Third Mission Innovations Integration of Extension Faculty into Departments

Contents

Executive Summary
Situation Statement
The OSU Innovations
Introduction to the Study
The questionnaire

Study Findings
Results by Theme
Integration
Innovations
Extent
Results
Breakouts
Scholarship
Responsiveness
Flexibility
Resources
Outcomes

Discussion
Recommendations

Integration Results

Questionnaire responses indicate substantial success with the integration of Extension faculty into departments. This trend is consistent across five questions:

  • 5k. Departments welcome the involvement of Extension faculty from my program area in departmental and college issues.
  • 4b. Degree of integration of research and Extension in your program area.
  • 4a. Closeness of the working relationships between on- and off-campus faculty in your program area.
  • 4c. Degree to which academic units are implementing Extension as part of their fundamental missions in your program area.
  • 4d. Degree to which research, instruction, and Extension have equal status and importance in your program area.

The following interactive graphic shows OSUES-wide average responses to each of these questions. (Click the question boxes in the column to the right to reveal and hide the response arrows.) Averages for the mid-2001 timeframe are indicated by the orange arrows. Average changes between 1995 and 2001 are indicated by the green arrows. (Data table.)

(NOTE: The illustration is not available for you because your browser does not have JavaScript enabled. Please enable JavaScript, then reload this page.)

For all five of these items, the THEN-NOW (1995-2001) shift is positive; it is significantly positive (T-test p<.05) for all but one (4a). Also, the NOW (mid-2001) means for all but one (4d) are above the mean-of-means for 29 items (4.70). In the above chart, the THEN-NOW shift is indicated by the length of the vertical arrows; the item means are indicated by horizontal arrows.

The documents of 1993 and 1994 which launched the innovations expressed the hope that the Extension or extended education function would rise to equal importance with the teaching and research missions. There has been progress toward this hope, as indicated by the upward arrow for item 4d ("Degree to which research, instruction, and Extension have equal status and importance in your program area"). However, more remains to be done in this regard, as indicated by the fact that the NOW mean for 4d is the lowest of the five in this "Integration" group and is 20th in rank of the 29 NOW means.

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