Dialogue on Racism hosted by NUEL
In March of 2020, in response to an increased awareness of long-standing racially motivated incidents, urban Extension professionals sought a means to share professional and personal concerns and development resources. NUEL responded by partnering with the Southern Regional Development Center and the national Coming Together for Racial Understanding training team to host a Dialogue on Racism. This dialogue, attended by 155 participants from across the country and U.S. Virgin Islands, was based on the acknowledgement that Extension has been historically complicit in systemic racism in the United States, urban programming requires non-traditional strategies to achieve positive community impacts, and that our national leaders are necessary partners in community and state level responses and actions to reduce racist acts, behaviors, practices, and policies within our system.
The Racial Discussion Rpt – Final Aug 2020, designed for state Extension Directors, highlights key findings and specific action items we can implement at both state and county levels. The success and overwhelming positive feedback from this dialogue prompted NUEL’s leaders to begin planning for future conversations on topics including gender, disabilities, sexual orientation, and ethnicity.
The Leading Edge Dialogue Series (From the 2019 National Urban Extension Conference)
Leading Edge Dialogues (LED’s) were 90-minute interactive workshops held during the 2019 National Urban Extension Conference which explored critical issues facing our cities and our universities. Each LED consisted of a multi-sector panel presentation followed by a facilitated group discussion with all attendees. Developed by the Western Center for Metropolitan Extension and Research these papers capture both the presentations and the innovative discussion that followed for one of the LED’s. Papers on the following topics were completed Spring/Summer 2020:
Data & Policy: Responding to human services needs
Fulfilling the Land Grant University mission: Extension and community-based applied research
Reaching 10 million youth with Extension
Smart Cities: Technology, equity, livability, and trust
Urban Ag Listening Sessions Report
In April 2020, the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) requested written stakeholder input on the Urban, Indoor and other Emerging Agricultural Production Research, Education and Extension Initiative. The purpose of this Notice was to assist NIFA in developing the fiscal year 2020 Request for Applications for the Urban, Indoor and other Emerging Agricultural Production Research, Education and Extension Initiative.
To gather broad sector input and provide a coordinated response for NIFA, NUEL in partnership with the Western Center for Metropolitan Extension and Research (WCMER), and a number of local Farm Bureau chapters located in urban counties from across the country partnered, to host four online, interactive listening sessions and an online survey. Input was gathered from 153 participants through the listening sessions and an additional 68 people responded to the online survey. The stakeholders that provided input came from 38 U.S. states, territories and districts. The summary report provided to NIFA at the end of June 2020 is available here.