Institutional Change 
Evolving structure
New budget sources
Changing policy

Summary

Many of the FSPE goals for institutional change are consistent with other changes affecting universities and colleges and agriculture.  Many of these changes have been forced by legislative action or by lean times and are expected to result in policy changes.

Since the FSPE Initiative relates directly to these changes, FSPE is viewed as a significant factor in promoting faster, broader and more sensitive change.  For example, new institutional curricula and structural models are being developed and tested at many participating universities with positive outcome.  Significant internal reallocations of budget and personnel within many grantee universities have furthered local projects and broadened FSPE goals.  Stakeholder groups, such as community colleges, business and industry, farmers, environmentalists and others have been involved in these efforts.

The Kellogg Foundation and other external sources have provided extensive funds to support project goals, and host institutions have shared resources with partners at levels far exceeding what might have been expected.  FSPE partnerships and collaborations have been instrumental in LGU grantees successfully competing for external funds that have enhanced their attainment of FSPE goals.  While exact amounts are not yet available, preliminary information indicates that leveraged funds far exceed the 1:1 match often expected by funders.

Project Progress/Outcomes

Iowa Vision 2020 has aggressively sought risk-takers in each of ISU's 67 departments to experiment with FSPE-related change.  The strategy is to encourage people to talk about changes within their own departments, in other departments, in other colleges, and finally to change the whole culture at the institution.

Vision 2020 funded a student-operated organic farm so students could experience organic agriculture and its relationship to community-supported agriculture, farmers' market opportunities, and to interface with local food banks and low-income families.  The ISU Agronomy Department is working to sustain the student effort and to build an experiential hands-on educational curriculum about organic farming. 

Mid-Atlantic collaborative agreement  projects funded by the MAC involve many partners across and beyond higher education institutions, including government, trade, industry and business partners.  These partners influence the processes and goals of the projects, including course content, training experiences for students, and the research and service agendas of the universities and colleges involved.

In Nebraska, planning for the new agricultural sciences magnet school is requiring the development of new institutional structures and new budget sources. Changes are already occurring within the University of Nebraska, Nebraska Department of Education , and Mead Public Schools.

State distance education policy is being influenced by five white papers commissioned by Nebraska Network 21. These papers were shared with all distance education providers in Nebraska's higher education institutions and K-12 schools, and with key policy makers.

College-wide Ohio State University "culture of experimentation" has yielded three departmental funding experiments.  Both human and financial resources provided from the three distinct funding sources are blended to provide greater freedom.  Resources are allocated and impacts measured based on the unit's strategic plan rather than the source of funding.  The approach is drastically increasing collaboration between Extension, teaching, and research.  Curricular revisions are being implemented to include a mandatory internship requirement.

The South Carolina Alliance 2020 project has developed articulation models that allow students to enroll in another participating higher education institution through the student's home institution.  Students pay their home institution's tuition rate.  The relationships and opportunities for students that result from such agreements serve as new models for institutional cooperation.

An Oregon InterACTION! team member and graduate student, Geoff Habron, developed a new model for learning based on active listening and site-based interaction. Because of his commitment to learning, Geoff implemented a for-credit course in 1997 focused on watershed issues. This course gathered diverse student and regional voices around compelling national resource issues. Since then, three other Learning Through Listening courses have been implemented and one more is in the planning stage. These intensive, site-based learning experiences have included issues on cross-cultural perspectives in agricultural labor, the impact of globalization on Oregon communities, and a future course on tribal issues to be delivered by the Ethnic Studies and Sociology departments. Geoff Habron, the graduate student that stimulated this curriculum innovation and is currently a faculty member at Michigan State, hopes to experiment with the learning model in his course.

Engagement and Public Involvement 

Partnerships and Collaboration

Changing Campus Culture/Redefining Scholarship and Faculty Rewards

Institutional Change

FSPE is part of the Foundation's Food Systems and Rural Development (FSRD) initiative. Find out how it all fits together

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W.K. Kellogg Foundation

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