County
Council at its Feb. 26 meeting to talk about
changes that are expected to be implemented
in 2018.
“The goal is to better impact the community
and to target university resources to
specific needs of the community,” said Jody
Squires, regional director, urban region, for
Extension in the St. Louis region.
“Just as your county governments have
changed over time, Extension has changed
over time,” said Steven Devlin, business
development program director for the
University of Missouri. He said Extension
now needs to do things in a slightly different
manner and look at different ways
of delivering Extension programming and
engaging with communities.
One of those new ways is creating a new
community engagement or county engagement
specialist position that may focus on
education, health and health care, and economic
issues. Devlin said this will involve
“taking one of our folks, pulling them back
from their area of specialty and talk to you,
the stakeholders in the community, about
what your needs are.”
“It’s a lot better for use as an institution
to have a good understanding of what the
needs are at the local level rather than
us walking in and saying, ‘hey, I’ve got
a hammer, do you have a nail I can hit,’”
Devlin said.
Extension would much rather have an
opportunity to interact with a county and
look at the issues and opportunities the
county is facing and then, build the right
coalitions and resources, Devlin said.
“Traditional Extension has focused on
primarily agriculture, 4-H, youth development
and home economics
and community development,”
he said. “Extension
could be much more than
this. We have many other
partners across the state,
other institutions as well
as the University of Missouri
that could bring other
areas of expertise that could
help you [the county] in developing new
programs, new educational curriculums to
try to address the issues that you are facing
today.”
That means Extension may try to tap into
various areas of expertise not only on the
Columbia campus but available at other
Missouri campuses including the University
of Missouri-St. Louis.
“Not to say that we’re going to walk
away from the old models as well,” Devlin
said. “There are still a lot of folks that
focus on farming in what we consider an
urban county. There is a lot of agriculture
and a lot of business related to that agriculture
as well.”
Devlin said Extension is recommitting
itself to its partnership with local communities.
Councilmember John White [District 7],
who serves as a member of the county’s citizen-member
Extension Council, said, “I
can vouch that they have served our county
residents well.”