Urban-Rural Connection

Don’t Miss Out! Last Week to Register for the 2021 Leadership in the City Course

Don’t Miss Out! The last day to register is Friday, November 20, 2020!

Are you interested in Extension in urban areas and ready to improve your knowledge, skills, and results?

The Leadership in the City course will help you learn about leadership, networks, innovation, and management. The 5-month online program will prepare you, as an Extension professional, to be relevant locally, responsive statewide, and recognized nationally.

The goal of this comprehensive professional development program is to improve the knowledge, skills, and results of university Extension professionals working in large cities. You will connect with peers from around the country to engage in critical thinking and creative problem solving to become better prepared to be relevant locally, responsive statewide, and recognized nationally.

The program was developed based on a foundation of entrepreneurial theory and urban Extension practice and will build upon existing leadership experiences, management training, and Extension professional development.

You will learn from experienced leaders; apply what you learn in your city, region, or state; engage in critical thinking and creative problem solving; and participate in online collaborative learning. Each competency-based module incorporates interactive digital delivery and the flipped classroom model for active learning and engagement.

Upon completion of the course, you will be better prepared to:

  • Evaluate, illustrate, and build upon their four dimensions as an entrepreneurial leader (traits and drivers; competencies and experiences).
  • Navigate as a leader working in the urban and university contexts.
  • Implement elements of entrepreneurial organizations.

The investment in the program is $500 plus a commitment to work hard and have fun investing 8-14 hours per month. The 5-month online course begins in January 2021. If you have multiple participants from the same institute, you are each entitled to a $100 discount (Promotion code: LITC21-MULT). As of this morning there are only three spots available.

This course is led by Dr. Julie Fox from the Ohio State University Extension.

Complete details and registration information can be found at https://cityextension.osu.edu/leadership.

Registration is Now Open for the 2020 OSU Extension Annual (Virtual) Conference

Conference-2020-Embrace-Change-Together Header

Registration is now open for the 2020 OSU Extension Annual (Virtual) Conference!

 

You are invited to attend and participate in the 2020 OSU Extension Virtual Annual Conference – Embrace Change Together!

This 3-day 2020 virtual conference will highlight how our efforts meet today’s challenges to create a more engaged tomorrow.  This conference will also showcase innovative presenters and sessions full of new ways you can engage our four tracks.

The conference is December 7-9, 2020, beginning at 8:45 a.m.

To register, you will need an approved eRequest #

  • All-Conference Pass: $25
  • Students: $10

Please register prior to Wednesday, December 2, 2020 at 11:59 p.m. 
Follow this link to register.

For any questions, please contact ShaLise Simmons, Event Program Coordinator.

 

Survey on Practical Examples of Urban Ecosystem-Based Adaptation (EbA)

The Friends of Ecosystem-Based Adaptation (FEBA) Urban EbA Working Group has developed this survey to identify practical examples of Urban EbA planning and implementation. The Working Group, co-chaired by IUCN and PlanAdapt, brings together researchers and practitioners from the fields of urban development, EbA and Green-Grey Infrastructure to share successes and failures to help learn and improve future urban EbA initiatives in the Global South and Global North. Your participation in this survey contributes to the knowledge base of the growing area – in theory and practice – of Urban EbA. Follow this link to take the survey.

Sourced from: Friends of EbA

Urban Gardens Growing Strong Amid COVID Pandemic

Mike Levenston stands over a half-harvested stalk of kale, eyeing the autumnal remnants slowly disintegrating into the soil. It’s a familiar scene for Levenston, an urban gardener who has been growing food and community in the garden he founded, dubbed City Farmer, for more than 40 years.

At the time, it was almost unheard of to grow food in cities, and gardens weren’t given much thought in city planning efforts. No longer: Urban gardens are thriving worldwide, especially this year as pandemic-bound city dwellers have sought sustenance in gardens, parks, and other green spaces.

