Southern Administrative Heads Winter Meeting

Westin Peachtree Plaza Hotel, Atlanta, GA
Monday, February 5, 2024, 11:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m.

Minutes

1. NIFA Update – Manjit Misra, NIFA Director
   • Operation Student Connection – program that requested student travel support from industry, very successful at helping students attend meetings
   • $2.5 B given in grants in 2023 to support LGH’s
   • Diversity and inclusion is still important, Lots of backlash on this, but we need to work together to achive the outcomes we want.
   • Excite vaccine awareness program has reached >18 M people
   • More partnerships; with NSF on artificial intelligence for $100 M, focused on how we access societal benefits from a significant new technology
   • Funded the climate change roadmap; using it to develop an action plan for Extension
   • Funding work on rapid response to extreme weather
   • Using NIH grant management processing methodology to improve NIFA’s grant processes
   • NIFA is now fully staffed at 365, total staffing maximum has set at 400
   • Search is underway for a new 4H Director
   • Communicating our successes is vital, but difficult.
2. Federal Budget, Farm Bill, and Advocacy Update – Doug Steele, APLU, FANR Vice President
   • Need to be more future focused
   • Working hard to show our impact, which translates to more funding
   • Higher education is at a low point in public perception, need to work on reversing that
   • Work in explaining value of higher education
   • Senate wants House to move faster on budget
   • Farm Bill – Ag Chair still wants to get done by end of this year
   • Changed message from what we do to what we can do for you
   • Need to maintain consistency in message
   • Need to be realistic on ask amount
   • Working to redefine message
     • Food and national security
     • Response to climate change
     • Global leader in ag innovation
     • Response to White House conference on food and nutrition
     • Connect food to health, 83% of Farm Bill is nutrition
   • Will release slide deck of talking points for advocacy
   • Ag infrastructure funding is still high priority, $500 M/yr in appropriations, $5 B in Farm Bill
   • Increase private partnerships
   • Impacts are key to success
   • Feb 25-28 is CARET/BAA meeting and Hill visit in DC
   • Need to do better at connecting to other national organizations; NASDA, Farm Bureau
   • Mexico is interested in partnering on student exchange and food supply line issues.
3. Administrative Heads Section Meeting in November, 2023 – Doug Steele
   • AHS meet twice a year, want to improve communication with regional AHS groups
   • New by-laws and strategic plan for CARET was approved
     • Change CARET appointment from 1 to 2 years
     • CARET officer that no longer represents state will be CARET-at-Large member while in office
   • Working on better defining who is eligible to vote in BAA
4. FANR Update – Doug Steele
   • National Impact Database moved to Extension Foundation
   • Over 700 submissions in 2023
   • Approved format for impacts
   • Staffers and NIFA use this database
   • Over 100 web stories and 40 summary sheets created by the writing group from 2023 submissions
   • Want to start hosting in-person meetings in states with members of Congress
   • Capacity Task Force – begin focusing budget request on capacity thru a capacity awareness campaign
     • Awareness of value and tactical advantage
     • Three action subgroups
       • Consulting contract with professional firm
       • Advocacy subcommittee
       • Materials review subcommittee
     • Hope to have draft document ready for CARET/BAA meeting
     • Deacue Fields will be AHS rep on the Task Force
   • BAA assessment formula is being adjusted to make calculations more transparent and fair
     • Assessment letters will go out in early March with invoice, explanation of calculations, and uses of fees
     • Hope to have everything on line by next year, including all data used in calculations
5. Issues from SAAS Board meeting – Nick Place
   • Mark is transitioning out as SAAS Executive Director and Marcy Fisher, LSU business officer, will be taking that role
   • Conference expenses have made it necessary to increase base registration fee, proposing $60 to $80 for faculty, $10 to $20 for graduate students, and $0 to $20 for undergraduates
     • No opposition to the increase
   • AV costs have greatly increased, considering purchasing slide screens instead of renting from hotel, but logistics have to be worked out first
6. Faculty Retention Discussion – All
   • Cost of living raises versus merit
   • Spousal hires becoming problem
   • Comparative salary study can help with gaining new state funds
   • Hold 0.2 – 0.3% salary increase funds for “national distinction raises”
   • Converting 12 to 9 month appointments with same salary and ability to fund 3 months on grants
     • 12 month faculty can also write up to two months additional salary into grants
   • Survey at MS State indicated that salary was not the highest priority for faculty; research support, project manager, post Docs, etc were more important
   • Starting to use local Extension agents more to advocate with local legislators
7. Mini Land-grant Planning Update – Eric Young
   • Planning has just begun, using the same process as last time, ED’s working with Arkansas folks to settle logistics, then we’ll add members from each association and plan the joint program
   • Meeting will be in Northwest Arkansas sometime in late May or early June
8. S-AHS Secretary Election – Nick Place
   • Keith Carver (UTK) agreed to be nominated and was elected unanimously
   • At close of meeting, Keith Coble will become Chair and Deacue Fields will be Chair-elect, both will also serve as the S-AHS representatives on the National AHS Executive Committee
9. 2024 Summer S-AHS/CARET Meeting – Nancy Cox and Marcus Bernard
   • University of Kentucky and Kentucky State University will host the meeting this year in Lexington on July 26-28
   • Planning has just begun, general schedule of meeting will be similar to past years.
10. Institutional updates – All
    • Institutional updates that were submitted can be seen here