Progress 10/01/12 to 09/30/15
Outputs
Target Audience:The key audiences reached during the first year included our County partners in our three study counties (Onondaga, Seneca, and Saratoga) who participated in our initial research and focus groups. This included members of the County legislative bodies who participated in the decision-making process we were directly studying. In addition, our target audience also includes the Cornell Cooperative Extension (CCE) Executive Directors in our three study counties, as well as a broader group of CCE Executive Directors (from Putnam, Albany, Chemung, Tioga, Jefferson, and Genesee Counties) who have participated in conference calls. The key audiences reached during the second year included our original County partners in our three study counties (Onondaga, Seneca, and Saratoga) who participated in the initial research and focus groups. This included members of the County legislative bodies who participated in the decision-making process we were directly studying. In addition, our target audience also includes the Cornell Cooperative Extension (CCE) Executive Directors in our three study counties, as well as a broader group of CCE Executive Directors (from Putnam, Albany, Chemung, Tioga, Jefferson, and Genesee Counties) who have participated in conference calls, and many of these individuals are also members of our project advisory committee. We further strengthened our connections with the Seneca County CCE Director, as well as members of the Town of Tyre (Seneca County) as we followed their decision-making process regarding a potential casino development. Through our April Research Roundtable seminar and workshop offering, we reached a broad set of on-campus researchers and off-campus practitioners (over 100 participated). In addition, we targeted a group of county officials at the National Association of County Officials (NACO) annual conference, leading a focus group on generational differences in the decision making process of county legislators. Lastly, in Year 2 we laid the groundwork for expanding our future target audience for this research by developing a list of potential partners for a multi-state research proposal. The key audiences reached during the third and finalyear expanded to include the broader Cornell Cooperative Extension (CCE) network, including both County-based educators and Executive Directors, and Campus-based CCE administrators interested in helping shape the training opportunities associated with this project. In addition, we strengthened our relationships with identified multi-state partners and collaborators as we worked towards submitting a Hatch Multi-state proposal at the end of Year 3. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?In July 2013, CaRDI convened a Community Development Institute (CDI) on the Cornell Campus. Attending were a broad range of local government officials, community development practitioners, planners, economic developers, and school district administrators, among others. A workshop at the CDI focused on this Hatch project, providing an overview of the project goals, our findings to date, and gave an opportunity for the participants to discuss the topic at length. As a result, the participants had the chance to reflect on their own decision-making styles, how and if they sought evidence-based information and other data to inform their decision-making, and gave us ideas about various outreach approaches to consider as we move forward into Years Two and Three. In September 2013, we gave a presentation on the project findings to date at the New York State Association of Counties (NYSAC) Annual Meetings in Saratoga Springs. County officials from all over the state attended this meeting. As decision-makers, they were very interested in the project and provided some key insights. As in the case of the CDI, this presentation provided both the participants and the presenters with the opportunity to reflect and learn about decision-making styles and approaches to accessing and integrating research and data into the decision-making process. In both cases the importance of the role of intermediaries was reinforced. In addition to these formal conference presentations, our interaction with CCE Executive Directors and County government officials in our three case study counties has provided on-going opportunities for professional development. We have shared our synthesis and analyses of the focus group findings with these groups, and asked for additional comment and insight. Our April 2014 events featuring Yale University law professor Dan Kahan drew over 100 participants, many on-campus faculty who work in the area of science communication, as well as many off-campus CCE Educators who function as intermediaries between campus and community. The afternoon workshop was met with such enthusiasm, that we have received numerous requests for follow-up trainings to further these efforts. The training and professional development opportunities in Year 3 focused almost exclusively on our partnership with CCE educators. Forming a learning community early in this final year has formalized an organizational structure moving forward. We held webinars and working meetings with educators around the state interested in this project and how our research and outreach efforts in the multi-state phase will support and strengthen their own work. CCE administration has offered several opportunities to us within their professional development programs to engage educators in this research, and have encouraged us to form a Program Work Team (PWT) from our learning community group. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?The project findingsin the firstyear were shared with our County government partners, the CCE Executive Directors in our case study counties, the broader group of CCE Executive Directors who have participated in conference call focus groups, and our advisory committee.In all cases wecompiled a "findings to date summary" and emailed it to these individuals.We invited comment and feedback in a variety of ways, including a follow up focus group in Onondaga County, and several conference calls with the advisory committee and CCE groups.Our "results"at that point wereviewed as preliminary, andwere intended to help shape our next phase of work rather than being viewed as conclusive and final. In Year 2 the project findingswere shared with our County government partners, the CCE Executive Directors in our case study counties, the broader group of CCE Executive Directors who have participated in conference call focus groups, and our advisory committee. As we expanded our efforts and our communities of interest in Year 2, we communicated to a broader audience through vehicles such as our monthly electronic newsletter (CaRDI Communique) and were therefore able to attract over 100 participants to our April event. As Year 2 progressed, we held additional conference calls with members of our advisory committee, requesting input on our findings to date and seeking guidance on how to form a multi-state project team in future years. In the final year of the project, we continued our strong engagement with CCE educators, with regular conference calls and presentations. In addition, we published a Research & Policy Brief at the end of the project term which summarized the project and indicated that we would be continuing our work through a multi-state framework. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?
