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INTERPRETING AND VALUING EXTENSION
By

Scott M. Preston

A THESIS

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fiilfillment of the requirements

for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

Department of Communication

7 April 1995

ABSTRACT

INTERPRETING AND VALUING EXTENSION
By

Scott M. Preston

This thesis investigates how the members of a university extension organization
interpret messages advocating organizational culture change. Since cultural change is
introduced through value systems, this research focuses on members' applications of the
values formerly accepted by the organization in explaining why members accept or reject a
particular change message. Values are standards of preference for selecting between
actions based on cognitive, affective, and directional criteria. Thus, an organization's
culture shapes the responses of its members to messages arguing for cultural change.

A dual focus on (1) the values used to justify change and (2) those values used to
maintain the status quo discovered that the values held by members of the organization
differ from the leadership vision in application and importance. Agents' basic assumptions
included a county focus, emphasis on practicality, and commitment to their jobs in the
field. These differences from the vision led to considerable sense—making around the
values of self-learning and being cutomer-driven, with Children, Youth and Family agents
accepting key elements of the vision as reflective of their own mission and Agriculture

agents rejecting what did not fit their perceptions of what Extension is and does.

Copyright by
SCOTT MELBOURNE PRESTON
1995

PREFACE

The concept of organizational culture is intrinsically interesting to me as an
example of how paradigms shape reality. Before coming to Michigan State, I spent a year
working the second shift for a silicon wafer manufacturing firm in Bedford,
Massachusetts. While there, I had the opportunity to witness firsthand the very different
cultures that existed for the daytime shift and for their nighttime counterparts. This
difi‘erence fascinated me, so much so that I jumped at the chance to investigate the cultural
revolution taking place in Michigan's Extension service.

My fundamental belief is that people actively construct the reality in which they
live, work and play. The ways in which people make sense of their environment are thus a
matter of their own choosing. This power to decide is to me the most human of
characteristics, and thus one of the most interesting to study. As communication is the
medium through which we share our ideas about the world and construct social reality,
this study of cultural change investigates the rhetoric of both leaders and members for the
structures of meaning which ultimately are the basis for human institutions, among them
Michigan State University Extension.

This thesis is part of a larger research project evaluating the effectiveness of the
cultural change effort in two Michigan State University outreach organizations, MSUE
and the Institute for Children, Youth, and Families (ICYF). Other methods included a
survey at two time points, egocentric network analyses of grantwriting in each
organization, participant office observation and nonparticipant observation of agents in the
field. These multiple methods allowed my research team to combine the richness of
qualitative data with the rigor attained by quantitative analyses to present a compelling
portrait of the two outreach organizations undergoing cultural change.

In the course of completing this thesis, I encountered many problems and

obstacles. The following recommendations for research are intended to be applicable to

iv

similar qualitative approaches, regardless of the type of organization being studied. I hope
these suggestions will prove useful to other researchers.

Work with others. This thesis is part of a larger evaluation project, and has
benefitted greatly from the critiques of other research team members. The insights of
research collaborators are a rich resource, and I cannot imagine attempting such a project
without them.

Identi_fy' key rhetorical documents early and keep copies handy. The documents
used in the historical analysis were all found in the library at Michigan State University,
while the vision statements were obtained from official sources. As these documents set
the stage for the subsequent analysis, it is crucial to have early and frequent access to
them. Having copies constantly available would have saved me much hassle in trying to
chase them down to make sure I had not misinterpreted them after having returned them
to the library or buried them in my files.

Consult an expert in rhetorical @alysis. My department lacks such an expert, and
the result was an extensive search of the library and office shelves for resources that could
provide a menu of methods and details on their use. This project could have been
completed much sooner ifI had decided on my methodology before collecting the
documents and designing the study. Without expert guidance, I made many mistakes
whose correction added to the burden of interpretation.

Work importent themes from early interviews into later ones. Many times I found
that agents in one interview would briefly touch on values and issues that other agents had
discussed in great detail. Comparison would have been much easier if I had the foresight
to build recurrent themes into my question probes for the appropriate point in the next
interview. Of course, this will have to be balanced against the need to let the agent answer
the question in his or her own words without prompting.

