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Dr. James H. Ryan
Vice President for Outreach and Cooperative Extension |
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Penn State’s outreach leadership among institutions of higher education reflects the success of our University in engaging the institution’s academic expertise and resources to address society’s challenges and opportunities.
Over the last five years, outreach activities at Penn State have expanded and moved more fully into the mainstream of the University. Increased collaboration, new opportunities for faculty involvement and supportive policy and systems changes have been accompanied by significant growth in outreach program participants, program revenues and program net revenue returned to the colleges.
Here are some highlights of this progress:
 | The partnership of Outreach and Cooperative Extension, established in 1996, has leveraged resources across these units through joint programming and other collaborative efforts. One example is the O&CE Outreach Partnership Fund, which has provided $139,000 to 37 jointly proposed projects since its inception in 1998. |
| Enhanced cooperation between campus college continuing education offices and central outreach support units is stimulating program activity through assistance with marketing, program development, staff professional development and other support. Centrally developed continuing education programs created through the Outreach Office of Statewide Programs served more than 21,500 individuals through the campus colleges over the last four years, generating more than $8.6 million in income for campus colleges and outreach delivery units. |
| New partnerships between Cooperative Extension and academic colleges are drawing on academic expertise from across the University to benefit Pennsylvanians, while maintaining Cooperative Extension’s historic ties with the College of Agricultural Sciences. Cooperative Extension is currently partnering with the colleges of Health and Human Development, Medicine, Engineering, Earth and Mineral Sciences, and Arts and Architecture, and The Schreyer Honors College in diverse areas, such as rural women’s health, youth education, childhood obesity, water quality, meteorology, geographic information systems and service-learning internships for students. |
| Since the launching of the Penn State World Campus in January 1998, World Campus course enrollments have steadily grown, totaling 5,119 in fiscal year 2000–01, with 22 certificate and degree programs and 188 courses offered. The number of programs increased to 28 this year. Approximately 160 faculty members have been active in the World Campus. |
| Credit registrations through Conferences and Institutes (C&I) more than doubled from 1996–97 through 2000–01, and total credit and noncredit registrations increased 17 percent during the same period. Last year, C&I credit registrations totaled 3,337; noncredit registrations totaled 44,377. |
| Last year, Penn State Public Broadcasting had more than 350 faculty contacts involving broadcasts, media solutions projects, media sales and cross-unit programming initiatives. |
| Program net revenue returned by O&CE to the colleges increased from $502,066 in 1997–98 to $2.1 million in 2001–02. Total O&CE financial support for the colleges was $7.2 million in 2000–01, including revenue sharing, instructional support, base support, Program Innovation Fund awards and World Campus program development support. |
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As a major interface between Penn State’s colleges and individuals, organizations and communities external to the University, Outreach and Cooperative Extension works collaboratively with each college to serve the external stakeholders of the University by developing programs that increase access and link faculty expertise in teaching, research and service with the needs of the Commonwealth and beyond. We serve as catalysts, reaching out to diverse local, state, national and international constituencies, identifying educational needs, engaging the intellectual resources of the University in response to those needs and supporting the delivery of effective educational programs with meaningful impact.
Our Strategic Plan for 2002 to 2005 takes our partnership with the colleges to the next level, as we work to further strengthen the University’s engagement with external constituents. Our plan facilitates the scholarship of engagement by identifying opportunities for conducting outreach activities and through efforts to increase awareness and recognition of outreach teaching, research and service. It continues to develop a comprehensive organizational infrastructure that will enable academic units to accomplish their missions in new ways and to connect with new audiences. The plan also addresses the need to generate revenue in support of the colleges and their outreach activities and to strengthen the financial viability of O&CE in an increasingly competitive marketplace.
Six strategic goals will guide the efforts of O&CE for the next three years:
| 1. | Support increased engagement of University faculty, staff and students in outreach programs and efforts to increase awareness, support, recognition and reward for participation. We will work to enhance relationships with key internal stakeholders, including faculty, academic units and other academic support units and also will continue to work with the Coordinating Council for Outreach and Cooperative Extension and the Faculty Senate Committee on Outreach Activities to advance Penn State’s engagement agenda. In addition, increased collaboration of O&CE with others in our University community who are involved in public scholarship and service learning will help to promote and facilitate these forms of outreach for faculty and students. |
| 2. | Develop and deliver programs supporting college efforts to address identified needs of diverse constituents. With the participating colleges, O&CE will continue the development of Creating Health as a model for cross-unit collaboration (see story for details on this initiative). Priorities for program development also focus on K–12 education, workforce development, statewide continuing education programming and international exchanges and partnerships. |
| 3. | Increase focus on accountability and demonstrate program quality and impact. O&CE will continue to use and refine the balanced scorecard approach as a management tool and identify and monitor benchmarks with selected institutions and programs to refine performance measures. We are also looking at ways to enhance organizational competencies in program evaluation to promote the effective use of resources and improve reporting to stakeholders. |
| 4. | Develop additional sources of revenue and support for programming to increase financial viability and revenue sharing and enhance management processes. Recognizing new opportunities for external support, O&CE will increase its focus on external grants and fundraising for program development. We also will be completing the Campaign for Public Broadcasting in support of the digital conversion for WPSX. We recently launched an initiative that seeks the ideas of O&CE staff for ways to reduce costs and generate new sources of revenue to provide flexible resources for investment in strategic priorities and new initiatives. |
| 5. | Continue to develop a comprehensive organizational infrastructure that supports and enhances Penn State’s capacity for academic engagement and outreach. An important priority of O&CE is the continuing growth of the World Campus to achieve sustainability for this major University initiative. We must also complete the federally mandated conversion to digital broadcasting for WPSX-TV and capitalize on the unprecedented educational opportunities the digital conversion holds. Continuing to strengthen the Outreach and Cooperative Extension partnership and, more generally, to develop organizational capacity to support cross-unit collaboration within O&CE will provide an important foundation for greater engagement of Penn State’s academic resources. We will also continue to focus on O&CE’s use and organizational structure for information technology to optimize support for administrative and programming functions. |
| 6. | Enhance the environment for work and learning in support of the contributions of individuals from diverse backgrounds. O&CE has established four priorities for diversity initiatives: enhancing the climate for diversity within Outreach, recruitment and retention of staff from underrepresented groups, programming for diverse audiences and leadership commitment to diversity issues. |
The O&CE Strategic Plan acknowledges that our continuing progress in these endeavors occurs in the broader context for outreach at Penn State. I would like to recognize the invaluable contributions of both University faculty and O&CE staff to our many partnership activities and outreach initiatives. Many of these partnerships and initiatives have been highlighted in the pages of Penn State Outreach magazine. I encourage you to review this issue of Penn State Outreach, as well as our Strategic Plan.
I am encouraged by the significant accomplishments we have made in the last five years, and I am confident we will continue to expand and enhance our outreach programming to make life better for individuals, organizations and communities in the Commonwealth, the nation and the world. With the largest unified Outreach effort in American higher education behind it, there have never been more opportunities before Penn State to engage with society.
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