Features | The UGA Century

Impact

B Y - B E V E R L Y - S P A R K S

1. The late J.W. Fanning, UGA's first vp for public service, was a pioneer in outreach programs and leadership development.
2. Eugene Younts, who succeeded Fanning in 1972, built a public service program that has become a national model.
3. With a grant from the Turner Foundation, James Kundell is studying how Georgia's rapid growth has affected land use.
4. Barbara McCarthy, recently retired Rockdale County extension agent, helps people who have housing concerns.

In 1908, six years before the founding of the Cooperative Extension Service, ag leader Andrew Soule's "College on Wheels" train toured the state, spreading the word about scientific agriculture.
The Walter B. Hill Awards have been given annually since 1992 to faculty and staff who carry on HIll's vision of public service to the state.
UGA established the refereed Journal of Public Service and Outreach in 1996 and hosted a major public service conference in 1999.
Groundbreaking for the J.W. Fanning Institute for Leadership and Community Development took place on Aug. 14 of this year—Fanning's birthday.
n a recent speech at UGA, former U.N. ambassador Andrew Young said the Cooperative Extension Service "turned this state green." That's just one of many ways UGA's public service and outreach mission has improved Georgians' quality of life in the 20th century.

These days, the extension service is involved in a wide range of activities, and our clientele is expanding. I work closely with those involved in urban agriculture and do training for commercial pest-control operators and the lawn-care industry. Continuing education for those kinds of industries comes from the extension service.

County agents have difficult jobs because agricultural production is much more complex and regulated than in the past and the body of information has grown so much. Agents have to meet the demands of big growers and still be prepared for somebody walking into the office to request identification of an insect or poisonous plant. That's why we're here, the specialists at the University, to back them up.

Technological changes have allowed us to speed up delivery of information. You can get the results of a soil test via computer in just a couple of days. For disease and insect diagnosis, we now have cameras, microscopes and computers in county offices so I can get an image of a pest from the county agent and respond in a matter of minutes. We're becoming much more sophisticated.

Dr. Younts has provided impressive leadership and support, and has built on the outreach program begun by Dr. Fanning so that now I believe UGA's service program is the most fully developed of any university in the country. Faculty members here are encouraged to feel a responsibility to the society that sponsors the institution.

Extension entomologist Beverly Sparks was named the 1999 Walter Barnard Hill Distinguished Public Service and Outreach Fellow.