Department of Agricultural, Leadership, and Community Education

Permanent URI for this community

https://hdl.handle.net/10919/70450

Browse

Browsing Department of Agricultural, Leadership, and Community Education by Title

Now showing 1 - 20 of 702
  • Thumbnail Image
  • Thumbnail Image
    4-H Curriculum Development: New Processes & New Partners
    Pearson, Jocelyn; Bonnett, Erika; Price, Tonya; Proudfoot, Chad; Scherer, Hannah H.; Walden, Alyssa (2023-02-08)
  • Thumbnail Image
    Accessing Virginia Market Sectors: Establishing a Market Perspective
    Vallotton, Amber; Battah, Alexandra; Knox, Ryan; Vargo, Adrianna; Archibald, Thomas G.; Boyer, Renee R.; Cook, Natalie E.; Drape, Tiffany A. (Virginia Cooperative Extension, 2017-11-27)
    Discusses marketing perspective, and emphasizes the importance of understanding the market, before investing lots of time, effort and money.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Accessing Virginia's College & University Market Sector: Fresh Produce Food Safety Considerations
    Vallotton, Amber; Battah, Alexandra; Knox, Ryan; Vargo, Adrianna; Archibald, Thomas G.; Boyer, Renee R.; Cook, Natalie E.; Drape, Tiffany A. (Virginia Cooperative Extension, 2017-11-27)
    Highlights from a 2015-2016 market assessment survey are discussed in this document.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Accessing Virginia's Hospital Market Sector: Fresh Produce Food Safety Considerations
    Vallotton, Amber; Battah, Alexandra; Knox, Ryan; Vargo, Adrianna; Archibald, Thomas G.; Boyer, Renee R.; Cook, Natalie E.; Drape, Tiffany A. (Virginia Cooperative Extension, 2017-11-27)
    Discusses hospitals as a potential market for locally grown foods and products. Identifies school purchasing priorities, and some of the likely barriers to purchasing.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Accessing Virginia's Market Sectors: Fresh Produce Purchasing Considerations
    Vallotton, Amber; Battah, Alexandra; Knox, Ryan; Vargo, Adrianna; Archibald, Thomas G.; Boyer, Renee R.; Cook, Natalie E.; Drape, Tiffany A. (Virginia Cooperative Extension, 2017-11-17)
    Discusses the results of a survey of colleges and universities, direct-to-consumer markets, hospitals, public schools, restaurants, retailers and regional wholesalers.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Accessing Virginia's Public School (K-12) Market Sector: Fresh Produce Safety Considerations
    Vallotton, Amber; Battah, Alexandra; Knox, Ryan; Vargo, Adrianna; Archibald, Thomas G.; Boyer, Renee R.; Cook, Natalie E.; Drape, Tiffany A. (Virginia Cooperative Extension, 2017-11-27)
    Discusses public schools as a potential market for locally grown foods and products. Identifies school purchasing priorities, and some of the likely barriers to purchasing.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Accessing Virginia's Regional Wholesale Market Sector: Fresh Produce Safety Considerations
    Vallotton, Amber; Battah, Alexandra; Knox, Ryan; Vargo, Adrianna; Archibald, Thomas G.; Boyer, Renee R.; Cook, Natalie E.; Drape, Tiffany A. (Virginia Cooperative Extension, 2017-11-17)
    Discusses wholesale market distributors and regional food hubs, and how to market locally grown food crops to them. Also notes the results of a 2015-2016 a Virginia statewide market assessment survey.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Accessing Virginia’s Restaurant Market Sector: Fresh Produce Food Safety Considerations
    Vallotton, Amber D.; Battah, Alexandra; Knox, Ryan; Vargo, Adrianna; Archibald, Thomas G.; Boyer, Renee R.; Cook, Natalie E.; Drape, Tiffany A. (Virginia Cooperative Extension, 2017-11-17)
    Despite the growing demand and support for local food, there can often be significant barriers for growers trying to tap into new markets, given specific food safety expectations, policies, and requirements. This trend is particularly true for institutional buyers, who are often constrained by far-reaching institutional and/or corporate policies. While there are lots of market opportunities in Virginia, navigating the landscape for growers can be daunting, since buyer food safety requirements are not a “one size fits all” standard for all markets. To better understand current expectations and perceptions across multiple market sectors in Virginia, and help producers better align their on-farm practices with these marketplaces, the Fresh Produce Food Safety Team conducted a state-wide market assessment survey in 2015-2016. The purpose of this factsheet is to provide you with the results of that work, especially if you are considering selling produce to restaurants.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Adaptive Leadership: How to Prioritize and Align Emerging Issues
    Kaufman, Eric K. (2017-02-08)
    Adaptive leadership focuses on the adaptations required in response to changing environments, which essentially describes the role of the 21st Century Extension professional. This workshop will outline the model of adaptive leadership and introduce the leader behaviors associated with adaptive work. Participants will practice categorizing issues as either technical or adaptive challenges, and they will explore appropriate strategies for responding to both.