Nothing Reported
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Research Goals #1 and #2: Draw on learning/decision making/conflict/risk communication theory to understand how local decision makers learn, and Distill literature on communicating complex evidence-based information to policy makers. We conducted an extensive literature review that focused on such topics as: public participation in decision-making; communication networks and decision-making; the roles of trust, expert advice and information in decision-making, among others.This literature review was critical to setting the foundation for our inquiry and directly connects to t these first two goals. See goal #4 and related accomplishments for further explanation of how this literature review provided a foundation for the next steps, developing hypotheses, and confirming through interviews and focus groups. In fact, we revisited this literature review several times, developing it further as our research revealed additional areas relevant to local decision making processes. Research Goal #3: Develop selection criteria for case studies. While the literature was rather sparse with regard to local decision-making and the intervening mechanisms, we identified a range of variables that should vary among our case study selections to allow us to also explore the various pathways of influence in different contexts. We chose three upstate New York Counties based on their diverse characteristics: size, urban/rural mix, economic growth, ethnic and racial diversity, county government structure, etc.The three counties we chose were Onondaga (urban, relatively large, slow economic growth, high poverty, high ethnic and racial diversity, and a county legislature), Seneca (rural, slow economic growth, low ethnic/racial diversity, high poverty, and a board of supervisors county government structure) and Saratoga (urban, relatively fast economic growth, low levels of ethnic/racial diversity, low poverty, and a board of supervisors county government structure). Research Goal #4: Develop hypotheses about the most effective types of outreach/communication. Through the literature review and our focus groups with our partners, we identified a number of variables to focus on, variables which developed into hypotheses about the important "pathways of influence". These themes and ideas consistently emerged as influential in how or why data/information/research may or may not be used in the decision-making process. We have organized the identified variables into four main categories: 1. Attributes of the decision: Level of complexity, Level of controversy, and the importance of consequences and impacts, etc. 2. Attributes of the decision-making body (group): Legislative structure, norms for decision-making, and political diversity/uniformity, etc. 3. Attributes of individuals involved: experiences and values, leadership skills, relationships and trust, credibility, etc. 4. ...and other political and contextual factors: distribution and sources of power, etc. Research Goal #5: Evaluate robustness of hypotheses through structured interviews/focus groups. We held two waves of focus groups with each of our County government partners. In advance of the first wave, we asked the groups to identify a past decision that had some type of economic development impact. Only individuals involved in those past decisions attended the focus group so that we could better understand the decision-making process the group underwent. The above organization scheme was confirmed through our focus groups and subsequent interviews. By complementing the focus group findings with a case study and set of interviews around a current community decision in two of the three counties, we confirmed that county officials for these selected issues had relied to some extent on university-based research, and that it came from multiple sources including Cornell. The officials also used "intermediaries" like CCE educators to help them find and interpret useful information. Depending on the pathways of influence used to share the data, CCE educators were sometimes perceived as policy neutral and sometimes not. Just as important was the policy makers' trust in the individual and their position within a familiar organizational structure. In one of the case studies, a professional staffer for the County legislature played an obvious intermediary role in the environmental issue we examined. His job depended on policy maker trust, and he had routine access to policy makers. He perceived himself as "a translator, and aggregator of science who helps policy makers