With focus on community, Open Campus and Juntos create opportunities

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CORVALLIS, Ore. — Oregon State University Extension Service operates as a bridge from the university to the community and professional spaces. Historically, that bridge started as a way to support agriculture and natural resources, and that support continues today.

At the same time, as OSU Extension has modernized to serve the broader public, new questions have arisen:

Can Extension help community members seeking higher education or trade schools in other growing industries? How can Extension help with infrastructure questions like internet access? What resources are needed to ensure every Oregonian has a fair shot at success?

Those are a few of the many questions Jeff Sherman-Duncan, associate vice provost for partnerships, thinks about every day. He asks: “How do you take all colleges and departments at Oregon State and bring them out to a community to solve real problems with communities? How can we create a pipeline that includes all the breadth of Oregon State University in the communities?”

An article published in the “Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement” shows that OSU Extension leads the way by expanding the model of what Extension can be for Oregonians. In it, the OSU authors argue a “proof-of-concept” that the focus on community partnerships of newer Extension programs like Open Campus — established in 2009 — and Juntos — launched in 2012 — should expand to other Extension programs.

The model has been designed alongside and with the support of community members, explains Emily Henry, director of OSU Open Campus. “Communities love Extension so much and saw the value of being able to go beyond those traditional silos of agriculture and natural resources,” Henry said. “They could think of even broader ways that Extension could be part of the community.”

Goals and successes

Open Campus and Juntos have three collective goals:

  • Increase access to higher education and career opportunities.
  • Support community members in completing their degrees — at any level.
  • Build community engagement and development.

Together, these goals are “closing the gap,” said Gina Galaviz-Yap, Juntos director. “The gap is capacity,” Galaviz-Yap said. “Schools are overloaded. Teachers are overloaded. We can help build capacity by partnering with the community.”

Extension understands that schools and teachers are overextended and don’t always have the capacity to guide each individual student with scholarship applications or career readiness, according to Henry. Open Campus and Juntos county and regional coordinators across the state close that gap by providing mentorship and hosting college informational sessions, career fairs and other programming.

Each coordinator tailors their work to their community, Sherman-Duncan said. “For career days, Central Oregon has health care. The far east has an aviation day. On the coast, we have natural resources and understanding those careers. They help students see what the pathway could be.”

Juntos means “together” in Spanish. It is open to everyone but specializes in college and career readiness information with Oregon’s Latinx families. Programming includes mentorship, clubs, camps and family nights. Every other year Juntos hosts a family day at the OSU campuses in Corvallis and Bend. Over 90% of students, who join in middle school, complete high school and go to college. Many have the opportunity to attend Oregon State University.

Sometimes essential infrastructure is needed to close the gap. High-speed internet access, for example, which is not always available in rural areas.

Grant County faced that reality: Just 61% of the county’s residents have access to high-speed internet, compared to 94% of all Oregonians. So Didgette McCracken, OSU Extension’s Open Campus coordinator for the county, launched the Grant County CyberMill with two other community members to provide internet access to their communities.

The first two CyberMill locations opened in Seneca and Prairie City. A third is planned for John Day. Feedback from users has been positive.

Next steps

Sherman-Duncan, Henry, and Galaviz-Yap are excited to continue to build the Open Campus and Juntos programs.

“Both teams are growing rapidly,” says Henry. “There is so much opportunity to replicate this program around the state. The goal is to have someone in every county that could help students with post-secondary career plans and the community build programs like CyberMill.”

Open Campus and Juntos will also collaborate with a new program focused on Extension work with Native and Tribal communities.

The most impactful part of Juntos and Open Campus for Sherman-Duncan didn’t come from the influxes of community partnerships or funding that confirmed the program — it came from a student on the cusp of graduation from Oregon State.

“This student told me ‘If I didn’t have my Juntos and Open Campus coordinators, I would not be in college,’” he said. Their voice cracking, the student went on to tell Sherman-Duncan, “Extension is a trusted source for them to lean on when they are not getting help from somewhere else.”

Sherman-Duncan said, “When you hear a student get emotional when talking about that impact, it shows how much this work really matters in the lives of our community.”

Other land grant universities have turned to Oregon State for leadership in advancing Extension capacity in the past, like when OSU was tapped in to host the Juntos National Convening.

Galaviz-Yap acknowledges each university system looks different. “At the national level, there is a huge opportunity for other universities with Extension to do some of the same things and do other things differently,” she said.

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