ELT Minutes, June 21, 2012

July 3, 2012 ELT Minutes

Thursday, June 21, 2012
Room 102B Libby Hall — Orono

Facilitator: Dennis Harrington
Note taker: Fran Sulinski
Present: Dennis Harrington, Lisa Phelps, Jon Prichard, John Rebar, and Fran Sulinski
Guests: Debra Eckart and Ann Swain (in person), Cindy Eves-Thomas (in person), Jennifer O’Leary (gchat)

Please note: Due to the confidentiality and sensitivity of some agenda items, these ELT minutes do not represent the full content of each meeting.

Senior Companion Program Transitions: The Senior Companion Program was recently reviewed by their federal funder. The review was very positive. The ELT thanks Ann Swain and Deb Eckart for all of their good work with the SCP. Ann will be resigning her position effective June 30.

Website Usability Results from Burgess Advertising & Marketing: Thanks to the leadership of Cindy and Jen and the staff who were willing to have their sites reviewed; a web usability study was conducted by an outside vendor. The ELT reviewed the recommendations of the vendor and are in support of Cindy and Jen implementing as many of the changes as possible with the cooperation of the staff members’ whose sites were reviewed. The recommended changes should also be applied to as many other websites as possible and where appropriate. The ELT looks forward to a report of the changes and the results of the changes in three (3) months.

New Travel Advance Option: Our staff members who are located off campus will be able to obtain a travel advance by working directly with Patti or Heather ten (10) days in advance to obtain a check from the Budget & Business Office. This is a much better option than the previous process where staff members were required to
come to campus to obtain cash for their trips.

Announcements:

  • Congratulations to Laura Wilson, who has been awarded $349,815 from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and Columbia University for her project “Promoting Arsenic Testing and Treatment to Reduce Health Risks for Residents with Private Wells in Maine.”
  • Congratulations to Jane Haskell. While at the National Association of Community Development Extension Professionals (NACDEP) meeting in May, Jane was awarded two (!) recognitions:
    • For the Northeast region — Excellence in Community Development Programming — for Strengthening Your Facilitation Skills.
    • 2012 National Award for Excellence in Community Development Programming — Individual (again for Strengthening Your Facilitation Skills).
  • Congratulations to Esperanza Stancioff, who has been awarded the following amounts in collaboration with the Maine Sea Grant Program:
    • $25,000 for a project to increase resiliency to hazards, including sea-level rise, inundation, flooding, and storm surge in North Atlantic region municipalities.
    • $30,000 for a project to reduce the barriers Maine coastal property owners and municipal officials face in implementing climate change adaptation strategies by providing them with relevant products, activities, and services in the formats they prefer, by the resource people they trust.
    • $100,000 to work in collaboration with the City of Ellsworth in Downeast Maine to develop a community-based adaptation model with a focus on storm water and flood protection infrastructure.
    • $298,455 for a project to promote climate change awareness and adaptive planning in Atlantic fisheries communities using dialogue-based participatory vulnerability analysis, mapping, and collaborative systems dynamic modeling.
  • Congratulations to Ann Swain, who has been awarded $351,212 from the Corporation for National and Community Service to support the Senior Companion Program for FY13.
  • Congratulations to Cathy Elliott, a founding and current member of the National Network for Sustainable Living Education (NNSLE). The Joint Council of Extension Professionals (JCEP) has awarded NNSLE a national Team Award for its educational programming in climate change and sustainable living education. Since its creation, NNSLE has grown to 90-plus individuals from more than 30-plus land-grant universities and the National Institutes of Food and Agriculture (NIFA).
  • Congratulations to Scott Olsen, who has been awarded $50,000 from Maine Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife to provide scholarship assistance to children attending summer camp at University of Maine 4-H Camp & Learning Center at Bryant Pond.
  • Congratulations to Bruce Watt, who has been awarded $2,500 from Cornell University to develop a Northeast Region bug wood node to collect and catalog images for use as reference tools by diagnosticians and identifiers.
  • Congratulations to Anne Lichtenwalner, who has been awarded $14,969 from University of Vermont to work with Maine farms and veterinarians to help prevent, detect, and eliminate the disease Caseous Lymphadenitis (CL) in small ruminants.

Status on searches as of June 20, 2012:

  • POS#193 Communications Technology Professional – Offered and Accepted
  • POS#194 Parent Education Professional – Knox/Lincoln – Offered and Accepted
  • POS#195 Tech Wizard Assistant – Offered and Accepted
  • POS#197 Parent Education Professional – Waldo – Offer refused – failed search
  • POS#198 4-H Professional – York – Interviews 6/25
  • POS#199 4-H Professional (Campus) – Failed Search
  • POS#200 Extension Educator, Assistant Extension Professor (Agronomist) Presque Isle – Advertising
  • POS#201 Program Development & Marketing Professional – Waiting for approval to hire
  • POS #202 AgrAbility Professional – Interviews 6/15