figure out how to respond." He, more than each legislator individually, proactively sought out, synthesized and prioritized information - including from the CCE and the research communities - relevant to his portfolio and the specific issue at hand. Of specific interest to CaRDI is one particularly powerful attribute listed above: the extent and nature of controversy associated with the public issue. The potential pathways of influence are particularly twisted when the issue evokes deep seated controversy. Research Goal #6: This Hatch funding provided the foundation for our pilot research project which not only advanced the research base for understanding the complexity of local decision-making and the pathways of influence for Universities and their partner intermediaries, but helped us achieve additional support to extend these lines of inquiry. CaRDI was recently awarded a five year Multi-state research project (NEERA-1501 - University-Community Intermediaries: Supporting Informed Decision-Making Around Polarized Issues). This funding will help CaRDI coordinate research on academia's role in the maintenance and restoration of clean science communication environments, focusing further on the important role of trusted "intermediaries" that link university faculty, researchers, and local decision makers. We plan to employ the analytic capacities of social network analysis after collecting more detailed information on the information chains that link local policy makers to information sources. Controversial and/or culturally polarizing topics will continue to be the focus as we investigate our own and others' practices for their effectiveness in protecting/restoring clean science communication environments when polarizing issues like climate change are involved. We look forward to consulting with our team of multi-state collaborators across the country to inform and inspire our work, and examine the different issues, contexts and roles that exist within University-Extension-Community communication processes and outcomes.
Publications
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2015
Citation:
Blakely-Armitage, Robin and David L. Kay, "Improving University-Extension-Community Communications around Controversial Issues". Cornell University Community and Regional Development Institute, Research & Policy Brief Series, Issue 68, October 2015.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2015
Citation:
Kay, David. Cooperative Extensions Role in Informed Public Decision Making (IDM) - Dealing with Complex and Controversial Issues: Walking an Educational Tightrope, Public Issues Leadership Development Conference: Imagining Extension Eyes on the Future, Hyatt Regency, Crystal City, Virginia, April 12-15, 2015.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2015
Citation:
Kay, David and Rod Howe. Informed Communities, Informed Decisions? The Process and Components of Informed Decision Making. NYS Association of Towns Annual Meeting, New York City, February 17, 2015
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2014
Citation:
Blakely Armitage, Robin and David Kay. Presentation. Decision making for quality services: information, indicators and dialogue, for Conference on Local Fiscal Stress: State Austerity Policy and Creative Local Response, Saratoga Springs NY, December 9, 2014
- Type:
Other
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2014
Citation:
CaRDI Staff. CCE Education on Polarizing Topics Increasing Our Capacity to Create Clean Science Communication Environments October 7, 2014
- Type:
Other
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2014
Citation:
Kay, David, Robin Blakely Armitage, Rod Howe. Organize, host. The Tragedy of the Science Communications Commons, CaRDI Research Roundtable, Dan Kahan, April 30, 2014.
- Type:
Other
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2013
Citation:
Kay, David and Rod Howe. Consensus Building and Informed Decision Making in a
Political Environment. Presentation New York State Association of Counties, September 25, 2013.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2013
Citation:
Kay, David and Rod Howe. Effective Decision Making: Organizing Thoughts About Effective and Informed Decision-Making, Presentation CaRDI Community Development Institute, July 16, 2013.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2014
Citation:
Kay, David. Facilitated a discussion at the National Association of Counties Officials annual conference, New Orleans. Discussion topic: Are there generational difference in how county legislators access and use information? July 12-14, 2014.