When deeming conclusi_0_n_s. think __about whet your respondents would say. In

order to make valid conclusions fi'om a rhetorical analysis, the researcher must be carefirl

V

to avoid slipping into prejudice. By constantly asking if the interpretation given would be
accepted by the people whose responses were the source of data for that conclusion, this
threat can be minimized. Without second-guessing his or her own motives, a researcher
cannot be certain that the resulting conclusions do the respondents justice.

This thesis would not have been completed without the assistance of many people.
Leah Cox Hoopfer, Doug Brahee, and Maggie Bethel of MSUE were very helpful in
editing my questions and locating respondents. The secretaries in the Extension director's
office provided access to Extension documents that were crucial to my developing a sense
of the values and behaviors of importance within Extension. Extension specialists Cynthia
Fridgen and Resource Development Chairperson Frank Fear gave me insightful
suggestions concerning the relationship between field agents and on campus staff, a sense
of Extension's historical importance, and excellent advice in focusing my interests.
Support from MSU‘s Office of the Vice-Provost for University Outreach, via a grant from
the W.K.Kellogg Foundation, enabled me to join a larger research team and carry out the
field research and preparation of the thesis. Research team members Gary Meyer and
Anthony Roberto provided motivation, supplementary information and valuable critiques
through the evolution of the thesis. William Donohue, Cynthia Fridgen and James Dearing
were an exceptional committee to work for, both in quality of assistance and efficiency.

Most importantly, the agents who agreed to answer my questions were all
extremely forthright and articulate in presenting their perspective of what Extension was,

is, and will be. Without their candor, this thesis would not be before you now.

vi

Table of Contents

List of Tables
Notes on Usage
Chapter One: Introduction
Interpreting and Valuing Organizational Discourse
Common Themes, Past and Present
Michigan's Cooperative Extension Service: 1914—1991
Major Events
The Structure of Extension at Michigan State
Priority Issues
Michigan State University Extension: 1991-1994

The Importance of Organizational Culture

Chapter Two: The Creation and Maintenance of Organizational Cultures
Defining Organizational Culture
Cultural Paradigms
Selection into Organizations
The Importance of Value Systems
Maintaining the Status Quo
The Incommensurability of Cultures
Cognitive Consistency and Cultural Commitment
Identification
Summary
The Forces of Change
Models of Environmental Change

vii

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12
14
18
21

22
22
22
24
26
29
29
31
33
34
34
34

Page
Chapter Two: The Creation and Maintenance of Organizational Cultures (cont)

The Forces of Change (cont)
Shifting the Burden of Dissonance 37
Syllogistic Argument and Strategic Ambiguity 38
Summary 41
Research Questions 42
Chapter Three: Investigating MSUE's Campaign and its Effects 44
Data Sources and Analysis 44
Data Collection Strategy for Documents 46
Data Collection Strategy for Interviews 46
Value Analysis Procedures 50
Value Documentation 50
Chapter Four: The Values Foundation of Extension in Michigan 55
The Historical Context of Extension Values 55
1948: The Hannah Report 59
1959: Kearl and Copeland Elaborate on the Scope Report 65
1968: A People and A Spirit 70
1973 V: The Lifelong University at Michigan State 76
1983: Extension in the 80's 82
The Historical Mission of Extension 86
Important Value Clusters Across the Eras of Extension 89
Chapter Five: The Vision of MSUE 96
The Co-Learning Model 96

viii

ii

Chapter Five: The Vision of MSUE (cont)

Bringing the Past into the Present 97
Mission Statements for Extension Program Areas 108
Children, Youth, and Families: Catch the Vision! 108
Agriculture and Natural Resources 113
Community and Economic Development 118
The New Mission of MSUE and its Program Areas 124
Comparison of Vision and Program Areas Value Clusters 126
Program Area Strategies for the Future 133
Implications for Analysis of Interviews 135
Chapter Six: The Field Culture of MSUE 141
Personal Experiences 142
Agent Key Terms 143
MSUE and the University 149
Agent Sense Making 158
Syllogisms and Strategic Ambiguity 169
The Values of the CES, Co-Learning, and the Agents of MSUE 175
Chapter Seven: Changing the Extension Paradigm 179
Recommendations for Extension Leaders 192
Limitations 194
References 196

