Assignments for Program Excellence Academy Posted

Program excellence is predicated on the fundamental principle that agents have the capacity to effectively identify issues, prioritize these issues, develop sequential learning experienced designed to address these issues, evaluate program efforts and utilize the results of these evaluations to refocus and redirect programming efforts to ensure program relevance.

In order to more effectively equip agents to implement the program development process that is paramount to effective programming, an innovative professional development activity will be implemented statewide entitled the Texas AgriLife Extension Service Program Excellence Academy. Session I of the Program Excellence Academy will be held on April 26-30 at the Texas 4-H Center. This face-to-face session is only part of the experience associated with the Program Excellence Academy. Listed below are some important updates regarding the pre-session activities that agents will need to begin to work on soon.

• The course website is located at http://pdc.extension.org/. This is the same site that agents completed other courses on prior to Extension Foundations, so they already have a login for the site. Each of the agents has been enrolled in this course already, so it should show up under "My Courses" when they log in.
• There are also reading assignments to be completed before agents attend Session I. Their books have been received and will be mailed to them this week.
  
• There are three pre-session assignments to be completed, with the first due on March 26. These are fully detailed under each of the modules on the site. Two of the assignments will be uploaded directly to the course site, the third e-mailed to the instructors.
• There will be discussion board postings every couple of weeks for agents to respond to. It is important that agents take the time to provide their thoughts and input on these discussion threads. This should be an excellent opportunity for agents to learn, as well as share their experiences with co-workers.
• For those of agents who have shared the needed information related to obtaining graduate credit for the Academy, things appear to be progressing well with their University. If agents have not shared the requested information, or are having difficulties with their University, please instruct them to contact Dr. Jeff Ripley.
• Finally, be sure to have agents save the dates of November 15-19, 2010 for Session II of Academy. The location will again be the Texas 4-H Center.
  

A complete agenda with travel authorization will be sent to agents in advance of the session. There is no need for agents to make reservations at the 4-H Center, those are already taken care of. If agents have any questions, please ask them to contact Dr. Jeff Ripley. It is important that all District Extension Administrators and County Extension Directors work with agents prior to this face to face session to emphasize the importance to these pre-session activities and assignments.

Content for this article was provided by Dr. Jeff Ripley, Assistant Professor and Extension Specialist-Texas AgriLife Extension Service.