In this week’s issue:
- Webex and Zoom Testing
- Communication and connection opportunities
- OSU’s Statewide Public Programs
- Lu Seapy, STEM educator of the year
- Extension Web Update
- Diversity Highlights
- What are you reading?
- Extension in the news
Webex and Zoom Testing
To best serve students, faculty, and staff, Oregon State University is exploring web conferencing solutions. Webex and Zoom have been identified as the top web conferencing solutions to support OSU’s mission. OSU is conducting a four-week test of Webex and Zoom to evaluate each solution.
Join the test group to participate in the Webex and Zoom evaluation.
Webex and Zoom accounts will be provided for test group members. Test group members will be asked to complete testing scenarios in both Webex and Zoom and a survey to report your experience.
More information about the user testing for Webex and Zoom is available by visiting: https://is.oregonstate.edu/webex-zoom-testing
Communication and connection opportunities
Is there anything about which you are interested, curious, or concerned? Here are some ways to share and ask:
- Online form to submit questions (Think of this like a virtual comment box.)
- OSU Extension Slack workspace or informal communication and collaboration
- Read ConnEXTions weekly, and contribute!
- O&E blog with First Monday videos (Engage via the comment section!)
- Outreach & Engagement Quarterly Conversations (Next: February 15, 2019)
OSU’s Statewide Public Programs
OSU Extension Service, Oregon Agricultural Experiment Station, and Oregon Forest Research Laboratory – launched a new website last week that highlights how the Statewides are addressing Oregon’s critical needs.
The Statewides: Our Impact, which replaced Bridges to Prosperity, includes nearly 100 impact stories under three major themes: sustainable agricultural, food and, and natural resource production; natural resources science and stewardship; and community health and resilience.
Our Impact also includes information about the Statewides’ request for an increase in $30 million in operational funding for the 2019-21 biennium under SB 257.
The site is searchable by theme, Statewide program and region. If you have an impact story that isn’t on the site, please send an e-mail Chris Branam, public issues education leader for Extension and Experiment Station Communications.
Lu Seapy, STEM educator of the year
Development, OSU Extension Service, was awarded the first-ever STEM Education Leader the Year award by the Gorge Technology Alliance. A 17-year classroom teacher before coming to 4-H, Seapy works effectively with youth as well as formal educators and their administration. She is a leader in robotics in the Gorge and has pioneered STEM programs in and out of the classroom throughout Wasco County.Extension Web Update
Keywords allow content to show higher in search results, and help visitors to narrow down the results too. The more thought put in to keywords up front, the easier it will be to find the content again later on. This week’s web upgrade blog post looks at “The Key to Finding Content on the Website” and walks through some steps on using keywords on the Extension site.
Diversity Highlights
Please contact analu.fonseca@oregonstate.edu with any questions or comments or if you have suggestions for events or news stories to include in Diversity Highlights.
Special Announcement:
Black Minds Matter course:
Oregon State University’s Corvallis Campus is a broadcast site for the Black Minds Matter course. Black Minds Matter is a 10-week public course that focuses on addressing issues affecting Black student success in secondary education. Click this link to register or to sign up for more information about upcoming courses. Contact Email: AA.AAESS@oregonstate.edu.
Events & Resources
Martin Luther King Jr., Day of Service: Students, faculty, staff, and their partners and children are all invited to participate in OSU’s largest day of service of the year. Projects will take place at various times with most projects starting in the morning. January 19 from 8:00 am to 3:00 pm in Corvallis, for more information visit the event page.
Black Alumni & Friends: MLK Celebration of Community: In celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy, the Black Alumni & Friends Network invites African American and Black alumni and friends to reconnect, strengthen our bond with each other and Oregon State. January 24 from 5:00 pm to 8:00 pm in Portland, for more information visit the event page.
Conversation Project: The Space Between Us: Immigrants, Refugees, and Oregon: In this conversation, Manuel Padilla, who has worked with refugees in Haiti, Chad, and Washington DC, asks participants to consider questions of uprootedness, hospitality, identity, perception, integration and how we might build more informed, responsive, resilient, and vibrant communities. January 25 from 6:00 pm to 7:30 in Hood River, for more information visit the event page.
OSU King’s Talk: OSU King’s Talk invites members of the OSU community to publicly showcase the importance of Dr. King’s contributions to creating a just society and world for all. January 25 from 3:00pm to 5:00pm in Corvallis, for more information visit the event page.
In the News
At age 7, Mario Magaña worked on his family’s farm in México. He helped grow corn, sesame seeds, watermelon and more, while also raising cows, goats, horses, pigs and chickens.
To improve teacher diversity, Salem-Keizer focusing on training its own students, classroom aides
The district’s 16,000 Latino students rarely see someone who looks like them in front of the classroom. Superintendent Christy Perry has made changing that a priority.
OSU offers weekend STEM activities for children with disabilities
The Adaptive Technology Engineering Network student group at Oregon State University is offering a series of four weekend learning events intended to promote science, technology, engineering and math careers to children with disabilities over the next four Saturdays.
More than Words: Three families in rural Oregon retrace US immigration with their lives
“The small border town of Nyssa sits at the easternmost edge of Oregon, between winding highways, four rivers, and wide-open ranchlands. Migration and labor have long shaped the community’s landscape, both physically and spiritually, since the home of three thousand was first incorporated at the turn of the twentieth century.”
‘Indian Music Now’ explores dual identities in music and dance
When Sarah Tiedemann was growing up in Hillsboro in the 1980s, the city looked quite different than it does now. Its residents were mostly white, its identity mostly derived from its agricultural heritage.
Female Ranchers Are Reclaiming the American West
As men leave animal agriculture for less gritty work, more ranches are being led by women — with new ideas about technology, ecology and the land.
Traditional Masculinity Can Hurt Boys, Say New A.P.A. Guidelines
The American Psychological Association has released several guides for psychologists who work with people belonging to certain groups — members of ethnic and linguistic minorities, for example, or women and girls.
What are you reading?
Please share an interesting book, blog, or article you’ve read lately. What’s one insight you gleaned?
Extension in the news
El Nino weather means plants rising early
St. Helens Chronicle
According to Chip Bubl, Oregon State University extension service agent, all this warm weather has plants coming out of dormancy earlier than usual.
Master Gardener: Growing Citrus this Winter
Yakima Herald-Republic
Oregon State University Extension’s Weston Miller agrees, calling self-pollinating Meyer lemons “a no-brainer for container gardening in the Northwest.”
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