ix

Table
Table 3.1

Table 4.1
Table 4.2
Table 4.3
Table 4.4
Table 4.5

Table 4.6

Table 5.1
Table 5.2

Table 5.3

Table 5.4

Table 5.5

List of Tables

Title Page
Definitions of Extension Values 52-4
Mission Statements Across the History of Extension 57-8
Key Terms and Value Clusters in 1948 (National CBS) 64
Key Terms and Value Clusters in 1959 (National CBS) 69
Key Terms and Value Clusters in 1968 (National CBS) 75
Key Terms and Value Clusters in 1973 (Michigan State University)

81
Key Terms and Value Clusters in 1983 (National CBS) 85
Key Terms and Value Clusters in the 1992 MSUE Vision 106-7
Key Terms and Value Clusters in the 1993 CYF Mission Statement

112
Key Terms and Value Clusters in the 1993 ANR Mission Statement

1 17
Key Terms and Value Clusters in the 1993 CED Mission Statement

122
Key Terms Across the History of Extension 123

NOTES ON USAGE

A few important notes on usage are required to make sense of the following
presentation of results. First, the term Extension is used to refer to the organization being
studied, while extension is used to describe the process used by agents in fulfilling their
organizational responsibilities. Second, the historical trends noted in the documents
reviewed are collectively termed the Extension tradition; when a program area name is
placed in front of "Extension," the specific program area's tradition is being cited. Third,
the dates used in the text refer to the specific Extension documents analyzed in Chapter
Four. Fourth, the terms "vision" and "MSUE vision" refer to the overall change initiative
in Michigan State's Extension service, operationalized as the 1992 presentation at the
Extension School and described in the first halfof Chapter Five. Fifth, the abbreviations
CYF, ANR and CED are used to identify the program area mission statements discussed
in the second half of Chapter Five. Finally, the mission of Extension will be contrasted as
focused on either empowermgt or being empowering. The distinction here is between a
view that requires agents to give their clients power in order to empower them for future
self-learning (empowerment) and a view that Extension helps people recognize how they
can empower themselves, a process that is facilitated by but does not require Extension
program assistance (empowering). Because this distinction is central to the rhetorical
analysis, it is necessary to make this distinction clear up fiont. The implications will be

developed in the text.

xi

CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION

Organizations are an essential part of modern society. They help to structure our
everyday experiences. This structuring allows us to function with an acceptable level of
uncertainty. By organizing the social world into manageable parts, reality is constructed in
particular ways that permit people to focus on what is important to them. For example,
churches help people explore their spirituality. Businesses encourage employees to
develop product or service expertise. Schools educate students to be critical thinkers.

Every organization, whether a church, business, school, or other type, has a
culture with a set of values, norms, and goals that structure the experiences of its
members. Understanding an organizational culture requires understanding the
organization's mission, history, and people. Then the criteria for evaluating change
initiatives can be established, and evaluation carried out. Knowing how an organization

measures its success is a key to knowing how to interpret its culture.

Interpreting and Valuing Organizational Discourse

An organization is a pattern of communicative relationships directed towards a set
of common or complementary goals. The messages sent between people and units within
the organization, and between people and units and the external environment, comprise
what the organization is and does. Thus, communication is central to organizations and
how they organize for action. Communication is a process of information exchange in
which participants seek shared meaning and understanding. Over time in organizations,
repeated patterns of communicating lead to a shared sense of meanings and
understandings that we recognize as culture.

