Welcome and Introductions - J. Nye
The meeting was called to order at 8:35 am. Chair Nye opened
the meeting and asked the directors to give a brief introduction and a
report on activities and important issues in their stations. Some
institutions experienced changes in their administration with key executive
positions being filled. Other important issues are budgetary concerns,
and anti-biotechnology sentiments that are being manifested in increasing
frequency and gravity. The directors felt that this is a major concern that should be addressed.
Agenda Approval - J. Nye
The draft agenda was approved with minor modifications. R. Otto
will give a report on CSREES. ESCOP Committee reports will not be
delivered since they are available on the ESCOP home page, at url:
http://www.escop.msstate.edu/
Consideration of Previous Minutes - J. Nye
The minutes of the last NERA meeting held in Washington, DC, on March
7-8, 2000, as posted on the web page was accepted.
http://www.agnr.umd.edu/users/NERA/workshop/NERAMinutesMarch2000.html
Interim Actions by the Chair - J. Nye
The Chair took the following actions:
- Obtained authorization to extend all Northeast Multistate Research Projects that are terminating in 2000 and 2001, to October 2002.
- Met with Extension leadership to discuss common issues.
- Met with NERA Executive Director to discuss NERA issues and video streaming for future meetings.
- Worked with NERA Executive Director to prepare the proposed budget for the NERA-OED for FY 2000-2001.
- Represented NERA at the ESCOP meeting on April 25-26 in Memphis, TN and delivered the regional report.
- Provided leadership to the Summer Meeting Planning Committee.
- Serving on Plan of Work Advisors Committee for CSREES.
- Chair Budget Advocacy Committee for Board on Agriculture.
- Met with Agricultural Science Coalition.
In his meeting with Extension, it was recognized that there is a need to resolve the process of approving integrated projects. RRC was charged to recommend a process and to look into assigning Extension directors as advisors. Chair Nye and Trish Manfredi, both serving in the POW Advisors Committee, were tasked to review the issues where Research and Extension can collaborate. Out of the four NEREAPs (Children, Youth and Family; Water; IPM; and Food Safety), only IPM and Food Safety were working.
CSREES Update - R. Otto
The Plan of Work Advisors have been appointed (Cooper's Memo) and it
is planned that this group will hold a meeting in early August. Classification
of activities in the attached spreadsheet was taken from the POWs submitted
by the states, and were mainly taken to identify keywords and themes.
He encouraged the Directors to contact Dr. Cooper if there are corrections
or some important activities that were missed. Chair Nye suggested
using the OED as the clearinghouse for collecting comments on the POW spreadsheet.
CSREES received over 1,000 proposals for the 406 and 401 RFPs. This was less than what was expected probably due to the uncertainty of the funding. There is increasing trend for Congress to put more money for competitive funds. Advocacy for the MRPs should be increased. 406 has very strong support from the Administration. There is a need to continuously educate members of Congress esp. the newcomers to gain support for Formula Fund. J. Nye, with the AHS, will tackle the issue on problem staffers who do not understand the political process. AHS is working with T. Nipp's group on this issue. A Dear Colleague Letter, "Support Agriculture Research," from Reps. McIntosh and Clayton, is attached expressing their displeasure for the rescissions contained in HR 4461 (click here to view pdf file).
SAFER Report for Jeff Richards - D. Lund
D. Lund distributed copies of the SAFER Report on behalf of J. Richards.
J. Richards has left the position of Food Safety Coordinator in May to
join his wife in Oklahoma. He thanked those who completed the survey.
SAFER submitted a proposal for the 401 funding. If selected, the
project will fund a Center which is a regional expansion of Cornell's GAP
program. The coordinator will then be part of the Center.
D. Lund chaired the ESCOP/ECOP Task Force for GMOs and Food Safety.
Both reports are available on the ESCOP web page, at urls---
http://www.escop.msstate.edu/committee/agbiotec.pdf
http://www.escop.msstate.edu/committee/foodrpt.pdf
The GMO Report addresses the social and economic dimensions of the GMO issues. He noted that Extension should be poised to get information out to the general public.
He urged the Directors to continue supporting NEREAP-4, and for institutions to pay the assessment if they have not done so. D. Lund will not be continuing as Advisor for NEREAP-4 so a replacement has to be appointed.
NERCRD Report - S. Goetz
S. Goetz visited stakeholders in all the LGUs in the Northeast.
The purpose of his visit is to collect a list of extension and research
priorities that the Center could focus on in the next four years.
Two of these issues are Land Use and Information Technologies. The
directors agreed that both are very important and requested that a proposal
be submitted for consideration at the September meeting. D. MacKenzie
will work with S. Goetz in drafting a proposal on Land Use Management.
NERA Executive Committee Report - J. Nye
The NERA Executive Committee met on June 25 at 8:00pm, after the reception.
