Extension awards recognize programs that have achieved outstanding accomplishments, results, and impacts in addressing contemporary issues. Whether an individual or a team is recognized, the awardees gain inspiration and motivation and may attain promotion and/or tenure. The Western Region Program Leadership Committee oversees a special award…

Over the past decade, local live productions of Shakespeare have become increasingly visible to scholars and audiences alike, both through critical work on the subject as well as through public projects such as Shakespeare on the Road. This visibility highlights the cultural and artistic work of regional theatre. On the one hand, local live…

In the past, Southern California's library access services professionals in higher education had to travel across the country for professional development and networking opportunities, but this is no longer the case. Now, through California Library Access Services South (CLASS), Southern California's Access Services professionals can network,…

Robert Burns Eleazer (1877-1973), a liberal white Methodist from Tennessee, served as the education director and director of publicity of the Atlanta-based Commission on Interracial Cooperation (CIC) from 1922 to 1942. As education director, he developed a strategy for improving race relations which entailed offering prizes to young people in the…

The North Central Region Aging Network (NCRAN) formed out of a need to strengthen the potential for meeting curricular and educational demands related to the topic of aging. By pooling resources, establishing interactive and consistent methods of idea sharing, working collectively to assess community needs, and launching professional development…

Quality assurance processes have developed in Latin America since the beginning of the 1990s, trying to deal with the changes in higher education. This article is organized from two main perspectives: the first is mostly descriptive, and it focuses first on a brief outline of structural changes, that impact on the features of higher education in…

Using an inquiry-based approach to address the challenge of improving schools provides opportunities for informed decision making and carries great promise for return on investment. Taking a collaborative approach toward improvement can be complex, yet also rewarding because of the opportunity to leverage the knowledge and capacity of multiple…

In response to the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) was formed to answer oil spill-related scientific questions. However, peer-reviewed scientific discoveries were not reaching people whose livelihoods depended on a healthy Gulf of Mexico. GoMRI and the four Gulf of Mexico Sea Grant programs partnered to…

In this article, the author first traces the history of what is today known as the "Carnegie Unit" or course credit and discusses how it has become improperly equated with learning and abused in online and for-profit programs. The second half of the article provides statements concerning online credit hours from the following regional…

The Extension services of Washington State University, Oregon State University, and the University of Idaho established Pacific Northwest Extension Publishing (PNW Publishing) in 1946 as a mechanism of regional cooperation and cost savings. Other regions followed suit in the decades that followed. Today, PNW Publishing is the last standing…

The SR4-HVAG combines the efforts of states to provide quality educational programming for volunteers and Extension professionals using an advisory group system. An advisory group rather than a council was created because the group provides programmatic input rather than sets policy. The purposes of the SR4-HVAG are to: provide a mechanism for…

What might bring the efforts of a physician, a speech-language pathologist, a teacher of the deaf and hard of hearing, and a nurse together? The answer is the innovative use of telepractice to deliver high quality, family-centered early intervention to infants and toddlers with hearing loss. TeleCITE: Telehealth--A Cochlear Implant Therapy…

Regionalism is a common development strategy in the Pacific region. Through it, numerous services are delivered to countries, communities and organisations. While some see regionalism as an effective and efficient strategy for the Pacific region, others point to its dismal performance. Using the experience of the Rethinking Pacific Education…

Finding out what instructional leadership looks like is at the center of a new trend in leadership development: videos of practice. These range from minimally edited videos of a leader's own practice to highly edited clips that focus on successful leadership actions in authentic school settings. While videos of practice are widely used in teacher…

The demand for improved workplace skills in the U.S. is rapidly rising, and U.S. industries, employees, and educational systems are struggling to respond. This paper describes the Skills Advantage program, an effort led by employers and facilitated by Kirkwood Community College to address regional employment needs. This work-ready certificate…