Several Consumer Science faculty have integrated appointments with the University of Wisconsin Extension campus. Read on to see just how special that is.
Partners in Outreach:
SoHE and University of Wisconsin-Extension
What do you get when you combine world renowned researchers with the premier technology transfer / transformational education organization in the world? You get the partnership between the School of Human Ecology and the University of Wisconsin-Extension, creating public outreach that is second to none.1
UW-Extension locates its educators (Extension agents) in every county of Wisconsin, charged with bringing the knowledge of the university into the homes and businesses of the state. They work in teams with campus-based faculty and staff at UWMadison, including many professors in SoHE. This partnership between the people creating the knowledge through research, and the people who know best the needs of their communities, creates an engine for rapid and effective utilization of new knowledge.
To make this work, UW-Extension actually funds parts of the contracts of about one-quarter of SoHE’s professors (11 in all) and 3 staff. These faculty are released from some of their on-campus teaching responsibilities in order to teach off-campus, around the state. Their research is often more applied than other faculty as well, including, for example, assessments of problems needing solutions (e.g. hunger, low cost housing, teen drug use) or the evaluation of community interventions (e.g. the impacts of parenting education programs or of financial counseling).
By taking their knowledge into the field, SoHE professors stay grounded in the current practices of families, businesses, and communities. This makes their teaching better. They also involve their students in these outreach projects, so students learn how to apply their knowledge as part of their education.
The partnership of SoHE with UW-Extension dates from the beginning of both organizations. The School was founded in 1904, and conducted its own extension outreach work around the state even before the Extension Service was created by the Smith-Lever Act in 1914 and the Smith-Hughes Act of 1917. One of the School’s first professors, Abby Marlett, was famous for her train tours of Wisconsin, offering educational lectures to citizens who could not attend the annual “short courses” in Madison.
Today SoHE partners with two programs of Cooperative Extension, the Family Living Program (led by Dr. Laurie Boyce) and the 4-H/Youth Development program (led by Dr.Greg Hutchins). Most of the web sites listed under “Related Links” on our Outreach web page are actually hosted on the UW-Extension web server, suggesting how many of the premier outreach projects of SoHE are the result of this key partnership. The full range of Family Living Programs delivered around the state can be viewed at www.uwex.edu/ces/flp and the state’s 4-H/Youth Development Programs are shown at www.uwex.edu/ces/4h.
The President of the UW-System, Kevin Reilly, clearly emphasized the key role of UW-Extension in creating a link between the expertise of the UW campuses and the public we serve, when he wrote the following description of Extension:
“Quite simply, UW-Extension is the people of Wisconsin and their university working together to apply university knowledge and resources to the current needs of their families, professions, businesses and communities. Its practical, issue-focused, problem-solving education is designed to help local citizens and leaders improve the state’s economy, protect its environment, enhance the viability of its communities, and enrich the quality of their lives and work.”
This, of course, is highly consistent with the mission of the School of Human Ecology, “…to enhance the quality of people's lives and their environments through interdisciplinary research, creative innovation, teaching, learning and outreach.”
Working together, SoHE and UW-Extension create the Wisconsin Idea, that “the boundaries of the university are the boundaries of the state.” For over a century, the rest of the nation has noticed the extraordinary commitment to public outreach of our campus. As President Teddy Roosevelt said,
“…in no other state in the union has any university done the same work for the community that has been done in Wisconsin by the University of Wisconsin.” A half century later, in 1952, American statesman Adlai Stevenson echoed this sentiment when he said that
“…the Wisconsin tradition meant more than a simple belief in the people. It also meant a faith in the application of intelligence and reason to the problems of society. It meant a deep conviction that the role of government was not to stumble along like a drunkard in the dark, but to light its way by the best torches of knowledge and understanding it could find.”
Working together, the School of Human Ecology and UW-Extension carry this legacy of excellence forward today.
----------------------------------------1 This is not an idle boast. In his authoritative volume on The Diffusion of Innovations, Everett Rogers called the Cooperative Extension System (operated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in cooperation with the land-grant universities of the states) the premier example of a successful, technology-transfer organization, diffusing innovations to the users who need them. Among the Extension Systems across the U.S., Wisconsin’s is considered by many to be the very best. Because of this partnership, it is highly unlikely that any of the other top-ranked research universities in the world come anywhere close to UW-Madison in their public outreach. G1. Our Partnership with UW-Extension
Louise Araminta Young Resolution doc--25kb 
Louise Araminta Young doc--34kb
