Extension Leadership Team Meeting Minutes November 21, 2022

January 30, 2023 ELT Minutes, News

Extension Leadership Team Meeting Minutes
November 21, 2022
Virtual Meeting 8:30-10:30 AM

Facilitator: Hannah Carter
Note taker: Jim Dill

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

Check ins

  • The last candidate web professional was interviewed today.
  • PFAS post-docs were interviewed last week.
  • Potato plant pathology candidates coming to campus in early December.
  • Veterinarian position (100% Extension) is advertised and candidate review will begin in mid-December.
  • County budgets – Andro/Sag and Washington passed with no gain. Penobscot passed with a slight increase. Currently Andro/Sag does not have any full time support staff.
  • 4-H Records = There has been a revision of 4-H record keeping for youth projects. The new process will begin in January.
  • Planning and Reporting (MPRS) – To date about 50% of the staff has reported. Dec 10 is the deadline for reporting.
  • Overhead – Currently, Dennis and Michael are reviewing overhead/indirects and looking at the return to principal investigators. They hope to have it concluded early next year to see how the newly adopted distribution formula impacts Extension.
  • ELT – The ELT will hold an all day retreat on November 30th. Someone from the Professional staff will attend to discuss the professional classification.
  • Civil Rights Review – There will be a civil rights review of Extension in Dec/Jan. More information to follow.

Changes in Supervision

  • Jason Bolton will assume his role of Associate Dean on Jan 3 and will retain supervision of his current staff.
  • Mark Hutchinson retires Dec 31 and Tori Jackson will become a full-time PA taking on Mark’s supervisees.

October Retreat Debrief

We debriefed our October ELT retreat, focusing in particular on 3 items:

  • Positions moving forward
  • Fundraising
  • County offices including structure, county coordinators and county supervision. Is it time to review 1) the County Extension Act, 2) executive committee roles, 3) county budgets and 4) the role of county coordinators.

Updates

Salesforce Update from Monica Palmer

  • Monica Palmer, the CRM System Professional, is now holding regular Office Hours, a virtual meeting time when anyone can join at any time during the hour to ask questions about Salesforce. These meetings are on her calendar as public events with Zoom information inside them. Please join anytime!
  • The search for the CRM System Support Professional position is well underway. The tentative start date for the successful candidate is mid-December.
  • The suite of tools from Titan has been procured and training has begun. Titan and its tools will provide Extension with web-forms, document generation, and event management. Stripe has been approved by the UMaine Bursar as the payment gateway. These tools are necessary for the work the Extension does to extend the power of Salesforce. The event management tool will eventually replace the CDMS.
  • Food Testing Services is the next group implementing Salesforce. Their business needs will require customizations to Salesforce, document generation, submission forms, a customer portal and historical data migration. This will be the first use-case to leverage our new suite of tools from Titan. Tentative go-live is January 1st, 2023.
  • The custom data integration between Salesforce and Mailchimp is 100% complete. Next steps are to reorganize our current Extension Mailchimp account and to sync it with Salesforce data tables. This central Mailchimp account will allow for design of ultra-professional email communication with targeted customer and/or stakeholder groups that includes automated follow-up messages and analytics that will allow for continuous improvement in the way we communicate.
  • The Operations Team has adopted Salesforce to manage their new team email operations@maine.edu. This allows for easier assignments of questions and smoother collaboration within the team to answer questions.
  • Support continues for the Maine Business School with their recent implementation of Salesforce. They are now live with event registration, event reminder emails and internship tracking.

 Search Updates

INITIATED – JD & RTF IN PROGRESS

  • Admin Specialist (Somerset)
  • Admin Specialist CL3 (Tanglewood/Blueberry Cove)
  • Communications Professional (Penobscot/remote)

WAITING FOR APPROVALS IN HIRETOUCH

  • 4-H Youth Development Professional (Oxford)
  • 4-H Community Education Assistant CL2 (Pen/Pisc)
  • Admin Specialist CL3 (And/Sag)

ADVERTISING / ANTICIPATING APPLICANTS

  • Community Education Assistant, CL1 EFNEP (And/Sag)
  • Community Education Assistant, CL1 EFNEP (Franklin)
  • Community Education Assistant, CL1 EFNEP (Washington)
  • Community Education Assistant, CL1 EFNEP (York)
  • Admin Specialist CL3 (DRL)
  • Admin Specialist CL2 (Cumberland)
  • Veterinarian Specialist & Assistant Extension Professor (VDL)
  • 4-H Community Education Assistant (Waldo)
  • Postdoctoral Extension Associate in PFAS Research and Outreach (Orono/Statewide)
  • Director Bryant Pond/Greenland Point 4-H Centers (BP/GP)

INTERVIEWING / OFFERING

  • CRM System Support Professional (Orono/remote)
  • Web Professional (Orono/remote)
  • Potato Plant Pathologist, Faculty (Aroostook/Presque Isle) 2nd round TBD – Zoom?

HIRED

  • Associate Dean of Extension (Orono) Jason Bolton
  • Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory Manager (VDL) Claudia Desjardins
  • 4-H Community Education Assistant CL2 (Cumberland) Allison Pollock
  • 4-H Youth Development Professional (Washington County) Gabrielle Brodek
  • Accounting & Operations Professional (Orono) Gloria Menchaca

PULLED TO REASSESS

  • Parent Education Professional, Maine Families Visitor (Knox/Lincoln)
  • Sust Ag & Hort Professional (Aroostook)
  • 4-H Youth Development Professional (Washington County)

2022 ELT Meeting Dates

Dates Facilitator Notes Location
December 12 Dill Harrington Virtual