1

2
What is culture, and why is it important to organizations? Culture is a way of
seeing the world, legitimized by the consent of its members who have found this vision
useful in guiding and operating the organization (Schein, 1992). Culture is a shared way
of thinking, a cognitive framework (Kuhn, 1970) that structures one's experience. Gersick
(1991) elaborates on Kuhn (1970) to create a model with three basic components: Deep

structure, equilibrium periods, and revolutionary periods. Deep structure is:

the set of firndamental "choices" a system has made of (l) the basic parts
into which the units will be organized and (2) the basic activity patterns
that will maintain its existence. (Gersick, 1991: 14)

In this model, organizations are essentially symbolic communication systems constructed
to facilitate a particular type of exchange with their environments. The development of
the deep structure occurs at two levels. In the first, occurring during equilibrium periods,
deep structure interacts with the environment to maintain equilibrium and increase the
culture's sophistication without altering its firndamental choices. In the second,
revolutionary periods, there is a dramatic shift in the firndamental choices of the deep
structure, with one set replacing another. These opposite processes are both necessary if
an organization is to continue to be responsive to its environment: Sometimes change will
be incremental, and other times it will have to replace one vision with another in order for
the organization to survive.

The anthropologist Clifford Geertz defines culture as a means of interpreting the

world:

Believing...that man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he
himself has spun, I take culture to be those webs, and the analysis of it to
be therefore not an experimental science in search of law but an interpretive
one in search of meaning (Geertz, 1973: 5).

As symbolic communication systems constructed by their members to facilitate meaningfirl
exchanges with their environments, organizations er_e cultures. Thus, the study of

organizations should be the study of the patterns of meaning adopted by organizational

3
members to make sense of the world and to structure their actions within it. Messages
communicated between members of the organization are, over time, the "webs of
significance" that we recognize as culture. The importance of culture is in how it guides
and directs our ways of thinking and acting by structuring experiences through the
reduction of uncertainty.
Because culture is a symbolic communication system, it is not accessible to normal

methods of scientific research. Geertz states that

the ethnographer "inscribes" social discourse; he writes it down. In so
doing, he turns it from a passing event, which exists only in its own
moment of occurrence, into an account, which exists in its inscriptions and
can be reconsulted. (italics from original; Geertz, 1973: 19)

The scientific method cannot define culture as independent and dependent variables
because culture is more a context than an attribute. People belong to a culture, they do
not possess it. In studying culture, the researcher must enter into a system of collective
symbolizing and strive to make sense of it from within. That is, researchers must observe
the ongoing process of social construction between members of an organization as they
perform their daily duties and face new challenges (Smircich and Calas, 1987: 244). The

goal of culture research is not to predict and control, but to understand:

Our double task is to uncover the conceptual structures that inform our
subjects' acts, the "said" of social discourse, and to construct a system of
analysis in whose terms what is generic to those structures, what belongs to
them because they are what they are, will stand out against the other
determinants of human behavior. In ethnography, the office of theory is to
provide a vocabulary in which what symbolic action has to say about itself -
that is, about the role of culture in human life - can be expressed. (Geertz,
1973227)

The interpretive method of value analysis used in this thesis is based on rhetorical
criticism. Rhetorical criticism is a method of analyzing the symbols deliberately
formulated by the rhetor to accomplish a specific purpose (Foss, 1989: 5). It assumes that

these symbols create the reality in which we live, just as the symbolic communication of

4
cultures is described as doing. The unit of analysis in rhetorical criticism is the rhetorical
artifact, the tangible evidence of a rhetorical act (Foss, 1989: 5). The rhetorical act is the
sending of a symbolic message, whether it be a speech, publication, painting, or song. The
questions posed by rhetorical criticism focus on understanding particular symbols and how
they operate (Foss, 1989: 5). In this thesis, the symbols of interest are the values that
comprise organizational culture, the standards for justifying the actions of the organization
during its campaign for cultural change, and the actions of its members doing their jobs.

In giving up the objective aims of traditional science, researchers take on difl‘erent
burdens. First, in interpretive research, credibility comes fi'om the researcher more than
the method. The researcher must persuasively argue for a particular construction,
demonstrating its cohesion, explanatory power, and elegance. Second, it is very difficult
to systematically assess culture. As Geertz puts it, "We are reduced to insinuating theories
because we lack the power to state them." (Geertz, 1973: 24) Third, the researcher must
view other cultures as being in opposition, rather than attempting to assimilate them into a
dominant paradigm. Smircich and Calas (1987) argue that efforts to extend existing
paradigms to encompass difi‘erent cultures fi'om one's own destroy the important elements
of the other culture, forcing it to sacrifice its own uniqueness to gain acceptance under a
different paradigm. A paradigm is the entire constellation of beliefs, values, and
techniques that are shared by the members of a given community (Kuhn, 1970: 175).
Given this definition, Kuhn asserts that paradigms (and cultures) are incommensurable:
One paradigm cannot be judged by the standards of another.

