UI Extension refocuses to meet evolving needs

Amid Idaho’s beauty, diverse landscapes, and isolation, changing realities of Idaho’s rural communities are the focus of a new UI publication, Rural Idaho at a Glance. At the same time, the UI’s century-old extension system, faced with staff reductions and budget crunches, is searching for smarter ways to serve Idaho’s 44 far-flung counties.

Photo above: © Steve Bly/IdahoStockImages.com

“Rapid change in Idaho’s demographics makes this a critical time for the UI to re-examine and coordinate its outreach mission,” observes Priscilla Salant, hired by the university in January 2003 to examine its current community outreach activities and recommend ways to better serve Idaho. She is Rural Idaho author, and manager of rural policy and assessment for the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences (CALS) Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology.

Partway through a planning process that has included both interviews and data analysis, Salant finds the university’s “core asset” for working with rural communities is still UI Extension, with a staff presence in 42 of Idaho’s 44 counties.

“Extension is the only outreach and service organization in Idaho with such geographically dispersed staff. That gives our county educators an opportunity to partner with other universities and agencies that don’t have our statewide reach,” says Salant.

CALS leaders agree
“We’ve got to find ways to both broaden our effort and focus more on the greatest needs,” former Dean Mike Weiss told the Idaho Rural Partnership Roundtable at a September meeting in Boise. “Our location in counties gives the land-grant university a strong position to understand and address the uniqueness that is rural Idaho. Extension programs are grass roots driven. They need to be if they are going to serve needs of a state as varied as ours.”

Extension well positioned to meet diverse needs
“We serve all Idaho populations,” says Charlotte Eberlein, Twin Falls, a 14-year veteran of UI Extension. She became the UI’s 12th extension director in September 2003. “Urban and rural people often face the same problems—troubled youth, health care, financial, and nutritional issues,” says Eberlein. “We are well positioned to help because our staff finds research-based solutions that work. We are skilled educators, used to engaging audiences in solving local problems. And we have access to science-based curricula from experts nationwide. We bring a lot to the table.”

Eberlein also agrees with Associate Extension Director Paul McCawley, Moscow, who worries that rural communities “need us even more than metro areas. When economic and social problems arise in the Boise area, a smorgasbord of governmental and non-profit agencies is available to help. But where do isolated rural communities go when they need youth programs, or when they lose industries, or when they have one in five children living in poverty?” Since the early 1900s, extension has been there to help. It still is.

If extension educators are to play an even bigger role in emerging problems for both urban and rural areas, then they need more resources.

Many are teaching workshops, writing curricula, and partnering with other community organizations, in addition to dealing with everything from running 4-H programs to identifying bugs and blight for commercial producers. Reorganization is designed to make room for emerging priorities.

“The commitment is there,” Salant says. But with such tight resources, “we must move incrementally and thoughtfully. Who needs new kinds of assistance in Idaho? Where should our focus be?”

Salant’s publication begins to address that question. For more detailed answers, a statewide mail survey is planned for 2004, along with town hall-style meetings.

Rural Idaho—issues by the numbers
Idaho grew by 29% between 1990 and 2000—the fifth fastest rate in the nation, to 1.3 million people. The balance of Idaho’s metropolitan and nonmetropolitan populations tipped to the metro side. About 60% of Idahoans now live in metro areas—primarily around Boise, Pocatello, and Coeur d’Alene/Post Falls (compared to 40% in 1990).

Still, 32 of Idaho’s counties are, by federal definition, nonmetro, the classification most analysts use when they talk about rural areas. Roughly 200,000—or 15%— still live in “rural open country,” the 21 counties with no town bigger than 10,000. Idaho’s rural open country covers threefourths of the state’s land area (see light tan counties on map).

Rural Idahoans struggle with more unemployment (6.3% compared to 5.6% urban), lower annual per capita incomes ($21,458 compared to $26,283 urban), and a higher child poverty rate (16.3% compared to 12.3% urban). Also, Idaho’s rural people tend to be a little older (median age 34.2 compared to 32.9 urban) and less educated (18% with college degrees compared to 23.8% urban).

Hispanics are the fastest growing minority in rural Idaho. They made up about 9% of the rural population in 2000, compared to about 6% in 1990.

Restructuring for new challenges
Stressed by budget cuts and an 18% staff reduction since 2001, UI Extension offices are searching for ways to economize and refocus.

Historically divided into four districts, with one or more educators serving each county, UI Extension is experimenting with ways to bring a “suite of skills” to groups of counties. Also new are community development educators tasked with helping Idaho towns— from Bonners Ferry to Driggs—with issues related to the economy, leadership, and infrastructure.

Salant won a $40,000 Ford Foundation grant to take UI Extension’s community developers on the road next summer to document and bring home “best practices” from other land-grant universities known for successful community development programs.

Restructuring 4-H
Another historic extension effort, 4-H, creates and implements programs for some 40,000 Idaho youth each year. Importance of that program is suggested statistically by how much better prepared 4-H kids are for life and college, and how much less likely they are to get into trouble than kids not in 4-H.

Several Idaho counties are piloting a new 4-H structure by hiring skilled program coordinators to develop and run county programs. “The idea is that coordinators will bring fresh and focused enthusiasm and ideas to the program,” says Arlinda Nauman, UI’s director of Idaho 4-H. They will still be mentored by UI Extension educators. This shift is expected to free up 15 to 25% of extension educators’ time without compromising 4-H.

Examples of new programs
Stories on the next six pages illustrate ways UI is helping rural Idaho. For examples of additional programs making impacts—both urban and rural—see Impact Statements at www.uidaho.edu/ ag/extension/.

--Mary Ann Reese

© 2003 University of Idaho, College of Agricultural and Life Sciences.