Extension System Change: Fact or Fiction?

Is the Cooperative Extension System (CES) ready to move into the 1990s, and the 21st century? Are the changes in CES that Myron Johnsrud, Roy Rauschkolb (Journal of Extension, Spring 1989), and others are talking about for real?

Of course, I'd like to respond unequivocally "yes." But before we and the Cooperative Extension System can say "yes," we ourselves have to say "yes" to change. In other words, we can only bring about change in CES by changing ourselves.

Changing ourselves-this sounds simple enough. But, it's perhaps the most difficult challenge we'll confront. I for one don't intend to minimize it. But, in addition to believing that it's necessary - critical - that we change, I'd like to point out that the world in which we live and the organizational changes we've already fostered in CES have combined to make it easier to change. Further, I believe that issues programming provides us with the best means to effect the necessary change within CES.

Let's begin by looking at the environment we're all working in. Our society is currently encountering phenomenal - and unprecedented-change. In the world economy, demographics, the structure and function of the family, the environment, the nature of work, the vitality of rural communities, technology, and the access and quality of information, change is the common denominator.

To be sure, the Cooperative Extension System has been responding to this challenge for change. During the past two years, CES has undertaken, and completed, several significant actions affecting the future, including:

• Identification and acceptance of the nine National Initiatives, providing a focus and direction for CES educational programs.
• Completion of a Futures Task Force Report addressing many structural, programmatic, and personnel changes necessary to enable CES to remain relevant in a rapidly changing society.
• Strategic Planning Effort that allows CES to be proactive in dealing with unanticipated, and unexpected, societal changes.
• Emergence of issues programming as both a focus for CES education and a catalyst for energizing the entire Cooperative Extension System.
• Recommendations by ECOP to change its structure, function, and operational procedures to more effectively represent the system, as well as to respond to emerging issues and concerns.

Each of these activities, and its attendant changes, have contributed to a vision, and a direction, for the future of CES. The "bottom line" for each of these endeavors is that the Cooperative Extension System shouldn't merely endure, but rather, it must come to value change as integral to its institutional environment. In other words, we - all of us - will have to change for CES itself to change.

Therein lies the rub. Can we as individuals operationalize these societal and institutional changes in an environment that has got to remain flexible, creative, and receptive to constant change? Further, how do we get a system entrenched in traditional disciplines, methods, clientele, and support groups to move forward, especially when this forward movement involves a great deal of risk - and the possibility of failure?

The answers reside with us. We - and by "we" I mean every agent, specialist, administrator, and employee - are the ones who will have to "institutionalize" change within CES. We are the ones who must clarify the issues and choices. We must establish coalitions. We must create and implement new, more responsive structures that employ nontraditional disciplines and delivery methods.

The real test, then, is whether or not we're prepared to do this. Are we willing to value change as pivotal to a healthy, productive organization?

Thus, the biggest, and most important, factor determining our existence is internal, and not external, change. In fact, I would argue that our clientele - rural leaders, farmers, small businessowners, youth, homemakers, and others - are ready and, in fact, expect us to change.

To be sure, we all must contend with the tensions and fears associated with change. These intangibles - moving from the comfortable to the uncomfortable, from the known to the unknown, from the safe to the risky, from the traditional to the nontraditional - can create anxiety among us and some members of our clientele and support groups. But these tensions and fears can be overcome by those of us who have helped to bring about change and, in the process, changed ourselves and CES.

Adding to the complexity and enormity of the challenge is the paucity of new ideas within the Cooperative Extension System. I think it's safe to say that as an organization we're rather low on new ideas. One possible explanation for this is that we're preoccupied with existing structures and traditional linkages that blind us from seeing the Extension System as it might be. As a result, our educational direction and programs are derived from these very structures, not from the rapidly changing needs of the outside world.

Issues Programming

All of this leads me to suggest that we have to understand - and to take seriously - issues programming. Many are already selling issues programming short by claiming that "it's nothing new," that "we've been doing it for years," and that "it will soon pass on."

I wholeheartedly disagree. If you examine closely all of the recent CES efforts - the National Initiatives, the Futures Report, the ECOP restructuring, and the rest - you'll see that what's central to them is the concept of issues programming.

By its design, issues programming changes our organizational approach to programming as well as the way we communicate what we're doing. And because it's based on external needs assessments rather than beginning with the limitations of existing program areas, its emphasis will be on looking outward before we look inward.

Thus, issues programming will enable us to demonstrate that the Cooperative Extension System has indeed changed. Simply telling people that CES has changed won't cut it - the only way to convince people that we've changed is to change. And the best way to change is with issues programming.

As I see it, issues programming begins with the identification of issues and then proceeds to tailor the organizational resources, delivery methods, and structure to meet the needs related to the issue. It places the primary "problem-solving" focus on teams of faculty/staff rather than individuals and demonstrates our "proactive" leadership role in addressing critical needs.

For example, the CES reaction to the drought of 1988 was a response to current clientele groups as well as nonusers of Extension programs. Further, since it was a response to a crisis situation, drought assistance should be viewed as a "short-term" issue whereas a topic like water quality would be considered a "long-term" issue and biotechnology seen as an "emerging" issue.

In addition, our issues programming approach to water quality doesn't mean that we'll necessarily be "teaching" water quality. Rather, we'll be taking our knowledge base and applying it to all the complex factors that contribute to the pollution of our water (that is, fertilizer, pesticides, acid rain). Similarly, we won't be teaching nutrition per se, but rather we'll be looking at the whole issue of proper diet and the factors (food additives, biotechnology, food safety, cholesterol) affecting nutrition and health.

Risk and Controversy

Obviously, there will be a great deal of risk, and controversy, involved. But I believe we need to take those risks, we need to adopt issues programming, because it's the only way to show the world that we've changed.

Let me return to my initial question. Is the Cooperative Extension System serious about change? Judging from the direction we've taken in the past two years, I'd say "maybe." I'll say "yes" once we've gotten serious about adopting issues programming and changing ourselves.

It's been said that every organization contains the seeds of its own destruction. So it is with our organization. If we fail to adjust the CES mission, program, and structure to meet the dramatic changes affecting society, then we'll be nurturing fertile ground for those seeds of destruction to grow.

My greatest fear, then, isn't that CES will cease to exist. Rather, it's that, because of our caution, our inflexibility, and our reluctance to change, the Cooperative Extension System will become inconsequential.