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Progress 10/01/13 to 09/30/14
Outputs
Target Audience: The key audiences reached during this second year included our original County partners in our three study counties (Onondaga, Seneca, and Saratoga) who participated in the initial research and focus groups. This included members of the County legislative bodies who participated in the decision-making process we were directly studying. In addition, our target audience also includes the Cornell Cooperative Extension (CCE) Executive Directors in our three study counties, as well as a broader group of CCE Executive Directors (from Putnam, Albany, Chemung, Tioga, Jefferson, and Genesee Counties) who have participated in conference calls, and many of these individuals are also members of our project advisory committee. We further strengthened our connections with the Seneca County CCE Director, as well as members of the Town of Tyre (Seneca County) as we followed their decision-making process regarding a potential casino development. Through our April Research Roundtable seminar and workshop offering, we reached a broad set of on-campus researchers and off-campus practitioners (over 100 participated). In addition, we targeted a group of county officials at the National Association of County Officials (NACO) annual conference, leading a focus group on generational differences in the decision making process of county legislators. Lastly, in Year 2 we laid the groundwork for expanding our future target audience for this research by developing a list of potential partners for a multi-state research proposal. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? As discussed above, our April 2014 events featuring Yale University law professor Dan Kahan drew over 100 participants, many on-campus faculty who work in the area of science communication, as well as many off-campus CCE Educators who function as intermediaries between campus and community. The afternoon workshop was met with such enthusiasm, that we have received numerous requests for follow-up trainings to further these efforts. This will be a focus in Year 3 of the project. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? The project findings to date have been shared with our County government partners, the CCE Executive Directors in our case study counties, the broader group of CCE Executive Directors who have participated in conference call focus groups, and our advisory committee. As we expanded our efforts and our communities of interest in Year 2, we communicated to a broader audience through vehicles such as our monthly electronic newsletter (CaRDI Communique) and were therefore able to attract over 100 participants to our April event. As Year 2 progressed, we held additional conference calls with members of our advisory committee, requesting input on our findings to date and seeking guidance on how to form a multi-state project team in future years. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? During the next reporting period, Year 3, we have two major goals. First, we will solidify a multi-state project team to further these research efforts, providing other Land Grant and other institutions engaged in supporting informed decision making in their communities a "community of practice". More systematic, cumulative attention to research on this topic by a multistate community of researcher-practitioners will strengthen the relation between the Academy and local policy decisions. Our work also foregrounds the important role of trusted "intermediaries", including Extension educators, in the poorly documented information chains that link university faculty, researchers and local decision makers. Our multi-state work will provide new mechanisms and strengthen shared research based understandings to enhance the capacity of intermediaries, and to more systematically leverage their work. This team will be solidified by late 2014 and a proposal will be submitted by mid-December. Second, in Year 3 we plan to focus on the role of intermediaries, such as our CCE partners, in the local government decision making process. A major emphasis will be on providing workshops and trainings for informed decision making and public issues education. As our research continues to yield promising information, we will work with our CCE and County government partners to enhance our training and outreach efforts and priorities. This next reporting period is an important one for focusing on how CaRDI and CCE work together and separately in responding to information needs at the local level. Our goal is to provide a venue for intermediaries to share their approaches, and to develop a set of best practices in this area. Our approach will focus on those decisions and issues at the local level that can be politically and/or socially polarizing, making it more difficult to achieve "clean communication environments", such as climate change. We will begin with a webinar in February 2015 to start planning the events (seeking input from various stakeholders), and offer several workshops and webinars over a seven month period that will engage participants in training, discussions, and skill development. As we build a cohort of workshop participants, the goal is to build a learning community and professional development opportunity for CCE Educators and campus faculty.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
