Resources

Supporting rural grocers in business transition planning is essential to keeping the benefits of hometown grocery stores in rural communities. The Rural Grocery Transition Specialist program trains and deploys resource professionals across the country to better serve rural grocers through these business transitions. The deadline to register for the spring 2025 offering of this course is January 20, 2025, so learn more and sign up today!

The Journal of Extension, Volume 62 Number 4, has been posted at https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/joe/ Submitting an article to JOE is easy. There are five different ways that you can share information including a feature article, research in brief, ideas at work, tools of the trade, and commentary. Learn more at https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/joe/ Look for the next issue to be published in mid-February.

Are you using The Arts -- poetry, music, painting, etc. --in your extension programs. If so, please let Dave or Hiram know.

You are invited to consider publishing your extension work in a special collection on the topic of “Transdisciplinary Collaboration for Sustainable Agriculture.” This collection is co-hosted by Community Science Exchange, a highly innovative experiment in scientific publishing that elevates the types of community-focused work that extension professionals do.

The Extension Foundation’s work in technology is supported by a New Technologies in Agriculture (NTAE) Grant from the United States Department of Agriculture, National Institute of Food and Agriculture (USDA NIFA) (funding opportunity USDA-NIFA-OP-010186, award number 2023-41595-41325), in partnership with the University of New Hampshire. This grant enabled the Foundation to deliver a dedicated Artificial Intelligence (AI) track at the 2024 National Extension Technology Conference (NETC)—an...

Do you want to become a more effective leader, or teacher, or team member? Or how about becoming a better family member? I teach a short segment on EQ in my grad classes here at Ohio State… and if you know Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence construct… you understand that when we know ourselves better (recognizing our own emotions), we can use that knowledge to guide our thinking and behavior. That’s powerful stuff. But how do you improve your emotional intelligence? One way is to learn a new...

What are you curious about? Some folks will respond to this question with an immediate answer: “Everything!” Others may just look at you and ask what you mean. Whether at one end of the spectrum, or somewhere in the middle, watching someone respond to this question will allow you to immediately know a lot about them and their potential for long-term success. In brief, curiosity is one of the most important traits and a high predictor for success identified by researchers at Korn Ferry, an...

Can increasing gratitude improve your brain chemistry and help you feel better? Can it improve your career? The science of gratitude has expanded greatly in the past twenty years. Studies increasingly show that regularly practicing gratitude contributes to better relationships, decreased anxiety, and increased internal satisfaction. These bolster what Daniel Goleman labels emotional and social intelligence, key items for success in our careers and lives. Though once labeled soft skills—i.e.,...

Have you ever found your ability to make a choice and act upon it lacking? Choosing and acting define the broad concept of volition. Some label this as having the power to use one’s free will. But in times of stress or anxiety, we sometimes feel hindered in our ability to exercise that choice and action. We may even feel powerless, frozen in place, and unable to act at all. Can you think of a time when you felt unable to make a decision and then act? It could be something major or minor.

Imagine a point in the future where you have achieved your greatest professional goal. Invest a moment here. Visualize your career success. You have worked hard and have earned this. Now consider this question: How does this success feel? I think most people will have some level of contentment or satisfaction. Others may feel a bit of pride in the accomplishment. Some may begin to ponder, “What’s next?” Those responses are all normal and valid. Now, imagine it’s six months after that major...

The Oregon State University Division of Extension and Engagement and College of Forestry are seeking an Extension 4-H and Forestry Natural Resources Program Coordinator to serve youth engaged in 4-H and Forestry Natural Resources programming in Benton County. This position is responsible for the development, management and integration of 4-H and Forestry natural resources non-credit education that meets the needs of youth in Benton County. The incumbent will collaborate with schoolteachers,...

Are you any good at managing your time? Some of you may think, “I'm not bad at it.” But most, like me, are no good at all. So here's the question. What if you worked on managing your energy instead of managing your time? Time is finite. But energy can appear seemingly out of nowhere. In truth, energy has four sources: the body, our emotions, our minds, and our spirit. Tony Schwartz, founder of the Energy Project, says we can learn to harness these dimensions, creating our own energy. Tony...