  • Addressing Complex Issues and Crises in Higher Education With an Adaptive Leadership Framework
    Sunderman, Hannah M.; Headrick, Jason; McCain, Kate (Taylor & Francis, 2020-11-01)
    In response to freedom of speech crises and other pressing issues becoming more prevalent at college campuses, this conceptual paper provides a framework for higher education administrators, faculty, and staff to consider when challenges arise. Specifically, this paper highlights the framework of adaptive leadership before discussing three freedom of speech incidents at the University Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) that demonstrate the nuanced difficulties associated with crises at institutions of higher education. Then, the actions of administrators during the incidents are considered in light of the adaptive leadership behaviors, such as taking perspective and empowering people to bring change. Finally, implications and future research directions are discussed. By analyzing these incidents and the response by administrators, other higher education stakeholders may be better able to address their own complex campus issues, such as free speech challenges, global pandemics, and other localized activity using adaptive leadership behaviors.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Adjust your own oxygen mask before helping those around you: an autoethnography of participatory research
    Steketee, Abby M.; Archibald, Thomas G.; Harden, Samantha M. (2020-09-03)
    Background There is a need to unpack the empirical, practical, and personal challenges within participatory approaches advocated to optimize implementation. The unpredictable, chaotic nature of participatory approaches complicates application of implementation theories, methods, and strategies which do not address researchers’ situatedness within participatory processes. As an implementation scientist, addressing one’s own situatedness through critical reflection is important to unearth how conscious and unconscious approaches, including ontological and epistemological underpinnings, influence the participatory context, process, and outcomes. Therefore, the aim of this exploratory work is to investigate the heretofore blind spot toward the lived experience of implementation researchers within the participatory process. Methods We developed an integrated research-practice partnership (IRPP) to inform the implementation of a gestational weight gain (GWG) control program. Within this IRPP, one investigator conducted a 12-month autoethnography. Data collection and triangulation included field notes, cultural artifacts, and systematic timeline tracking. Data analysis included ethnographic-theoretical dialogue and restorying to synthesize key events and epiphanies into a narrative. Results Analysis revealed the unpredicted evolution of the GWG program into a maternal health fair and three themes within the researchers’ lived experience: (1) permeable work boundaries, (2) individual and collective blind spots toward the ontological and epistemological underpinnings of implementation paradigms, and (3) maladaptive behaviors seemingly reinforced by the research culture. These themes contributed to the chaos of implementation and to researchers’ experience of inadequate recovery from cognitive, emotional, and practical demands. These themes also demonstrated the importance of contextual factors, subjectivity, and value-based judgments within implementation research. Conclusion Building on extant qualitative research guidelines, we suggest that researchers anchor their approach to implementation in reflexivity, intentionally and iteratively reflecting on their own situatedness. Through this autoethnography, we have elucidated several strategies based on critical reflection including examining philosophical underpinnings of research, adopting restorative practices that align with one’s values, and embracing personal presence as a foundation of scientific productivity. Within the predominant (post-) positivism paradigms, autoethnography may be criticized as unscientifically subjective or self-indulgent. However, this work demonstrates that autoethnography is a vehicle for third-person observation and first-person critical reflection that is transformative in understanding and optimizing implementation contexts, processes, and outcomes.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Administrators’ Perspectives on Organizational Environmental Factors Facing 4-H Youth Development
    Elliott-Engel, Jeremy; Westfall-Rudd, Donna M.; Seibel, Megan M.; Kaufman, Eric K.; Radhakrishna, Rama (Elsevier, 2024-01)