“I’m there seven days a week. It’s the best place for my family to be in COVID times because it’s a garden with lots of space,” Levenston said. “We’re busier than ever because of the backyard garden craze. We sell city compost bins (and) people are picking them up every day, and (there) are a lot of new gardens (in the city).”

Canadians like their gardens, especially in 2020. A report released earlier this month by Dalhousie University’s Agri-Food Analytics Lab found that roughly 51% of Canadians grow at least one variety of fruit or vegetable at home. Follow this link to read more.

Sourced from: Morning Ag Clips

Proximity Doesn’t Benefit Just Big Cities, It’s Helping Rural Communities Weather the Economic Crisis Too

More than six months into the COVID-19 pandemic, America’s small businesses are in a prolonged struggle for survival. And like many aspects of the pandemic, this struggle is wrought with geographic disparities. The severity of the small business crisis varies by state, city, town, and even neighborhood, with businesses in areas dependent on leisure and hospitality at an especially heightened risk. Rural communities have been hit particularly hard, as many had staked their economic revival on fostering locally owned small businesses and recreation-based downtowns. The threat to rural America is compounded by relief structures that have largely lagged to reach small businesses in the hardest-hit places. Given this uneven geography of recovery, the National Main Street Center (NMSC) and Brookings’s Bass Center for Transformative Placemaking wanted to take a more granular look at how place impacts small business survival. Follow this link to read more.

Sourced from: Brookins

Leading Edge Dialog Series: Urban Green Infrastructure Workshop

Every Leading Edge Dialogue (LED) held at the 2019 National Urban Extension explored innovative shifts in Extension’s vision of its future and its role in the communities it serves. While this workshop was not an official LED, the discussions that took place regarding Extension’s role (or future) in urban green infrastructure (UGI) as a programming area is a practical example of many of the points raised in the LEDs held during the conference. Follow this link to read the paper.

Sourced from: Western Center for Metropolitan Extension and Research

10th Annual Ohio Food Policy Summit + Ohio Local Food Council Workshop

Join the Ohio Food Policy Network (OFPN) and the John Glenn College of Public Affairs for the 10th Annual Ohio Food Policy Summit and Ohio Local Food Council Workshop, which is being held virtually this November. 

Ohio Food Policy Summit
Monday, November 16, 1-4 p.m. E.T.

• Keynote speaker Tom Philpott, author of Perilous Bounty: The Looming Collapse of American Farming and How We Can Prevent It
• Presentation of the OFPN draft policy framework and the opportunity to interact with the framework, setting the course of the OFPN policy agenda
• Presentation of the OFPN Food Hero award

Ohio Local Food Council Workshop
Tuesday, November 17, 4-6 p.m. E.T.

• This interactive workshop will prepare local food policy councils to operationalize their policy agendas
• Topics addressed include how to work within the law, steps in campaign building and tools to move forward

Follow this link to register.
Follow this link to join the Ohio Food Policy Network

 

Sourced from OFPN

Employment Opportunity: OSU Extension Educator, 4-H Youth Development, Summit County, Ohio

The 4-H Positive Youth Development Educator works collaboratively with county and state teams and with local agency leaders and volunteers. This includes implementing and supporting a comprehensive volunteer system through identification, selection, orientation, training, utilizing, recognizing, and evaluating of adult and youth volunteers to support local 4-H delivery methods (e.g. community clubs, after-schools clubs, camps, school enrichment, etc.). Responsible for a broad range of basic to complex duties that could include, but are not limited to, maintaining relationships with 4-H club and committee members, providing guidance and/or leadership for 4-H Youth Development programming targeted to local and regional needs, and engaging youth to build leadership, citizenship, and life skills. Utilize appropriate methods both formal and informal, of community assessment to identify educational needs and opportunities of local community. Design, implement, and teach educational programming, based on these needs, to groups and individuals comprised of adults and/or youth.  Follow this link to learn more.

Sourced from: Jobs at OSU