HOLIDAY GREETINGS!!! I hope that this time of the year will find you
with family and friends as we take stock of and end 2003. In spite of
difficulties, life is good. This past year has been one of the most
difficult in my career here in Arizona. The 12 percent budget cut was
the most severe that I have ever seen either here or elsewhere. However,
I do think that we have made major strides and accomplishment during
2003. I want to take a few moments to remind all of us of the good
programs and events that happened during the past 12 months.
Faculty have been most successful in generating funding through a wide
range of grants and contracts. Forest health, forest fire education,
drought programs, lettuce and pecan funding, support for existing
programs in the area of weeds, cotton, small grains, IPM, risk
management, financial analysis, ranch to rail, character counts, ag
literacy, ag-ventures, diabetes and osteoporosis education, healthy
lifestyle programs, grandparents raising grandchildren, and the many and
diverse after school programs. The list goes on and on. I am sure I'll
get in trouble because I listed some and forget others. The bottom line
is that faculty and staff are doing good work and continue to get funded
to do this good work.
We worked our way through the budget crisis with a new formula for
county based programs. This approach seemed to communicate better with
local elected leaders and county managers. We implemented a new cost
recovery program. We are receiving a small internal salary adjustment
and the University is lobbying hard for faculty and staff compensation
with the legislature. The Farm Bureau has listed county extension and
ag center programs as one of the top 10 priorities for funding in the
new year, 2004. We need to get behind the University in the quest for
salary increases and behind the agricultural community in the quest for
new positions.
We received new grant funding for diversity, restructured the CALS
diversity committee and planned a wide variety of program and learning
opportunities for 2004. CALS Development and Alumni affairs office
worked with seven county offices/programs. New relations were formed
with other colleges (Public health, Science, Architecture, NOAA, Social
and Behavioral Sciences), bringing more of the expertise of the
university to bear on local programs.
We have achieved new highs in overall grant funding, number of grants
submitted, number of grants and contracts received, number of people
involved in our programs, number of young people involved in 4-H Youth
Development programs, number of publications on the Web, the overall
quality of our web sites, and the number of publications submitted for
peer review. Overall, a great year. Season Greetings.