1890 Extension Leadership Academy Graduation

This month concluded the 3rd annual 1890 Extension Leadership Academy! The 1890 Extension Leadership Academy (ELA) joint venture with Fort Valley State University and Extension Foundation supports Cooperative Extension professionals in discovering innovative ideas for programmatic delivery and leadership development. The ELA incorporates tools from the Impact Collaborative and follows the framework of Google’s “Project Aristotle” to assess the characteristics of highly effective teams. The goal of each cohort is to implement new projects for their local university and develop skills to support continued leadership growth. The ELA ends with each of the 12 teams presenting their final project presentation“pitch” for their respective Administrators.

The team's pitches received recognition and compliments from attendees, facilitators, and the design team. Dr. Courtney Owens, ELA design team member, voiced that he was very impressed with the ideas and concepts of the presentations and said their high quality spoke to the mentors, presenters, facilitators, and design strategies of the cohort. He added that all 3 of the cohort's presentations have impressed AEA chairs, and that the feedback demonstrates the importance of investing in developing the leadership skills of future 1890 leaders.

The ELA included participants nominated from Alabama A&M, Alcorn State, Florida A&M, Fort Valley State, Kentucky State, Lincoln University, North Carolina A&T State, Prairie View A&M, Southern University, Tuskegee, West Virginia State, and Central State! Congratulations graduates! We are excited to see the impacts of your projects for the 1890 region and the nationwide Cooperative Extension System with new and innovative programs.