New Department Helps Kentuckians Turn Change into Progress

When the Department of Community and Leadership Development was created in July of last year, it marked a strengthened emphasis on individuals, families, and communities that are abundantly evident throughout the commonwealth. Its aim is to help Kentuckians take change and turn it into progress.

The new department is comprised of bits and pieces of other departments and units. Rural sociologists, whose appointments had been straddling both the College of Agriculture and the College of Arts and Sciences, became fully associated with the College of Agriculture. (The rural sociology faculty still participate in the doctoral program associated with the Department of Sociology.) The agricultural education teaching faculty, housed for the past 10 years in the Department of Agricultural Economics, became part of the new department. The agricultural communications teaching faculty also joined the new department, as did two faculty members responsible for development and evaluation of the Extension program.

"The new 18-faculty member department is not just a reconfiguration of faculty members from disparate places. Rather, this new department's faculty bring to bear the collective talents of faculty members who can help Kentuckians in their quest for progress," said Gary Hansen, chair of the new department.

Those collective talents were amazingly easy to organize into a new department, as every faculty member saw the advantages of the new structure. The faculty of the new department and college leaders agreed remarkably on the need for such a department and worked diligently to accomplish its establishment.

Even though the act of creating the Department of Community and Leadership Development began prior to the appointment of Lee Todd as president of the University of Kentucky, it nonetheless supports to a "T" his vision of the University of Kentucky becoming a resource for all Kentuckians.

The Goal: Progress
President Todd often speaks of committing the University to a higher purpose, chiseling away at what he calls the Kentucky Uglies — low literacy, poor health, and low incomes — and the constellation of factors that give rise to them.

With these seemingly long-standing-but-still-unresolved issues coupled with the complex changes imposed upon Kentucky during the last decade, this new department has its work cut out for it.

But Hansen is resolute as well as optimistic.

"Even though the effects of these old issues and recent social, demographic, and economic changes are quite profound in about every sphere of Kentucky life, we shouldn't believe they must determine our fixed destiny. We can do something about them if we have the skills and desire to do so. We need to remember that change happens to all of us all the time, but progress happens only when we take change and turn it into what we want," Hansen said.

Community Development
Kentucky needs skilled leaders with the ability to assess their communities' situations and to make them better places to live. This department can address those needs with a variety of its programs, Hansen said. Programs now in place offer communities ways to deal with the legacies of the past and the challenges of the future.

The community visioning program led by Lori Garkovich, Ron Hustedde, and Julie Zimmerman is helping communities assess what's happening to them and what they can do to make their community a better place.

"When I go out to a community, the fact that I've been invited means that community leaders see a need to think through their destiny and have a desire to make plans to shape it," Garkovich said. What happens during the visioning workshop is little short of amazing. Just look what happened in Carter County, when local citizens "visioned" their community of the future.

In early 2000, the community leaders met for a day-long session with Garkovich. By the end of the day, the leaders had a laundry list of what they believed they needed to do to make the county a better place to live.

The group met again 15 months later to share a progress report. The accomplishments included expanding emergency care for citizens, mapping water line expansion for five water districts, and developing a long-range plan for road resurfacing.

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The Instructional Program
It's a mouthful of a program name, but it opens a world of opportunities for its graduates. The major is called the B.S. degree in agricultural education, communications, and public service and leadership. Students enrolled in the major — and currently there are 125 students pursuing the degree — can concentrate on one of the three options.

• The agricultural education option, housed for many years in the College of Education and then in the Department of Agricultural Economics, trains students to become vocational and technical high school teachers. Many of the students, however, use the training to pursue non-school teaching careers, such as those in agribusiness and farming. Currently 50 undergraduate students are enrolled in the agricultural education program, and another 50 graduate students are working toward an M.S. degree.
• The agricultural communications option currently has 55 undergraduate students enrolled. Graduates of the program enter careers in agricultural writing, public relations, and marketing, although many students also find the course work helpful in graduate and professional school.
• The 20-plus students majoring in the public service and leadership option are being prepared for careers in government and non-profit organizations, although, as with the other two options, students often use their degree to pursue other careers.

We are energized by the possibilities for research, teaching, and outreach and by the new working relationships we are creating that will give us the opportunity to help all Kentuckians.
— Gary Hansen

Research for Kentuckians
While community development is a broad focus of the new department's work, its research in other areas promises huge dividends.

Already, faculty members are partnering with a number of other groups in Kentucky, including the Tracy Farmer Center for the Environment, the Martin School of Public Policy and Administration, the Kentucky Association of County Officials, the Kentucky Cabinet for Families and Children, and the Appalachian Center, among others.

Keiko Tanaka's research program investigates the intersection between agriculture and biotechnology, especially how people think about the use of biotechnology for food and medicine.

Because people have differing sentiments about biotechnology based on whether the science is used for food or medicine, Tanaka's social science research helps scientists in agriculture and medicine understand the public's reaction to their research and findings.

"Ultimately, the future of biotechnology — especially as new genetically engineered products move from the laboratory bench to the marketplace — will be determined by whether people accept the premises of the research. If they are squeamish, for example, about genetically modified animals but not plants, researchers may decide to develop pharmaceuticals around the plant model," she said.

Trish Dyk's research about how welfare reform is affecting Kentucky families provides vital knowledge to the state's leaders as they seek to implement policies that enhance the lives of those affected by welfare reform. And colleague Roz Harris' work on the impact of poverty on children and youth has been instrumental to policy makers in enacting programs to help meet the food needs of young people whose families are below the poverty threshold.

"It may sound hokey, but it's true nonetheless. This department is an exciting place to be right now. We are energized by the possibilities for research, teaching, and outreach and by the new working relationships we are creating that will give us the opportunity to help all Kentuckians, their families, and their communities progress in the years ahead," Hansen said.

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