In Year Two, we achieved significant progress on our project. As a result of our research and extension activities, a major output was the further analysis and exploration of key themes and ideas distilled in Year One, guiding both our research and extension efforts moving forward. During Year 2 our focus was largely on the role of trusted campus-community intermediaries in the decision making process. We anticipate that a significant impact from the successful completion of this project will include the development of training modules specifically targeted to Extension educators and faculty who are or strive to become local decision makers' "trusted intermediaries" and who are important links in the information chain that Land Grant (and other) institutions engage with on a regular basis in offering evidence-based knowledge and data. Our CCE partners have discussed how this role of intermediary specifically pertains to them. Knowing how to "insert" themselves into the local issue (being proactive); how to be viewed as a trusted peer and an expert and impartial; learning how to foster a dialogue around important and contentious issues (providing a safe venue); maintaining close relationships and frequent contact with elected officials; and providing data and information, but with an understanding of relationships and local context, is a set of complicated yet ultimately critical roles to master. In addition, an important outcome of this work will be to increase the return on investment in research-based knowledge by supporting its relevance, accessibility, use, and impact for local decision-makers. In Year Two we accomplished a great deal towards meeting our next set of goals. Key goals and relevant milestones included: Goal: Develop hypotheses about the most effective types of outreach/communication. Evaluate robustness of hypotheses through structured interviews/focus groups. October 30, 2013 - teleconference with Cornell Cooperative Extension Educators to discuss findings to date. Discussion questions include focus on role of intermediaries when communities deal with complex issues. November 25, 2013 - Focus group in Onondaga on the emerald ash borer issue. Discussion centered around process of information dissemination, barriers to neutrality, role of intermediaries, political support, and trusted experts. December 5, 2013 - Onondaga teleconference with project team. Follow up to focus group on how information and trusted intermediaries navigate the often polarized perspectives in community around an important decision such as how to handle emerald ash borer. February 7, 2014 - Seneca County teleconference with project team, focused on new issue of potential casino development. We expressed interest in working with the community-based team to follow their decision-making process, observing how trusted intermediaries functioned and the role of information and data in the final decision-making process. February 19, 2014 - Conference call with Wilmorite developers and Seneca County project team. This teleconference meeting was an important illustration of some of the barriers to neutral information flow. Paramount was unease and skepticism around "liberal bias" from university-based research on the topic. For us in this project, this call demonstrated to us the very real barriers that our CCE partners and other intermediaries have in communicating "clean" information without bias, particularly in a polarized context. March 4, 2014 - Project advisory committee meeting. Our advisory committee is comprised of a diverse groups of faculty, policymakers, practitioners and CCE educators. July 12-14, 2014 - Facilitated a discussion at the National Association of Counties Officials annual conference, New Orleans. Discussion topic: Are there generational difference in how county legislators access and use information? September 8, 2014 - Completion of case study "Case Study: Gaming in Tyre, New York'. Goal: Enhance current workshop/training curriculum, print, web, and workshop formats; simultaneously to develop capacity to build more effective learning environments; publicize results in outlets/journals targeted at CCE educators. April 30, 2014 - CaRDI Seminar and Workshop "The Tragedy of the Science Communications Commons". This event featured Dan Kahan, E.K. Dollard Professor of Law and Psychology, Yale Law School, a member of our advisory committee as well as a future multi-state collaborator. Compelling and accessible scientific evidence often fails to build a "consensus of the educated" in high profile policy conflicts. The lunchtime seminar provided a presentation, discussion, and recommendations of ways researchers and educators can avoid "pollution of the environment" for science communication. Kahan, a leading scholar in criminal law and evidence, has extensively published on Cultural Cognition Theory (see http://www.culturalcognition.net/). The afternoon workshop was the first of what we hope to be several workshop events in Year 3. The events drew over 100 participants, in total. Goal: Develop a proposal in partnership with other states (LGET network) for outside funding. September 2014 - Started laying the groundwork for potential multi-state partnerships. Based on progress made through our research in NYS, we solidified partnerships in other states and towards the end of Year 2 began scoping out a multi-state project team and submitted a multi-state Hatch proposal early in Year 3.
Publications
|
Progress 10/01/12 to 09/30/13
Outputs
Target Audience: The key audiences reached during this first year included our County partners in our three study counties (Onondaga, Seneca, and Saratoga) who participated in our initial research and focus groups. This included members of the County legislative bodies who participated in the decision-making process we were directly studying. In addition, our target audience also includes the Cornell Cooperative Extension (CCE) Executive Directors in our three study counties, as well as a broader group of CCE Executive Directors (from Putnam, Albany, Chemung, Tioga, Jefferson, and Genesee Counties) who have participated in conference calls. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? In July 2013, CaRDI convened a Community Development Institute (CDI) on the Cornell Campus. Attending were a broad range of local government officials, community development practitioners, planners, economic developers, and school district administrators, among others. A workshop at the CDI focused on this Hatch project, providing an overview of the project goals, our findings to date, and gave an opportunity for the participants to discuss the topic at length. As a result, the participants had the chance to reflect on their own decision-making styles, how and if they sought evidence-based information and other data to inform their decision-making, and gave us ideas about various outreach approaches to consider as we move forward into Years Two and Three. In September 2013, we gave a presentation on the project findings to date at the New York State Association of Counties (NYSAC) Annual Meetings in Saratoga Springs. County officials from all over the state attended this meeting. As decision-makers, they were very interested in the project and provided some key insights. As in the case of the CDI, this presentation provided both the participants and the presenters with the opportunity to reflect and learn about decision-making styles and approaches to accessing and integrating research and data into the decision-making process. In both cases the importance of the role of intermediaries was reinforced. In addition to these formal conference presentations, our interaction with CCE Executive Directors and County government officials in our three case study counties has provided on-going opportunities for professional development. We have shared our synthesis and analyses of the focus group findings with these groups, and asked for additional comment and insight. