INNOVATION IN EXTENSION: The University of Georgia

The following describes an innovation.

Region: Southern

Main contact information for this innovation: Laura Johnson

Main contact job title / position: Associate Dean for Extension

Main contact number: 706-542-3824

Main contact email address:  lpj4h@uga.edu

Innovation name: MPPPM Assistantship Program

Brief description of innovation as provided in online survey: The Master's of Plant Protection and Pest Management Degree is an integrated degree that is a partnership between 3 academic departments. The demand for these graduates exceeded the number we were turning out and lack of assistantship dollars were cited as the cause. The decision to raise private funds to offer assistantships in this area was made and students receiving the assistantships would intern in a County Extension Office with an experienced agent mentor to earn their assistantship.

Notes from phone interview:

The transcript has extensive information on this program.


The following describes an innovative person.

Region: Southern

Contact information for this innovator: Bill Cheesborough
Job title / position: Business Office Director

Contact number: 706-542-2373

Email address: wnc@uga.edu

Brief description of innovator as provided in online survey: Bill has brought a can-do attitude and customer service orientation to the Ag Business office. He brings new technology and solutions to make us more efficient and timely.

Notes from phone interview:

He is a very interesting guy. He has a military background. He graduated from West Point, and then he worked as Chief for Intelligence Agency, I think. And then, he worked in Georgia Tech which is another university in Georgia. He came to us about two years ago. He set a philosophy in the Admins' Office that he basically has this rule over. He's on the front of the website. You'll see his rules. Basically, "No, can never be the first dancer. That's how it's always been done. It's not acceptable." He just basically takes no excuses for not solving a problem. He rewards innovation and he fosters innovation.


The following describes an innovation.

Region: Southern

Main contact information for this innovation: Jeff Buckley

Main contact job title / position: 4-H Specialist

Main contact number: 706-542-4444

Main contact email address:  jbuckley@uga.edu

Innovation name: 4-H AmeriCorps VISTA Project

Brief description of innovation as provided in online survey: Increases capacity for 4-H programming by providing capacity building personnel funded through a federal grant program.

Notes from phone interview:

But we just got incredible employees, and if you know a lot about VISTA, you know their purpose is to increase capacity. So these people could do volunteer development, fund development, public relations in marketing a grant writing. Which are things that our agents are supposed to do, but after they do all their programming. They just didn't have enough time or the luxury to focus on one of this things full-time. For the first year, we've got those six positions for three years and as we worked with the AmeriCorps, they're very pleased with our project, because-- University of Georgia is huge infrastructure. We could give a lot of professional development opportunities to our business, and we could really help them build their skills as well. But also, we're used to reporting so we were good at filling out reports or, at least, we tried [chuckles]. If you think about it, if you're a small non-profit has one full-time employee, we've got a whole lot more infrastructure backing us up. But also, the goals of the AmeriCorps VISTA lined up almost identically with mission areas that we worked with Georgia Extension. Which is a beautiful partnership and from that, we have grown. We probably have right now about 10 or 12 AmeriCorps VISTA's.