I thoroughly enjoyed spending time on the Eastern Shore last week meeting with my dean counterpart at the University of Delaware, attending the Delmarva Chicken Association Board Meeting, and joining associate dean Puneet Srivastava for meetings with the leadership team at our peer college at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore. Of course, a highlight was spending the day with the Extension team in the Wicomico County Extension Office and at our UMD Lower Eastern Shore Research and Education Center locations in Salisbury and Poplar Hill. I truly appreciate the time the team spent with me sharing their programs, concerns, and opportunities! At all of the meetings we talked about the need to better facilitate opportunities to partner and ensure that others know about the resources around us that can foster efficient, effective collaborations.
It’s another week full of meetings. We need to prepare for the FY27 budget. It will be a tough one, especially because it is a second consecutive year of a downturn for the state economy. In addition, we have some work to do to secure our federal funding again this year, both competitive funds and capacity funds that are the foundation of the land grant partnership between state and federal governments. These funds are just a small part of why I will be in DC on Tuesday and then again on Wednesday. On Tuesday, we (myself, one of our CARET representatives, and a member of our UMD federal relations team) will visit with a friend and House Ag Committee staffer followed by visits with three organizations who can be strong partners with AGNR going forward in securing agriculture and natural resources resilience. On Wednesday, I am working with the Extension Foundation as part of a panel at the Public Issues Leadership Development (PILD) Conference that will talk about the Extension Foundation and national Extension relationship and the impact of federal Smith-Lever capacity funding for Extension. I won’t attend the entire conference. The advantage of being so close to DC is the opportunity to support specific portions of events.
In addition to partner meetings and discussions about budget planning, I have a couple of opportunities to interact with students this week. Tuesday evening is the semester meeting with the Dean’s Student Advisory Committee. This is a strong group of AGNR undergraduate students. I am sure they will bring several topics to discuss. Graham Binder will join me in this semester’s meeting to talk with the group about how we leverage each other’s social media impact for improved communication. The Maryland Promise Luncheon and Celebration is Friday providing a chance to meet many of this year’s recipients and their generous donors. Then it is on to my first Maryland Day! I hope the weather is half as good as it was last week and over the weekend!