    4-H is the largest youth development organization in the United States and is the youth development program of the Land-Grant University’s Cooperative Extension system. A qualitative study of 13 4-H Program Leaders and seven Cooperative Extension Directors was conducted to explore the perspectives Extension Administrators hold about the organizational environmental factors facing the 4-H program. Data were analyzed using a qualitative open coding methodology. Five themes emerged from the study in response to the identified environmental factors: 1) key components of the traditional club model need to be ensured in all programming conducted; 2) the need to develop a club programming matrix to help county-level staff manage the impact and their workload; 3) good partners will expand the 4-H programs’ capacity; 4) increased involvement of first generation youth and families is needed; and 5) intentional marketing and raising awareness of the “new 4-H brand.” Adaptation poses important questions, challenges, and opportunities for the 4-H program. Because administrators represent a national population of Administrators, these insights can inform youth organizations in the United States and internationally.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Administrator’s Perspectives on the Environmental Factors Facing Cooperative Extension
    Elliott-Engel, Jeremy; Westfall-Rudd, Donna M.; Seibel, Megan M.; Kaufman, Eric K.; Radhakrishna, Rama (American Association for Agricultural Education, 2020-02-02)
    Extension is a complex organization with a mission to deliver research from the Land-Grant University to all U.S. communities. Extension administrator perspectives of the environmental factor changes that are facing the organization were investigated in this qualitative study to inform the direction for organization adaptation. Extension needs to respond to: shifts in funding and clientele demographics. Organization adaptation can cause long-term stakeholders to fear loss and therefore can act against the organization. Administrators need to be responsive to traditional stakeholder concerns to reduce shifting focus friction and achieve organization adaptation, and further survival.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Adoption of Humanistic Pedagogy to Leadership Education in Higher Education
    Oyedare, Israel; Kaufman, Eric K. (2024-02-08)
    The leadership education and development of students and young professionals have become a composite focus area for many higher institutions, particularly business schools (Allen et al., 2022). This has consequently inspired an increase in research on the different approaches and frameworks for teaching leadership to students (Allen et al., 2022; Watkins et al. 2017). The use of humanistic pedagogy in leadership education is an approach that puts to perspective the four important viewpoints in teaching leadership - the educator, student, learning procedures, and learning circumstances - but places more emphasis on the human or humane end of the learning process and perceptions students hold about the world (Javadi & Tahmasbi, 2020; Purswell, 2019). Allen et al. (2022) asserted that relevant leadership skills such as problem-solving, relational, change, and innovation skills require a variety of humanistic approaches for students to fully embrace and internalize them. This approach prioritizes students' learning on the value of their self-identity and focuses on their full development (Rustan Effendi et al., 2020). Integral to humanistic pedagogy is the human learning theory that has its roots in the psychological study and observation of the individual student and their relationships with the learning environment (Purswell, 2019). Johnson (2014) asserted that this theory pays attention to the affective dimension of students such as their self-concept, individual values, and emotions; which are a natural extension of how they perceive and learn leadership. A conceptual review of selected literature revealed the following characteristics of humanistic learning theory: - Emphasis on the formation of the human values of students, the educators' ability to understand the student, the attention of educators to the emotions of students during a learning process, and the involvement of students throughout this process (Tolstova & Levasheva, 2019). - Prioritises these four elements - confidence in progress, reasons, inclusiveness, and focus on individualism (Rustan Effendi et al., 2020). - Giving students opportunities to take an interest in what is to be learned, ensuring self-directed learning, and creating a conducive learning environment (Johnson, 2014). Notably, Allen et al. (2022) posited that using humanistic pedagogy to teach leadership courses in higher education helps students become self-aware of their need for leadership education and value the importance of the concept of self-leadership. This further leads to students finding their purpose in leadership as against seeing leadership as a problem-solving approach (Waddock, 2016). Moreover, an essential aspect of adopting humanistic pedagogy in teaching leadership is that it inspires commitment to lifelong learning among leadership students that extends beyond their college education (Waddock, 2016).
