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Shouldn't Extension experts, members of an organization that has always prided itself on providing impartial research-based information, share a place at the table with the nation’s leading public intellectuals? We contend that establishing a core group of public intellectuals at both the state and national levels of discourse should be a core strategy in helping us separate our message from others in this enormously competitive information environment. As a moral obligation Extension educators at all levels have a responsibility, not only as scholars but as public servants, to help put highly complicated, even controversial issues, into sharper perspective on behalf of their clients with the goal of improving their lives. “…no scholar, historian or anyone else is — merely by being a scholar — ethically excused from their own circumstances. We are also participants in our own time and place and cannot retreat from it…” Extension educators are now struggling to navigate their way across an increasingly steep, jagged divide between techno-skeptics, who harbor a deep mistrust of technology and its long-term implications, and techies, who, despite some misgivings, generally believe that each technological advance ultimately works to secure a better life for all of us. With this refinement has come a clearer understanding of the environmental costs associated with scientific and techno Who is better equipped to serve the bridging the gap that exists in understanding environmental costs, benefits, and technological process. There will be an increasing need for public intellectuals from many different disciplines within Extension to explain how this new farming model will be expressed and how it ultimately will affect them. Herein lies an enormous opportunity for Extension — an opportunity for profound organizational transformation. This presentation was conducted at Galaxy 2013. See page 5 for a more detailed explanation https://custom.cvent.com/18A6750208F1461A8000EA09BA931C3A/files/c9cdbf25833147d4ae232bab6a08ff47.pdf Jim Langcuster and Anne Adrian were the presenters
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The Role of Public Intellectuals in Cooperative Extension
Jim Langcuster Communications and Marketing Specialist,
Alabama Cooperative Extension System @extensionguy
Anne Mims Adrian Social Media Strategist
Military Families Learning Network-eXtension @aafromaa
Galaxy IVSeptember 2013
#extG4
Neil deGrasse Tyson
One of the nation’s premier public intellectuals
Known for communicating astrophysics concepts in a witty, compelling form and in a way people readily understand
What is a Public Intellectual?
Someone who deals with ideas and knowledge within the context of public discourse, usually within mass media.
What is a Public Intellectual?
Op-ed pieces, magazine columns, Sunday morning network news interview programs, interviewed on public radio/TV.
Social media, an important addition, may be the front door to the mass media presence.
Post Morrill Act Challenges
Overwhelming and ever growing amount of information
Democratization dialogue
Cacophony of voices
User generated content, filters, & distribution
Media mediating human relationships (Mike Welsch)
Individuals are empowered to research and formulate their own opinions
Post Morrill Act Challenges
Fewer people know of Cooperative Extension
A continued need to make ag production more efficient
Public challenges to technological advances in ag is growing
A growing need to make sense of trends and conflicts and misapplied research
Mark Bittman food and cooking writer author of Cooking at Home with a Four-Star Chef, former The New York Times Columnist.
Charles Blow journalist and visual op-ed columnist for The New York Times.
David Brooks political and cultural commentator and author of The Social Animal
Erik Brynjolfsson MIT Economics Professor and author of Race Against the Machine and Wired for Innovation.
Gail Collins journalist, op-ed columnist, blogger, and author of When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present
Maureen Dowd columnist for The New York Times and best-selling author of Bushworld: Enter at Your Own Risk
Examples of Public Intellectuals
Thomas L. Friedman journalist, for The New York Times columnist, Pulitzer Prize winner and author of The World Is Flat:
Paul Krugman Economics Professor at Princeton University, columnist, and author of End This Depression Now!
Andrew McAfee MIT professor, author of Enterprise 2.0 and Race Against the Machine
Andrew Sullivan columnist for The Sunday Times of London and a blogger
Neil deGrasse Tyson astrophysicist and science communicator Director Frederick P. Rose Director of the Hayden Planetarium
George F . Will newspaper columnist, journalist, and author. He is a Pulitzer Prize-winner
Examples of Public Intellectuals
Characteristics of #CoopExt Public Intellectuals
Aggregators AND Curators
Providing insights within deeply enriched contexts
Public Intellectuals Bridge the Gap
Traditional Academics as Public Intellectuals?
In The Last Intellectuals: American Culture in the Age of Academe, 1987, Jacoby reported that no serious American thinker under the age of 45 was writing for anyone other than academics, or able to.
"Intellectuals who write with vigor and clarity may be as scarce as low rents in New York."
Why Extension as Public Intellectuals?
Have understanding of current scientific models and science
Can bridge the divide between opposing opinions
Articulate the elements of scientific models
Explain importance of science in context
Traits of Public Intellectuals
Scholarly, though not necessarily academic
Highly literate
Articulate with finesse
Passionate
Opinionated
Public Intellectuals
Develop and support spokespersons
Listen and understand debates
Aggregate, curate and make sense
Build reputation for providing value
Be active in online social spaces
Practice disruptive messaging
A Cadre of Public Intellectuals
Social media
Op-ed writers
Effective and compelling speakers
Develop disruptive messaging
Supported (Extension administration and Communication Units) as spokespersons
Moral Obligation as Public Servants
“…no scholar, historian or anyone else is — merely by being a scholar — ethically excused from their own circumstances. We are also participants in our own time and place and cannot retreat from it…”
Tony Judt
Photo Credits
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Neil_deGrasse_Tyson_-_NAC_Nov_2005.jpg http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/Morrill.html
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jonnygoldstein/3650745193/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/donabelandewen/3584154214/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/quinnanya/3812878415/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mfobrien/3382977725
http://www.flickr.com/photos/skewgee/6092105212/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/its_our_city/2659196522/
The Role of Public Intellectuals in Cooperative Extension by Jim Langcuster and Anne Mims Adrian, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
When using photos from this presentation, please note and adhere to their CC license.