Please click here for the Executive Committee Meeting Minutes.
http://www.agnr.umd.edu/users/NERA/workshop/NERAECMM.pdf
Paperless Research Management - R. Mize and N. Moy
D. MacKenzie gave a brief history of the development of the paperless
management system. R. Mize and N. Moy gave the presentation. It was
well received by the directors and there was consensus that testing and
refining the system should proceed. The system should be implemented
in time for the new guidelines to facilitate the transition through on-line
submission of proposals. Records for the current projects will be entered.
Full implementation is planned for October 1.
Update on the National Guidelines for Multistate Research Activities
- D. MacKenzie
D. MacKenzie used PowerPoint slides to initiate discussions on this
topic. Please click here to view slides---
http://www.agnr.umd.edu/users/nera/workshop/Vermont PowerPoint/index.htm
Version 11 of the National Multistate Guidelines was well received by the NERA directors. D. MacKenzie inventoried the directors' perspectives on some of the remaining issues. Results of the discussion are:
- There is general support for tracking and claiming contributing Hatch projects for multistate and integrated activities, and they also want to claim credit for Hatch dollars in the various regional centers, consortia, and programs; and for NERA dues, ESCOP assessments, etc.
- They seem to favor the notion of having the third reviewer be an NPL (which accommodates the NC desire to have only two reviewers). But it was noted that there might be problems if the peer response from the NPL is poor/late.
- They want a process of electronic signatures with secure pass codes. They accepted the fact that the RRC will now have more responsibilities/duties. They see CSREES as the logical entity for monitoring Hatch "scope compliance".
- It was agreed that the proposed Guidelines changes are straightforward and simple. The burden on the participants looks okay at this point. They supported the outcomes orientation of the guidelines. They approved starting the new system with numbering beginning at 1000, which will be done for all new activities.
- They liked the paperless management system that was previewed and they indicated that further development and implementation should proceed.
- There was also agreement that the NPL representative need not attend all committee meetings, as some meetings seem more important than do others.
- There was strong agreement that the NE directors do not want a national oversight committee, or any Plans of Research requirements. And they do not want CRIS to be tracking all kinds of multistate activities in our portfolio. The recording of our formal projects in CRIS seems appropriate, but the rest of the information (i.e., the more informal activities) should be recorded elsewhere.
- The responses were split on the question of exempting Series 500 projects from peer review. There was no strong agreement on whether or not to have mid-term reviews. Most seemed to agree that the AA and/or the Chair of the RRC could manage that aspect without a formal mechanism.
- There was not a strong agreement on whether or not the ED's office should become the repository for all MRP's informal records. Several options were tabled, but there was no resolution.
- The NE directors seemed undecided on two other points: Should the Hatch money be allocated as one amount or two (see the attached spreadsheet for part of the reason for differences) and how should regional stakeholder input be incorporated into the priority setting activities of the association? Or should we just rely on the state-based determinations of stakeholder needs?. These two points need more discussion. Should CSREES be involved in the discussion of these two points? Was CSREES doing a spreadsheet on this question?
D. MacKenzie will follow-up and share these perspectives with the other EDs.
Regional Guidelines Supplement - D. MacKenzie
There is no need for a regional supplement because all the policies
applicable to the Northeast have been incorporated in the new guidelines,
as well as the Paperless Management System.
Regional Priorities Committee Report - D. Rossi
The Regional Priorities Committee met and came up with two recommendations:
1. Charge the OED to work with the stations in collecting and synthesizing information from the states' listening sessions and other activities used to collect stakeholder inputs. These activities should be described including their methodologies. Information on the focal points or contact persons should also be included. These would facilitate sharing of materials, methods, results and experiences among the institutions.
2. Charge the Regional Research Committee to look at various strategies
to develop priority areas to address common issues. The purpose of
coming up with these strategies is to "make available mechanisms to allow
scientists to work across barriers. This should enable us to design
integrated multi-functional projects with our extension counterparts, and
move project formulation towards this direction. Care should be taken
that project is "regional" and not "national" to satisfy regional requirements.
Among the strategies that came up in the RPC discussions are:
i. develop topic areas based on state listening sessions, search CRIS
system or use Coordinating Committees as mechanism for getting experts
together;
ii. involve regional centers as organizing mechnism;
iii. look at state POW for common themes, and use one of the mechanisms
to address a common theme.
D. Rossi presented a motion to accept and implement the above recommendations. After some discussions, the motion was seconded and passed.
Other issues discussed, related to the above are: standard MOU for multistate integrated activities, communicating accomplishments of region, and futuring exercise with Extension.
The common problem that institutions face when getting involved in integrated activities is the set of regulations that is unique to the state and the institution. D. MacKenzie will visit campuses and meet with persons responsible for drafting multi-institutional contracts. He will then present a model that can be used to provide information to faculty on how resources are to be shared, intellectual property rights, state laws, policies on covering overhead costs, etc., if they want to work across state lines. D. MacKenzie will draft a standard MOU that can be adopted by the directors.
A suggestion was made to come up with a regional project that will help address the problem on communicating accomplishments. There was no resolution on this issue. However, a motion was made to authorize the OED to publicize impacts and continue using the annual Regional Research Award for Excellence to market a significant regional accomplishment. This was seconded and passed.