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? The project findings to date have been shared with our County government partners, the CCE Executive Directors in our case study counties, the broader group of CCE Executive Directors who have participated in conference call focus groups, and our advisory committee. In all cases we have compiled a “findings to date summary” and emailed it to these individuals. We have invited comment and feedback in a variety of ways, including a follow up focus group in Onondaga County, and several conference calls with the advisory committee and CCE groups. Our “results” are viewed as preliminary, and are intended to help shape our next phase of work rather than being viewed as conclusive and final. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? During the next reporting period we plan to focus on the role of intermediaries, such as our CCE partners, in the local government decision making process. As such we will begin to work more closely with a broader set of stakeholders to develop more capacity among intermediaries (including, but not limited to CCE) to effectively navigate the local government decision-making context and help link the University and community more closely. We plan to conduct additional focus groups and other information gathering sessions at such venues as the New York State Rural Schools Association (NYS RSA) in June, the National Association of Counties (NACO) conference in July, a Regional Community Development Institute in the fall of 2014, the NYSAC conference in September, the CCE Leadership Conference in September, along with several smaller meetings throughout this next year. In addition, we will be approaching a group from other Land Grant institutions to explore the possibility of developing a multi-state proposal for longer-term funding. As our research continues to yield promising information, we will work with our CCE and County government partners to enhance our training and outreach efforts and priorities. This next reporting period is an important one for focusing on how CaRDI and CCE work together and separately in responding to information needs at the local level.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
In Year One we conducted an extensive literature review with assistance from Professor Poppy McLeod (Department of Communications, Cornell University), a member of our project advisory committee. Professor McLeod and a group of students developed an annotated bibliography that focused on such topics as: public participation in decision-making; communication networks and decision-making; the roles of trust, expert advice and information in decision-making, among others. This literature review was critical to setting the foundation for our inquiry and directly connects to two of our early goals: Draw on learning/decision making/conflict/risk communication theory to understand how local decision makers learn. 2. Distill literature on communicating complex evidence-based information to policy makers A third goal, to develop selection criteria of our cases, was also accomplished. We chose three upstate New York Counties based on their diverse characteristics: size, urban/rural mix, economic growth, ethnic and racial diversity, county government structure, etc. The three counties we chose were Onondaga, Seneca and Saratoga. A fourth goal was also met: Evaluate robustness of hypotheses through structured interviews/focus groups. We held focus groups with each of our County government partners. In advance of each focus group, we asked the groups to identify a past decision that had some type of economic development impact. Only individuals involved in those past decisions attended the focus group so that we could better understand the decision-making process the group underwent. Through the focus groups with our partners, we have identified a number of variables to focus on as we move into Year 2. These themes and ideas consistently emerged as influential in how or why data/information/research may or may not be used in the decision-making process. We have organized the identified variables into four main categories: 1. Attributes of the decision: Level of complexity, Level of controversy, and the importance of consequences and impacts, etc. 2. Attributes of the decision-making body (group): Legislative structure, norms for decision-making, and political diversity/uniformity, etc. 3. Attributes of individuals involved: experiences and values, leadership skills, relationships and trust, credibility, etc. 4. …and other political and contextual factors: distribution and sources of power, etc. Our plan is to organize our next stage of work around these “categories of influence”. In Year One we accomplished yet another goal: Build a cohort of County educators/Extension partners. This was accomplished not just in our three case counties, but from among a wider variety of NYS Counties, including Putnam, Albany, Chemung, Tioga, Jefferson, and Genesee. In addition to the three focus groups, we held two conference calls with our project advisory committee and two conference calls with a group of Cornell Cooperative Extension (CCE) Executive Directors. These conversations provided valuable insight and advice into additional areas of inquiry, in particular, the role of intermediaries. This last point, the role of intermediaries, is one that we plan to focus on as we continue into Year Two and beyond. The remaining goals from our proposal will be the focus of our work moving forward.
Publications
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