  • Thumbnail Image
    The adult-centered teaching strategies for the livestock System resilience with a variety of extension agent workloads’ demands: a case study of Thies and Diourbel Regions, Senegal
    Kane, Ousmane; Badji, Alkaly; Westfall-Rudd, Donna M. (2023-01)
    Senegalese extension services play a crucial role in Senegalese agriculture which is still characterized as family and peasant-based. Extension agents provide technical support and information to breeders. Today, an adaptation to the use of natural resources is necessary because of the degradation of the agro-pastoral ecosystem, hence the need for innovative training and awareness-raising strategies. Therefore, the purpose was the enhancement of the teaching approaches implemented to local breeders in the context of climate change in the Diourbel and Thies regions. The researcher collected qualitative data, including document analysis and in-depth interviews with 12 extension agents. Findings included insight into the training experiences of extension agents in the context of climate change. Besides, the results showed that the program planning is effective and helped to design practical teaching content. In addition, the adult-centered teaching approach is a new concept for the participants. However, the findings demonstrated the need to improve knowledge in teaching and learning innovations for extension agents in natural resource conservations. In sum, they need program planning and continuing professional development programs to be efficient in diffusing the concept to change the mindset and behaviors of breeders.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Advancing Adaptive Leadership Through Adaption-Innovation Theory: Enhancements to the Holding Environment
    Seibel, Megan M.; Kaufman, Eric K.; Cletzer, D. Adam; Elliott-Engel, Jeremy (Wiley, 2023)
    While adaptive leadership is a useful framework for leadership practitioners, there is limited empirical research supporting its conceptual tools and tactics. Kirton’s adaption-innovation (A-I) theory contends individuals have innate problem-solving style preferences for more or less structure. In this conceptual paper, we examine the theoretical underpinnings of adaptive leadership and A-I theory within the context of complex problem solving. We connect A-I theory to concepts from adaptive leadership to connect a more rigorous and empirically supported theory to a popular practice. We go further to explore how a leaders’ A-I style informs a leader's maintenance of an adaptive leadership holding environment (HE), particularly with regard to facilitating a productive zone of disequilibrium (PZD).
  • Thumbnail Image
    Advancing Community College Instruction for Agriculture Workforce Preparedness: VCCS Professional Development Day 1
    Kaufman, Eric K.; White, Amy; Nelson, Dalton; Seibel, Megan M.; Westfall-Rudd, Donna M.; Friedel, Curtis R. (2021-06-15)
    This was the first meeting of the professional learning cohort of Virginia Community College System (VCCS) faculty engaged in the Agriculture Workforce Training for Collaborative Leadership project.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Advancing Community College Instruction for Agriculture Workforce Preparedness: VCCS Professional Development Day 2
    Kaufman, Eric K.; Westfall-Rudd, Donna M.; Friedel, Curtis R. (2021-06-16)
    This was the second meeting of the professional learning cohort of Virginia Community College System (VCCS) faculty engaged in the Agriculture Workforce Training for Collaborative Leadership project.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Advancing Community College Instruction for Agriculture Workforce Preparedness: VCCS Professional Development Day 3
    Kaufman, Eric K.; Ring, Bettina; Seibel, Megan M.; White, Amy; Westfall-Rudd, Donna M.; Friedel, Curtis R.; Nelson, Dalton (2021-07-14)
    This was the third meeting of the professional learning cohort of Virginia Community College System (VCCS) faculty engaged in the Agriculture Workforce Training for Collaborative Leadership project.