August 15, 2003

EMPEZANDO
EMPEZANDO is a collaborative one-day professional development event for the therapists, caseworkers, educators, law enforcement professional, and managers, The program's goal is to provide professionals with opportunities to improve their knowledge and skills relative to Latino history and culture, Hispanic family and community systems, recent social/health trends that affect Latino communities, models for effective, respectful work with Latino clients, and common understandings and misunderstandings about ethical practice. Lori Carraway, WSU Extension faculty is to be congratulated for collaborating with the City of Bellevue, therapists, Children's Services Unit, Division of Children and Family Services, Lutheran Community Services, and the Snohomish County Department of Human Services to offer this training. We encourage WSU Cooperative Extension professionals to attend.

EMPEZANDO will be held at the Burien, WA, Washington State Criminal Justice Training Center on September 26th. For more details and to register, visit the Web site empezando.wsu.edu.

INNOVATIONS IN FOOD SYSTEMS EDUCATION CONFERENCE

September 25th - 27th
Washington State University
Pullman, Washington

The conference goals are to highlight innovative ideas, models and tools in sustainable food systems education and catalyze future collaborative and individual efforts within and between educational institutions and the communities that they serve.

Conference activities will start with a half-day tour of local farms on Thursday afternoon. The rest of the conference activities will be held on Friday and Saturday, including national and international speakers and presenters. The keynote speakers and presenter sessions will be complimented by a concurrent poster and panel session and roundtable discussions. The underlying theme of the conference will be education and sustainability with emphasis on production/marketing, cultural issues, nutrition, economics, policy issues, interactive distance education, on-farm education, sustainable agriculture, and food systems degree programs.

Learn More about the Conference & Registration at the following Innovations in Food Systems Education Conference Web sites:

http://foodsystemseducation.wsu.edu/

These sites are duplicates and information is in both places because both sites have been promoted as places where people can get information.

ADVANCE REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS (ADVANCE RFP) FOR AGRICULTURE INNOVATION CENTER DEMONSTRATION PROGRAM GRANTS
The Rural Business-Cooperative Service (RBS or Agency) provides advance notice of the possible availability of up to $10,000,000 in fiscal year (FY) 2003 to fund the establishment of agriculture innovation centers that are to provide assistance to agriculture producers in the development of value-added businesses. Availability of FY 2003 funding is contingent on the publication of the final Agriculture Innovation Centers grant regulation in FY 2003 with sufficient time for applications to be submitted and acted on by the Agency during FY 2003. We anticipate that the publication date for the related final rule will provide a very limited amount of time to submit applications.

Accordingly, this Advance RFP lists the information needed to submit an application for these funds to the extent the details can be provided today; the deadline for receipt and any substantive changes required by the final rule will be the subject of a future notice published as part of the final rule or in a contemporaneously published notice.

Federal Register: August 1, 2003 (Volume 68, Number 148)
Notices, Pages 45215-45216
From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access

SURVEY RESULTS OF EXTENSION PERSONNEL IN WASHINGTON STATE
This spring, Dr. Laura Griner Hill, CAHE Human Development Department, conducted a survey of WSU Extension professionals to explore attitudes toward both prevention programs and traditional Cooperative Extension programs. The goal of the survey was to determine the readiness of Extension personnel to incorporate best practice programming into the standard repertoire of volunteer training and program delivery.

Thanks to many of you who returned the mail survey and/or were interviewed by Laura. The results are now posted on the CE faculty Web site: ext.wsu.edu/fs/.

PERSONNEL
New hires:

Sanja Roje, PhD, Assistant Professor
CAHE, Institute of Biological Chemistry
Faculty, 100% Research
Effective August 16, 2003

Lombuso Khoza, PhD, Assistant Professor
Apparel, Merchandising, Design & Textiles
Faculty, 100% Teaching
Effective August 16, 2003

Temporary County Chair Appointment

Marianne Ophardt has been appointed Acting Chair of Benton County
Effective: July 15 through October 17.
Benton County Chair Jack Watson is in Armenia working with CSREES on the viticulture program.

CSREES MATERNAL AND CHILD HEALTH POSITION AVAILABLE
The Families, 4-H, and Nutrition Unit of the Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service (CSREES) has posted the vacancy announcement for the National Program Leader for Maternal and Child Health on the Agency Web site. This position is located in the USDA, Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service (CSREES), Families, 4-H and Nutrition Unit.

SCHEDULE
Next week Mike and Linda will be in Pullman.

Linda Kirk Fox. Ph.D.
Associate Director
Cooperative Extension
PO Box 646230
Washington State University
Pullman, WA 99164-6230
Ph 509-335-2933
Fax 509-335-2926
lkfox@wsu.edu