Congratulations!
At the IANR Awards Luncheon held on April 25, it was announced that Aaron Berger has been selected as the recipient of the 2011 IANR Dinsdale Family Faculty Award. Congratulations to Aaron for this honor!
CYTTAP Trainings
This past week, I had the opportunity to work with Leslie Crandall and Marilyn Fox on our Children and Youth Training and Technical Assistance Project (CYTTAP) funded by the Dept. of Defense through NIFA. This project, in partnership with colleagues at Penn State, is being carried out in 13 states selected by the Dept. of Defense because of their high numbers of off-installation military families. The curriculum developed by the team does an excellent job at teaching new skills to child care providers and is able to reach people who would not otherwise have access to training.
Even more important than the curriculum are the partnerships that have been established. For example, in one session I was in, the Extension faculty, the military child care support personnel, the representative from the National Association of Child Care Research and Referrals Agency, and the state child care licensing group had never met before. Not only did Leslie and Marilyn provide great professional development, they provided a venue for these groups to get acquainted and to begin developing what I perceive to be a strong partnership that can lead to sustainable programming. At the end of the day, much was accomplished, and I was honored to have been a part of the process.
Last week I was also able to visit with the Extension Director of Alaska who was very appreciative of the work that CYTTAP is doing. Thanks to Leslie, Marilyn and all of the educators working on the project, as well as Tonia Durden, Kathleen Lodl, and our colleagues at Penn State for helping the military strengthen their support of families. It is a great program that I appreciated learning more about.
UNL Dean and Director Interview This Week
Don Adams interviewed this week for the Dean and Director position. If you didn’t get a chance to attend his presentation it will archived on the Extension website at: http://www.extension.unl.edu/web/extension/cedfinalists. I encourage all you to turn in your evaluation forms to Linda Arnold (larnold1@unl.edu) in 202 Agricultural Hall, East Campus 0708 by May 9.
-- Elbert C. Dickey