Urban Extension Initiative
Urban Extension Initiative

UEI Fellows Program

UEI Fellows Program

UEI Fellows Program

The Urban Extension Initiative (UEI) provides professional support for Extension Agents who serve and engage within urban communities across the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Its primary focus is to enhance community engagement, professional development, advocacy and research for urban centered Cooperative Extension.

Cohort One

View profiles for the participants selected for Cohort One of the Urban Extension Initiative.

View Participants

Cohort Two

View profiles for the participants selected for Cohort Two of the Urban Extension Initiative.

View Participants

Cohort Three

View profiles for the participants selected for Cohort Three of the Urban Extension Initiative.

View Participants

Program Guidelines

Review guidelines for the Urban Extension Initiative (UEI) Fellows Program.

Review Guidelines

Urban Extension Initiative (UEI) Ambassadors Leadership Program

About the Program

The Urban Extension Initiative (UEI) provides professional support for Extension Agents who serve and engage within urban communities across the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Its primary focus is to enhance community engagement, professional development, advocacy and research for urban centered Cooperative Extension.

The Urban Extension Initiative Fellows Leadership Program is a year-long leadership development program designed as a hands-on experience to engage Extension faculty around the concept of Urban Extension and necessary skills and knowledge needed within the field.

 

UEI Fellow Application and Selection Process

  • The number of agents/specialists selected for each cohort will be limited to 10.
  • Cohort members will be selected utilizing an application format.

 

UEI Fellow Terms & Expectations

Term Length

  • Cohort members will participate in a 1-year program and upon completion of the program, will be considered official Urban Extension Initiative Fellows. In addition, it is expected and encouraged that Fellows establish a longitudinal relationship with UEI, and play a role in future UEI innovations.

Fellows Development Program

Potential Topics – (Topics can shift to meet the needs of each cohort)

  • The program will include interactive sessions pertaining to such topics as: urban extension, building relationships, community engagement, creativity, power/social justice, culture, learning and emotions
  • Associates will work individually on an innovative project that will have two deliverables:
    • Innovative community engagement project/event within their urban community
    • Research/evaluation pertaining to the innovative practice
  • Each participant will identify a community leader/organization they haven’t worked with in the past to partner with; will work closely with this partner to implement their innovative community-engaged project (would like to see the community partner attend 2-3 sessions)
  • The community-engaged projects should be applied within the participant’s local community/region regarding a social issue that makes a difference within that community. This project could be an extension/innovation of a current project of importance to the agent/community, however significant change/innovation needs to be documented to use as the project for this Fellows program.

 

UEI Fellow Expectations

  • Required attendance at all UEI Fellow functions– if necessary, participants can miss one in-service with a documented excuse
  • Complete their program deliverables.

Program Timeline

Date Topic Assignment Notes
September 2021 – Orientation (face to face meeting) Introduction to UEI Fellows Program   Encourage participants to begin thinking about what their educational/community engaged project will be: needs to be a proposal
Orientation (face to face meeting)

Background of Extension:

  • Where have we been?
  • Where are we now?
  • Where do we need to be?
   
History of Extension What is needed to make that happen?    
 

Communities Place

Practice & Interest

   
October - Urban Extension Defined

What does this mean for Urban Extension?

  • Define urban

What does it mean to be an Urban versus General Extension agent? (expect vs convener)

What role does Extension play in the 21st century?

What is missing?

   
November - Innovation & Creativity

How can we think creatively?

How does innovation and creativity play into program development?

   
December - Bye No meeting Idea proposal for UEI program Participants need to come to next meeting with a full UEI idea proposal so they can work side-by-side with the instructor: Need to generate a rubric/example of an idea proposal
January - Creative Education Program Development & Design

What are the steps to educational program design?

Creative program design

Experiental education & action-based education

Action research methods

Effective program evaulation

  Participants will be working through their UEI proposal during both the 4th and 5th meetings
February - Convening & Engaging

Define convening

Specific steps towards effective convening

The importance of community engagement in innovative programming

Developing buy-in for innovative programming

What is the role of the specialist?

  Participants will be working through their UEI proposal during both the 4th and 5th meetings
March - Urban Cultural Exploration

Urban culture

Working with difference cultures

Effective engagement within urban settings

   
April - Bye No meeting Final research/evaluation plan for UEI Fellows program  
May - Economic Innovations within Community

What is entrepreneurship?

Economic gardening

Developing a business plan

Resources

  Within 7th, 8th, and 9th meetings, examples of best case studies will be presented to illustrate topics
June - Social Innovations

What does social innovation look like?

How do I introduce social innovation into my community?

   
July - Cultural Innovations

Identifying/engaging with diverse audiences

Cultural intelligence

Community downshifting

Stereotyping/cultural bias

   
August - Bye No meeting Finish up UEI Fellows project and research/evaluation  
September 2022 - Celebration! (face to face) Graduation Party & Project Presentation    

Final Product

Throughout the program, fellows will work on a project with two components:

  1. Community-engaged program/event
  2. Research/Evaluation

From this project, two (2) deliverables would be produced:

  • Project deliverable – (i.e. Ted Talk, Youtube video, online resource, etc.)
  • Scholarship – conference proceedings, journal articles, Extension publications (i.e. publishable manuscript, presentation at a conference, Extension factsheet)

Impact

  • More holistic thinking & application
  • Improved community connections
  • Brush up on basic methodology important for urban agents (such as convening, program development, action research, evaluation, etc.)
  • Assist in making programming more innovative, relevant
  • Broaden understanding and perspectives associated with urban audiences
  • Increased human capital
  • Cohort-building

Contact Information

Jeff Young, Ph.D.
Director, Urban Extension

712 Garrigus Building Lexington, KY 40546-0215

+1 (502) 492-0985

jyoung@uky.edu