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| navigate: home: magazine: spring 2002: article | |
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2002 marks milestones for Penn State Outreach By Kerry A. Newman | ||||||||
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2002 marks three important anniversaries in Penn State’s history: 100 years of 4-H, 50 years since the conception of public television and 110 years of distance education. These landmarks attest to Penn State’s longstanding commitment to public service, a history of successful programming and the institution’s strength in responding to society’s educational needs. The milestones mark an important time for the University to reflect on past successes and plan for the future.
Head, heart, hands and health. For 100 years, these tenets have embodied the mission of 4-H — to help young people become self-directed, productive and contributing members of a diverse society.
“These qualities permeate the program throughout,” said Dr. Marilyn Corbin, assistant director of Penn State Cooperative Extension and state program leader for children, youth and families. “The pledge has held well for us over the years.”
4-H began in 1902 when educators in rural areas introduced youth to hands-on learning to improve agricultural education and keep youth involved in agriculture. Students formed clubs and worked on projects, such as how to plant, raise and harvest crops. Once the youth were involved, the intention was to get family and community members to participate and put the agricultural knowledge into practice.
“The 4-H program has played an instrumental role in the progress and evolution of agriculture in rural areas,” said Dr. Theodore R. Alter, associate vice president for outreach, director of Cooperative Extension and associate dean in the College of Agricultural Sciences. “It is our flagship youth development program in Pennsylvania.”
After more than a decade of successful 4-H programming, in 1914 the Smith-Lever Act, which created the national Cooperative Extension System, was passed. 4-H became the official youth development program of the Cooperative Extension System.
Today, 4-H has grown to be the world’s largest youth-serving organization, with more than 6 million participants across the United States. More than 600,000 adult and youth volunteers support the program.
4-H programs are available to youth at the club level, in school programs, through camps and via instructional television. In Pennsylvania, youth can participate in more than 200 projects across diverse topic areas, such as nutrition, entomology and computer technology. Regardless of the topic area, each activity emphasizes leadership development.
“The topics cover the breadth of important issues in society today,” Alter said.
“What we try to encourage in everything we do in youth programming is positive life skills,” Corbin said.
To mark the centennial, numerous events are being held across Pennsylvania at the local and state level. At the 2001 Farm Show in Harrisburg, Pa., a timeline of 4-H history was displayed, a food drive was held and two senior 4-H alums, Reuben and Lillian Ringer from Lehigh County, were recognized by Pennsylvania Secretary of Agriculture Samuel Hayes.
In addition to regional events, all Pennsylvania 4-H participants and volunteers had the opportunity to participate in the National Conversation on Youth Development in the 21st Century. Designed to shape the future of 4-H, the event invited youth and adults to engage in local conversations about how to build a better future for America’s youth.
Pennsylvania’s delegation to the National Conversation on Youth Development in the 21st Century included 80 participants: 31 adults and 49 youth. They are from 28 of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties, spanning 17 of the 21 Commonwealth congressional districts, according to Michael Martin, State 4-H Centennial coordinator and special assistant to the vice president of Outreach and Cooperative Extension at Penn State.
Thanks to funding support from Penn State Cooperative Extension county extension 4-H coordinators and county extension directors, the Pennsylvania delegation was able to travel to Washington, D.C., for the national meeting.
“The goal of the conversations,” Martin said, “is to address a single question: Within the next three to five years, what are the most important actions we can take to create the future we want for youth in our community?”
At each county conversation, participants organized their ideas into action steps. The action items were prioritized by theme, and an overall list of priorities for the county was organized into a report. All 67 counties in the Commonwealth participated in the event.
“From the county conversations, it’s been exciting to see the kinds of ideas the youth and adults believe should be the future for youth in the 21st century,” Corbin said. “There’s a lot of concern for the environment and for others less fortunate than themselves to be at the table in discussions and be involved in the community.”
County delegates presented the reports generated from these meetings at the state conversation held at University Park in January. The results of this conference were summarized and submitted to the national conversation held in Washington, D.C. From this meeting, a final report emphasizing key public policy recommendations was prepared and submitted to the government.
Alter, Corbin and Martin all agree 4-H has a positive influence on the development of youth. Due to the conversations, 4-H will also help give youth a greater voice in shaping the future.
“I see 4-H in the future as growing in strength, power and impact. I see it having a broader reach in our society and more diversity in people, topics and issues being addressed,” Alter said.
“I think 4-H will still be here in another 100 years, and we’ll still be about ‘making our best better,’” Martin said.
For more information about 4-H, visit these Web sites: http://pa4h.cas.psu.edu/ and www.4hcentennial.org/. | |||||||
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Proceedings from the Educational Television Programs Institute held at the Pennsylvania State College in 1952, state: “The future of educational television will be determined in the communities where educational institutions and organizations have a need for and the opportunity to use television — and not in Washington or the seat of state government.”
Indeed, the groundwork for the future of public broadcasting was not set by federal or local politicians, but by a group of educators who gathered at The Nittany Lion Inn to share their ideas for developing an educational television system in the United States. The Educational Television Programs Institute, sponsored by the American Council on Education, was held April 21–24, 1952, just 10 days after the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued a landmark report that reserved 242 television channels for noncommercial educational use. Timing for the event could not have been better.
“The institute had been set up before the FCC took action. It lent real immediacy to the conference itself,” Ted Krichels, assistant vice president for outreach and general manager of Penn State Public Broadcasting, said.