On futuring, R. Coffman noted that his major initiative as incoming Chair for NERA will be on "Marketing Orders." D. MacKenzie was requested to proceed with establishing contact with the Washington, DC office and if necessary, arrange a face-to-face meeting. R. Coffman will make himself available for that meeting.
Chair Nye will explore if "Futuring" can be the theme for next year's joint meeting with Extension. He will discuss this with his Extension counterpart.
Wednesday, June 28
Consideration of NE RRC Report - R. Seem (report will have been previously
distributed)
The motion to accept RRC's recommendations for items 1 and 2 of the
Report on url---
http://www.agnr.umd.edu/users/NERA/workshop/RRCReportJune2000.html
was seconded and passed.
The directors agreed that the NRSPs off-the-top funding for FY2001 be at the same level as FY2000 and that NRSPs should also explore other sources of funds. D. MacKenzie's white paper should be polished and shared with the other EDs. Chair Nye will take this up with the Board of Agriculture.
Job Jar Report - D. MacKenzie
The Job Jar was completed.
OED Strategic Plan [Revisited] - D. MacKenzie
Click here for D. MacKenzie's PowerPoint slides for this topic.
http://www.agnr.umd.edu/users/NERA/workshop/OED_Strategic_Plan/
It was suggested that discussions on "redefining the concept of partnership" among the regions, particularly the West, should be continued. D. MacKenzie will discuss this with the D. Lund, new Chair for the North Central region and report back to the directors.
Another topic suggested for the Joint meeting with Extension next year is "Program Evaluation." This should also include methods for gathering information and how to write impact statements and accomplishment reports particularly for integrated multistate projects.
The directors encouraged D. MacKenzie to continue cultivating relationships with his European counterpart. D. MacKenzie drafted a MOU for M. Neufville which has now been signed between NASULGC and the Inter-university Conference for Agricultural Research and Related Sciences in Europe. A copy of the MOU will be requested from NASULGC and shared with the directors.
There was discussion on "value-added crops" that has increased profit by 25% more for farmers in New Jersey. A. Adelaja wrote an article about this. This could be dovetailed into the "Marketing Order" discussions. A suggestion was made to include "Marketing Order" in the agenda for the September NERA meeting in New Orleans, LA.
"Values Added" Activity Update - D. MacKenzie
D. MacKenzie wrote a white paper that is now being discussed by the
EDs regarding the evolving roles of the regional offices and the EDs.
A Task Force is formed to review the paper and make recommendations to
be presented at the ESS meeting in September.
Nominations Committee Report and Elections - J. Nye and B. Wiersma
Chair Nye presented the slate of officers for 2001:
Chair: W.Ronnie Coffman (NYC)
Vice-Chair: Mark Mount (MA)
Officer-at-Large: Cameron Hagney (WV)
Past Chair: John Nye (DE)
The motion to accept the above nominations, was seconded and passed.
W. Trumble (NH) was nominated as the new member of the Regional Research Committee. All other incumbent members of the other committees were reinstated. Chair Nye will appoint somebody for the ESCOP Partnership Committee.
The motion to confirm the membership of the NERA Committees for 2001 was seconded and passed.
Information on NERA Officers and Committee Membership can be found at
url---
http://www.agnr.umd.edu/users/NERA/committees.html
Resolutions Committee Report - J. Hunter
A motion was made to pass the resolution of appreciation for the host
institution, as follows. It was seconded and passed.
Resolution of Appreciation
WHEREAS, the Northeastern Regional Association of State Agricultural Experiment Station Directors participated in an important and productive meeting at Basin Harbor Club in Vergennes, Vermont, on June 27-28, 2000, and
WHEREAS, the Directors also were involved in a joint meeting with deans of colleges, leaders of extension and academic programs, and CARET representatives from the Northeast Region on June 25-26, 2000 in which the history of the land-grant university system was reviewed as a foundation for planning for the engaged university of the 21st century, and
WHEREAS, the Northeastern Experiment Station Directors enjoyed the relaxing atmosphere of the Basin Harbor Club and the beautiful scenery of the region as seen during a sunset cruise on Lake Champlain,
NOW, THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Directors acknowledge their appreciation to Dean Lawrence Forcier, Dean A. John Bramley, Associate Dean Donald Foss, Associate Dean Rachel Johnson, Meeting Coordinator Libby Campbell and her colleague Robin Smith for their efforts in making the first meeting of the millennium a great success and a very enjoyable experience.
June 28, 2000
John C. Nye, Chair
Northeastern Regional Association of State
Agricultural Experiment Station Directors
NERA Budget Consideration - J. Nye
The Directors had a closed meeting and they approved the budget requested
by the NERA OED for FY2000-20001. The recommended salary increases
for the staff were also approved.
Summary Comments and Closing by the Chair - J. Nye
Chair Nye thanked the directors for their participation and the hosts
for their hospitality and the excellent meeting venue. The next meeting
will be held at Le Meridien Hotel, New Orleans, LA, on September 25-28.
NERA will meet on September 28, 10:00am to 2:00pm.
Chair Nye adjourned the meeting at 11:30 am.
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