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Key words guide new council: leadership, advocacy, responsiveness, high quality By Dr. Robert F. Nicely Jr. Associate Dean for Outreach and Faculty Development and Professor of Education, College of Education
Dr. Robert F. Nicely Jr. was elected co-chair of the Coordinating Council for Outreach and Cooperative Extension in January 1998. His term runs through June 30, 1999.	“Leadership,” “advocacy,” “responsiveness” and “high quality” are key words for me as co-chair, with Dr. James H. Ryan, of the new Coordinating Council for Outreach and Cooperative Extension. These are also important words to guide the University in realizing President Graham Spanier’s goal of becoming the premier institution in the nation in the integration of teaching, research and service.   When people have a problem, I want them to think of Penn State, because we’ve got a top-notch reputation for research and scholarship and a great track record for responding quickly and helping solve real problems.   For the last 25 years, I have been integrating teaching, research and service in what I do in the College of Education. From my experiences, I have come to believe Penn State has only one mission: service. If you think about it, when we teach, aren’t we providing service to people? When we publish our research, aren’t people reading it and often using the information to benefit themselves, their professions or their institutions? In effect, we are a service-oriented organization.   This philosophy undergirds everything I do. I grew up in a family with a strong service-to-others orientation; my grandmother, several aunts and uncles, and father were educators. I thought what they were doing was important, and they seemed to have fun doing it. I became an educator, too, first teaching mathematics and chemistry to junior and senior high school students, then working as a change agent in an inner-city high school and a research associate in the University of Pittsburgh’s Learning Research and Development Center, where we were trying to find ways to effectively bring about systematic K–12 school change.   I am now using these same values on the council. I want members to focus on issues of leadership and advocacy, being responsive to the needs of the citizens of Pennsylvania and beyond, doing things well to increase visibility for Penn State’s research and scholarship, building linkages with each other inside the University and with external organizations, reducing redundancy and duplication and increasing collaboration.   The council is the first organization at the University to unite all the units involved in outreach. We have representatives from every academic college, the new campus colleges, Pennsylvania College of Technology, Computer and Information Systems, Continuing Education, Cooperative Extension, Distance Education, Governmental Affairs, Graduate School, Public Broadcasting, Research and Technology Transfer, Undergraduate Education, University Faculty Senate and University Libraries. (For a list of council members, see the Winter 1998 issue of The Catalyst, Page 11, or visit our Web site at http://www.outreach.psu.edu/Catalyst/Vol7No1/.)   The council is charged with advising the President and Provost on outreach strategy, policy and programming. Members also serve as advocates and supporters of outreach within their colleges and units.   I am a firm believer in the idea that people ought to be involved in decisions having an impact on them. As co-chair of the council, I want to find out from members what they think are the most important issues so that Jim Ryan and I can build these issues into the meeting agendas. Meetings will involve discussions on both grassroots issues (those identified by members) and issues we receive from the President and Provost. What I am most interested in doing is having substantive discussions of critical issues, with the intent of bringing about meaningful organizational changes to enhance Penn State’s capacity to better meet the needs of its clients.   The biggest issue we face is how to successfully implement the integration of teaching, research and service. We want outreach to become part of the fabric of the University. To achieve this goal, we need to help people realize that outreach is the right thing to do and it’s just as important as research and teaching. We can do this by demonstrating the impact of our outreach activities and by creating an environment that encourages people to do outreach. The President is leading the effort to bring about a cultural change at the University through his State of the University addresses and other presentations, as well as his influencing the modifications of the University’s policies, structures and rewards.   In the College of Education, I have been involved in outreach for more than 25 years. During this time, the college has served, annually, an average of more than 12,600 people statewide through credit courses and noncredit continuing education programs. Today, there is increased competition for students from other Pennsylvania colleges and universities, private schools, the for-profit University of Phoenix and corporate schools.   We have been able to maintain our competitive edge in the College of Education by closely evaluating and responding to our audiences’ needs. Our outreach programming has benefited not only teachers and other education professionals, but also our undergraduate and graduate students. For many faculty, schools are their laboratories. This is where they conduct research, collect data and learn what their audiences need. Our students benefit from participating in research, development and training activities with faculty, as well as in student teaching and other field experiences in these laboratories.   I believe we can replicate these benefits University-wide. The Coordinating Council for Outreach and Cooperative Extension will play an important role in encouraging faculty members to share their expertise to improve the lives of Pennsylvanians and others.