VP Dan Dooley holds town-hall discussion with ANR staff

UC vice president Dan Dooley outlined his vision for the Division in a “town hall” conference call with agriculture and natural resources staff and academics Feb. 20 and 21. In his opening remarks, Dooley outlined his priorities:

• Enhance the already strong relationship between the campuses and Cooperative Extension offices.
• Be a major player in the Office of the President so the Division will have access to the highest level decision makers to support its programs.
• Make sure planning efforts are aimed at maintaining the Division’s relevance in the future.
• Dramatically ramp up advocacy efforts with state, federal and county public policy leaders.
• Enhance communications with the Board of Regents.

An early initiative for Dooley will be advocacy and communications, efforts he said are part of his nature. Dooley has appointed a task force to develop advocacy and communications programs. In the short term, the committee will develop interim recommendations that can be implemented in the upcoming budget discussion in Sacramento. By summer, he said, a formal structure will be in place that will be capable of helping sustain support for programs critical to the Division’s mission.

“This has gotten attention in the Office of the President,” Dooley said. “If we are effective in engaging you in the field in helping identify key local folks that can speak on our behalf, our relevance in the University will skyrocket.”

Dooley touched on the ongoing restructuring under way in the Office of the President.

“If anybody, like me, from outside looks at the Office of the President organizational structure, it doesn’t appear particularly efficient,” Dooley said.

However, he said the Division is one of only a couple of areas that has direct and substantial program activities.

“Most people in the building acknowledge we are unique and don’t fall under the rubric of trying to improve efficiencies of the Office of the President. That’s not to say we won’t be impacted,” Dooley said, “but I don’t expect it to be substantial.”

While noting that the current state budget situation is bleak, he said the budget is a transitory issue that shouldn’t be allowed to deter focus of the Division’s mission to ensure its relevance to the needs of California.

Questions and Answers from Town Hall Sessions

During the question and answer portion of the town-hall meeting, Gary Nakamura of Shasta County, asked about the leverage offered by county support of Cooperative Extension. Dooley said that leverage from county and federal support of ANR programs is a message he will continue to convey.

Charlie Hess of UC Davis asked whether Dooley foresees a hiring freeze. Dooley said a hiring freeze is most likely at ANR headquarters, but not in programmatic areas.

Ben Faber of Ventura County and Mary Lu Arpaia of UC Riverside and Kearney Agricultural Center questioned Dooley about plans for the South Coast Research and Extension Center, which UC Irvine would like to acquire to build low-cost housing for faculty and staff. Dooley said he is in “fresh discussions” about the property and will ensure that the field research capacity in the area is not diminished. He also said no agreements will be reached that aren’t first fully vetted in the ANR community.

Barbara Sutherland of UC Davis asked how EFNEP fits into the Division’s long-term advocacy strategy. Dooley said it remains a key talking point for federal advocacy.

Steve Welter of UC Berkeley asked what new constituencies the advocacy effort might engage. Dooley pointed to his strong personal ties with members of the conservation community, forged during a 25-year career as a water lawyer.

“When I look at the range of programs in ANR, a lot of what we do is engaged with natural resources and conservation,” Dooley said. “We need to engage more directly and formally with the conservation community. That’s a task I intend to pursue.”

Mary Blackburn of Alameda County asked how Dooley plans to foster more collaboration between campuses and county offices.

Dooley said he felt the primary mechanism to foster integration of campus- and county-based programs is by inviting all parties to be participants in the development of programs and policies. He noted that he currently has no plans to reorganize the Division’s structure.

“I believe structure should follow planning, not the other way around,” Dooley said.

Lucia Kaiser of UC Davis asked Dooley about his desire to have a demand-based planning strategy and specifically what that might be in the area of human resources.

Dooley said he will be looking to people like Kaiser to help define the “demand.”

“Let me use an example,” Dooley said. “In 2004, my counterpart in health science undertook a similar process for health science. He did an assessment of capacity at medical schools, pharmacy schools, dental schools and optometry schools to produce health care professionals through 2020. They looked at state workforce demand, matched that up with existing capacity and identified gaps. The outcome has been support for two new medical schools and increased funding in many of the health sciences disciplines.”

Dooley acknowledged that the health science initiative only looked at workforce demands, not research demands as will be done for ANR.

“In addition to workforce demands, we need to be thinking about where we see the major research issues emerging,” he said.

Dooley said the planning process he is proposing is focused outward, whereas past ANR planning processes that he has reviewed were focused inward.

“They were focused on advising the vice president how he should allocate limited resources among program priorities,” Dooley said. “The target audience of my planning process won’t be me, but key policy leaders in the University, such as the Board of Regents.”

In separate calls, Chuck Ingels and Gloria Barrett, both of Sacramento County, asked about declining county support for UCCE.

Dooley said he expects local officials to be part of his formal advocacy structure.

“I personally am prepared to engage wherever necessary with boards of supervisors,” Dooley said.

Sonya Varea Hammond of Monterey County said county directors must spend an increasing amount of time advocating for their own resources at the county level and some believe that advocacy at a higher level will be more effective.

Dooley reassured her, “You will find that I am going to engage in advocacy at a variety of levels at a pace and tempo that hasn’t been seen in the Division for a long time.”

Vernard Lewis of UC Berkeley asked how Dooley plans to address the state’s growing urban constituency. Dooley agreed that addressing the needs of the urban population is critical to ANR’s long-term viability.

Peggy Lemaux of UC Berkeley asked how to address clientele needs as continuing budget cuts force specialists to spend more time seeking research funding.

“I don’t accept the premise that we’ll have continuing budget cuts,” Dooley said. “I believe very strongly you have to define a future role that helps you make the case for additional resources.” He said his planning effort will develop a blueprint for the Division to persuade the regents they should invest additional resources in ANR.

Leigh Taylor Johnson of San Diego County asked how California’s population growth would affect ANR’s approach.

“Our traditional roots have got to integrate horizontally across both the University of California and society in ways that we haven’t in the past contemplated,” Dooley said, noting that ANR has opportunities to play major roles in addressing issues such as poverty and health care. “I believe it is important for us to emerge from what I would characterize as a cocoon and actively look for ways we can engage with our colleagues in other parts of university.

“We have to think more broadly. We have to be invigorated by the opportunities and challenges, not threatened by them. I think that if we approach it in that way we can have a very successful future.”

Pete Goodell of UC Davis and Kearney Agricultural Center inquired how the planning process would be affected by the large number of academics and staff reaching retirement age in the next few years.

“There’s not a lot we can do about age of our existing workforce,” Dooley said. “As we define a future and then we start looking at implementation, clearly questions about workforce and resources and so forth have to be central to how we go about implementing our future.”

Myriam Grajales-Hall of News and Information Outreach in Spanish in Riverside asked how Dooley envisions California’s growing Spanish-speaking community fitting into his advocacy strategies.

Dooley noted that many key legislators are Hispanic and from the Los Angeles area. “We have got to be sure we have mechanisms to get access to those leaders,” he said. “I intend to do everything I can to make sure we’re utilizing all of our available resources to get our point across to all of the leadership of California.”

Larry Yee of Ventura County asked what role ANR will play in the national Land-Grant picture.

“We will ramp up our involvement,” Dooley said, noting his experience at the federal level, working on the Farm Bill, with the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges (NASULGC) and with the Council for Agricultural Research, Extension, and Teaching (CARET).

The vice president concluded the town-hall conference call by asking participants to e-mail Steve Nation (steve.nation@ucop.edu) to comment and state their opinions on whether regular conference calls would be an effective way for ANR employees to receive updates and converse with Dooley.