Cultural values play very different roles in equilibrium than they do in revolution.
Equilibrium is a stability that preserves the benefits of a culture and allows participants to
communicate with little fear of misunderstanding. In order for this to occur, the elements
of the culture must be mutually reinforcing and non-contradictory. To the extent that the
culture contains contrary elements, ambiguity will exist in the meanings of messages sent

within that context. The more contrary elements exist, the greater the likelihood that a

5
culture will experience revolutionary change. When a revolution occurs, the basic
assumptions of the existing culture are called into question, and a new means of resolving
ambiguity is informally negotiated between the members of that culture. This change
process will have multiple phases. Members of the culture will "escape" the crisis at
different phases, finding a new culture or adapting the old to accommodate the changes
they are forced to make. Others will actively or passively resist change.

The focus of this thesis is on (1) messages about change sent by organization
leaders, and (2) the interpretations generated by members of the organizational culture in
response to leadership messages. In order to make sense of these interpretations, the deep
structure of the existing culture will have to be understood. First, common themes of the
organization's history will be studied to isolate those values that recur throughout the
evolution of the organization's mission, structure, and values. Second, the change
initiative by leadership will be presented. Third, organizational members' interpretations of

the change initiative will be analyzed and compared with the change initiative itself.

Common Themes, Past and Present

The United States Cooperative Extension Service (CES) was established by the
Smith-Lever Act of 1914 as part of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).
The organization of interest here is the Michigan state branch, renamed Michigan State
University Extension in 1991. The original rrrission of the CES was to educate US.
citizens in agricultural know-how, drawing on the knowledge base of each state's land-
grant university to solve constituent problems and prepare those constituents to solve the
problems themselves in the future. The purpose of the CBS in the state branches was to
bring education to people who would not otherwise have an opportunity to learn new
techniques and develop their fill] potential. The CBS consistently reaffirmed its goal of

making its constituents self-reliant and contributing members of society. "Constituent"

6
initially meant farmers, but the original wording of the Smith-Lever Act and the charters
for land-grant universities established under the Morrill Acts of 1862 and 1890
emphasized that the constituents were the citizens of each state, and ultimately the entire
country. While agriculture was the dominant occupation in the U. 8, it is no longer. Only
three percent of the US. population is now employed in agricultural production. The
dynamics of agricultural production, storage, marketing, and delivery have become
dominated by agribusinesses.

As the industry has changed, so too has the mission of the CES. As early as 1948,
the Joint Committee Report on Extension Proggams, Policies, epd Goals specifically
advocated extending university knowledge to non-farm families in rural areas as part of
the mission of the CES. There has been a recurrent concern with the knowledge
possessed by county agents. The level of technical knowledge that an agent is expected to
have has always been more than was the case for the majority of agents. This has been
seen as troublesome whenever their responsibilities have broadened or changed, which has
occurred every 10-15 years since 1948. Disciplinary boundaries within the CES that
restricted interdisciplinary study and certification have been attacked since at least 1955,
but the boundaries have remained largely intact. These facts about the CES are the
foundation for the present investigation of a recent attempt to refiame the Extension
mission in the state of Michigan.

The need for institutions of higher learning for farmers was noted as far back as
1796 by President George Washington (Rasmussen, 1989: 17). Over the next 60 years,
the support for agricultural colleges grew, culmimting in the founding of state agricultural
colleges in Pennsylvania and Michigan in 1855. Seven years later, the first Morrill Land-
Grant College Act gave every state 30,000 acres of federal land for each member of
Congress fi'om that state. These lands were to be used as a site or sold and the profits
used to set up a trust firnd for the endowment of a practical college for agriculture and

engineering. Most states sold their scrip and used the profits to establish new agricultural