Timeliness was key, since the FCC only promised to reserve the channels for a year; if the channels were not used for education, they would be available commercially. Consequently, more than 100 educators, corporate leaders, government officials and technical experts convened at Penn State to discuss the educational potential of television and formulate a response to the FCC’s challenge. The following action steps were determined at the institute: define the educational purpose of operation of a specific television station, choose a licensee and develop agreements about construction and operation, make local arrangements for programming, finance the construction and operation, build a station, and experiment and conduct research.
“We call the institute a conceptual anniversary of public television — of what this could be,” Krichels said.
In 1964, Penn State Public Broadcasting became a reality. Today, WPSX-TV is an affiliate of the national Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and serves a central Pennsylvania and southern New York market of close to 500,000. It is supported financially by a membership of 12,000. In addition to distributing national programming, some of WPSX’s original programming, like What’s in the News, is aired nationally and is used as a teaching resource for grades four to seven.
Krichels explained that Penn State Public Broadcasting’s future looks bright. A new facility with expanded capabilities is expected to be completed in 2004, a new transmitter is being built and partnerships are being explored with libraries and museums. Penn State Public Broadcasting is also collaborating with the Penn State World Campus and other universities to help PBS launch OnCourse, a new online educational initiative geared to providing educators with supplemental classroom activities.
In addition, plans are being discussed to hold a 50th anniversary conference later this year to discuss the future of public broadcasting.
“The technology has changed so dramatically,” Krichels said. “With digital transmission and multichannel capabilities, it is a good time for us to rethink how we can use telecommunications to advance education.
In this case, we are talking about a completely different set of telecommunication issues.
“Penn State has always been, and should continue to be, a leader in thinking those issues through,” he said.
For more information about Penn State Public Broadcasting, visit its Web site at http://wpsx.psu.edu/. | |||||||
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Distance education at Penn State began as a response to a social experiment. In the last decades of the 19th century, the federal government investigated ways to help sustain the U.S. agricultural system, which was weakening due to the industrialization of the nation. The Commission on Rural Life, chaired by Theodore Roosevelt, attempted to solve the problem by introducing an experimental program called Rural Free Delivery. The goal of the program was to deliver mail directly to homes in rural areas, thus spreading information into hard-to-reach rural areas.
Penn State (then called the Pennsylvania State College), the University of Chicago and the University of Wisconsin saw Rural Free Delivery as an opportunity to extend education. In 1892, they launched the nation’s first university-level correspondence study programs, with the goal of serving rural farm families.
According to Dr. Gary E. Miller, associate vice president for Distance Education and executive director of the World Campus, Penn State’s first correspondence course was called the Home Reading Program. In 1893, the program had four graduates: two students from Pennsylvania, one from the Oklahoma Territories and one from Canada.
“The demand for education far exceeded our reach as an institution,” Miller said. “Correspondence study helped us establish a link into the community that otherwise was not there. And it helped deal with a social problem. We have been growing that program to serve new needs ever since.”
Today, Penn State distance education enrollments exceed 21,000. Students hail from all 50 states and 40 countries. Now, and since its beginning, the Distance Education program has capitalized on the most-advanced technology of the day and seized opportunities to experiment with different media. As the events of the 20th century unfolded, distance education programs were used to respond to the nation’s educational needs. From radio and film to cable television, satellite teleconferencing and interactive video, different media were used to best serve the unique audience and situation.
In 1992, the centennial of Distance Education, a task force was formed to advance distance education at Penn State. The group researched trends and examined current issues; their recommendations included creating a central distance education unit and using new technologies to move Distance Education into the mainstream of the University’s academic community. Of all the new technologies available, the Internet was to provide a catalyst for this new vision.
“From 1892 to 1992, distance education was about allowing individuals to have access to the University,” Miller stated. “The combination of anywhere, anytime access with becoming part of the Penn State learning community became the challenge. The Internet provided the answer to the challenge.”
A feasibility study for a Web-based campus, to be called the Penn State World Campus, was conducted in 1996–97 and by 1998, the first World Campus courses were launched via the World Wide Web.
“The World Campus truly extends Penn State’s academic community to the world — not just access to the information and course content, but access to the learning community itself,” Miller said. “I think that is the great success.”
He also attributed Penn State’s land-grant mission and the leadership’s commitment to realizing the mission as part of the success of Distance Education. As for the future, the World Campus will continue to grow as technology evolves and new learning partnerships are formed.
“Distance Education is moving into the mainstream of Penn State,” Miller said. “As this happens, we become one of many tools that the University will use to engage itself in society in the Information Age.”
For more information about the Penn State World Campus/Distance Education, visit these Web sites: www.outreach.psu.edu and www.worldcampus.psu.edu.
4-H, Penn State Public Broadcasting and Penn State World Campus/Distance Education each have individual goals and their own unique histories, but the shared mission to educate and serve has resulted in their success. Perhaps the best testimony to their success are the people — the leaders who helped Penn State reach these milestones and the program participants who became more knowledgeable members of society.
References:
Newsom, C.V. and Hungerford, A. 1952. A television policy for education: Proceedings of the Television Programs Institute held under the auspices of the American Council on Education at Pennsylvania State College, April 21–24, 1952. Washington: American Council on Education.
Robertson, J. 1993. TeleVisionaries: In their own words — Public Television’s founders tell how it all began. Charlotte Harbor, Fla.: Tabby House Books. | |||||||
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