In this week’s issue:
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)
Updated Extension Promotional Materials Order Process
There will be a new and easier process to order Extension promotional materials beginning tomorrow, January 30. When you click on the usual link to place your order, you’ll be directed to a webpage instead of a PDF order form. Log in with your OSU affiliate account and place your order. It’s that simple! Please note that promotional materials must be ordered separate from publications.
Tammy Cushing to serve as president of SAF
Next year, Tammy Cushing, an Extension forest business specialist at Oregon State University, will become the third woman to serve as president of the largest professional society of foresters in the world.
Cushing is currently serving a one-year term as vice president of the Society of American Foresters (SAF), which represents and serves 12,000 forestry professionals in the United States.
“SAF has served as a common thread throughout my career, allowing me to connect with other professionals, and it will be an honor to serve as president in 2020,” Cushing said. “I look forward to working with our members to further the mission of SAF. I’m particularly excited about creating a mechanism for foresters to reach out to recent college graduates who have relocated to their area. This will create a support system for our young professionals and increase member engagement.”
Cushing is the Starker Chair of Private and Family Forestry and an assistant professor in the Department of Forest Engineering, Resources, and Management. Her research focuses on financial decision-making and tax impacts on private forest landowners. In addition to teaching, she has responsibilities in the OSU Extension Service’s Forestry & Natural Resources Program related to educating forest landowners and professionals about the business side of forestry including economics, policy, and management.
Cushing was named a fellow of SAF in 2017 and served as the convention chair for the SAF National Convention, held in Portland in 2018.
“Serving as SAF president is a great honor for Tammy and also for Oregon State University,” said Jim Johnson, OSU Extension forestry program leader. “Tammy is a national leader in her field and is widely sought for tax advice by landowner associations across the country. We are proud to have her here as our Starker Chair in Private and Family Forestry.”
Call for nominations – 2019 Vice Provost Awards for Excellence
The Outreach and Engagement Vice Provost Awards for Excellenceencourage and reward efforts to create and nurture healthy communities, healthy planet and a healthy economy through outreach and engagement efforts. Deadline for nominations is February 28. To learn more about award criteria and to complete the nomination form, click here. You are encouraged to self-nominate or nominate others. Award event will be held in the MU Ballroom, Thursday, May 2, 3:30 until 5 p.m., followed by a reception. Registration for the event opens February 1.
Extension Web Update
As you look back over 2018, if you led an Extension website content team or contributed to the web migration process, then Make Your Effort Count: Document your Contributions in Digital Measures. This week’s blog post gives suggestions for how to report this type of activity under other assigned duties.
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.
Conversation Starter Video:
We Believe: The Best Men Can Be | Gillette (Short Film)
Bullying. Harassment. Is this the best a man can get? It’s only by challenging ourselves to do more, that we can get closer to our best. To say the right thing, to act the right way.
Events & Resources
White Fragility Workshop: This workshop will provide an overview of the socialization that instills White Fragility and give the perspectives and skills needed for white people to build racial stamina and develop more equitable racial practices. January 31 from 9:30 am to 11:00 am in Bend. For more information visit the event page.
Conversation Project: Race and Place – Racism and Resilience in Oregon’s Past and Future: Facilitators Traci Price and Anita Yap will lead participants in a conversation that looks at how Oregon’s history of racism influences our present and asks, How can understanding Oregon’s historic and current impacts of racism contribute to our sense of place and vision of the future? February 4 from 6:00 pm to 7:30 in Bend, for more information visit the event page.
Feminism, Internationalism, State Power: The 2018-2019 New Directions in Black Feminist Studies speaker series centers on the ways in which academic and popular critics have recently galvanized black feminism as both a critical and creative corrective to ongoing state-sanctioned racialized, gendered, sexual, economic, and environmental injustices. February 7 from 12:00pm to 1:30pm in Eugene. For more information visit the event page.
Culturally Responsive STEM Teaching: Join The Oregon Coast STEM Hub’s FREE Community of Practice, where we will collaboratively support one another in increasing dialogue and skills for equitable STEM Teaching on the Oregon Coast. February 9 from 9:00 am to 3:00 pm in Newport. For more information, visit the event page.
Beyond Invitation: How Do We Create Inclusive Communities: Organizations and communities are working to invite broader groups of people to engage in their work as employees, patrons, board members, and donor. February 9 from 2:00 am to 4:00 pm in Newberg. For more information, visit the event page.
In the News
Oregon Sued Over Instruction Time For Students With Disabilities
Disability Rights Oregon has joined with four other legal groups to sue the state of Oregon over what they say is the state’s lax oversight of special education programs, especially for children with disabilities in small, rural communities.
Former homeless youth creates website to help others in Bend
In his spare time Zachary Cota, 24, has been working on creating a website that compiles different resources around Central Oregon to help young adults in need.
OSU-Cascades hosting diversity discussions
OSU-Cascades officials want the Central Oregon community to start thinking about diversity. To help get people started, they’re offering a few workshops.
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.
A couple years ago we examined Oregon’s diversity and the fact that Oregon’s foreign-born population is fairly similar to, albeit smaller than the U.S. as a whole. Now, Oregon does have a somewhat larger Mexican-born population, but many such residents moved to the U.S. during 1980s, 1990s and through the housing bubble.
How Zimbabwe’s grandmothers are turning the tide on mental health
When the African country couldn’t afford a clinical diagnosis network for mental health, 400 grandmothers and a system of ‘Friendship Benches’ came in.
50 Years After Dr. King’s Death, Remembering the Women Who Steered the Movement
For decades, it seems, Diane Nash has been asked about women’s role in the civil rights movement: what it was, why it hasn’t been more widely acknowledged, if she can describe her fellow organizers’ contributions.
What are you reading?
Book: Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World – And Why Things Are Better than You Think (2018) by Hans Rosling
What I am enjoying about this book is that it has reminded me to check my assumptions, and make sure I am using the most up-to-date best available science to frame my world view. I am also now a proud “possibilitist”. This book provides hope and perspective when it is quite easy to focus on short term negativity. Nicole Strong
Extension in the news
Purple Potatoes for All
Hermiston Herald
Students at Rocky Heights Elementary School got a special surprise with lunch last week — they got to sample purple potatoes, grown at the Hermiston Agricultural Research and Extension Center.
Roses and Raspberries for Friday, Jan. 25
Corvallis Gazette-Times
Dionisia Morales, publishing manager for Oregon State University Extension and Experiment Station Communications, was nominated in that category for her first book of essays, “Homing Instincts.”
Union firefighters oppose rangeland protection associations in Washington
Capital Press
Well-led rangeland associations have been effective, said Emily Jane Davis, an extension specialist in Oregon State University’s College of Forestry. Trained landowners become an asset to fire agencies rather than a source of conflict, she recently told the House Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee.
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