7

and mechanical colleges (Rasmussen, 1989: 23). These institutions were established in
response to a need for institutions of higher learning apart from the traditional East Coast
schools, which were too distant, too expensive, and otherwise not practical for the vast
majority of Midwestern and Western farmers. In 1906, the idea of a movable school for
teaching farm families about planting, preserving, and marketing had taken form in several
states (Rasmussen, 1989: 30). When the Smith-Lever Act was signed into law in 1914,
Extension services were organized under each state's land-grant college as a division of
the federal Cooperative Extension Service (CBS), a division of USDA. The stated
purpose of Extension was to aid in the difiusion of usefirl and practical information to the
people of the United States and encourage the application of that information (Rogers,
Eveland, and Bean, 1976).

While the same phrases and ideas appear in official documents about the CES from
1948 through the 19803, their importance relative to each other differs by era. Education
was deemed necessary because most farmers were ignorant of the basic principles
underlying their profession. To a degree, this initial purpose has continued to characterize
CES missions. When discussing CES constituencies, there is disagreement within
Extension about how central agriculture should be to the CES mission in the 1990s. If
agriculture was initially important because it was the primary industry in the nation, what
takes its place now? The broad scope presented in the 1968 report A People and A Spirit
about the CES' firture concerns and obligations suggests that there are too many
candidates for any one choice to be satisfactory to everyone. Agriculture remains an
important concern. Early documents that emphasized its fundamental importance to the
well-being of the country are not necessarily outdated. That is, the ability to generate
enormous food supplies and surpluses remains a mighty pillar of US. society.

The structures built to firlfill the Smith-Lever Act's mandate of bringing practical
education to the people of the U. S. are almost entirely under the authority of university

agricultural departments, and the CES itself has an preponderance of agricultural agents in

8
positions of power. The organization holds agriculture at its heart. Attempts to change
that focus arouse passionate resistance from those whose lives have been spent in this
form of service to the citizens of the US. In the present thesis, the section on paradigm
commitment (Chapter Two) demonstrates the difficulty in making a distinction between
what an organization's mission is and what its primary concern is at a certain time, and
thereby explains how a position that is known to be false can still remain a potent political
issue within an organization.

The need for both better and continuously educated agents continually surfaces
because their responsibilities continually increase and diversify. The original two divisions
of Agriculture and Home Demonstration have grown to encompass youth work,
marketing, conservation, resource development, and environmental protection and
restoration. Expecting agents to have usefirl knowledge about all of these areas is an
ambitious expectation, yet one that agents have struggled to meet for decades, often
succeeding through determination, dedication, and the insight that comes from long-time
familiarity with one's work.

In sum, the history of CES rhetoric gives ample ammunition to the cynic who
claims that new ideas in Extension are merely new packaging for the same old dogma.
Similar problems are identified in CES reports from the 1940s to the 19903. It is up to the
current leadership of the organization to make the case that the new changes are both
difl‘erent and necessary for the organization to continue to meet its goals and live up to the
spirit of its mission. Whether leaders are convincing depends on the common themes they
can draw on to make their case without alienating the agents they must convert if the

change is to be successful.

9

Michigan's Cooperative Extension Service: 1914 - 1991

In Michigan, the Cooperative Extension Service has been very successful. By
1920, there was an Extension agent in every county (Olstrom and Miller, 1984). As in
other states, the primary mission of the Michigan CES has been agriculture; however,
there have been 4-H clubs since 1908, and by 1917 Home Demonstration Agents (today's
Home Economists) were officially recognized within the CES. The present historical
analysis focuses on: (1) the major events that had an effect on the CBS; (2) the structure

of the CES in Michigan; and (3) the priority issues in each decade.

Major Events

The CES'S contribution to the World War II war efl‘ort was to ensure greater farm
production. Home Demonstration Agents helped families do their part to save resources
for the war, while 83,000 Michigan students worked as farm volunteers in 1943. The
CES also played an instrumental role in carrying out emergency programs to take care of
imported labor: Housing, transport, food, training and locating programs were all run by
the CES through 1947. Agents consulted on everything from draft deferments to farm
supply rationing. In these activities, the values of a united effort and the direction of the
Extension agents were unquestioned; had they not been, the effort would have failed, for a
strong and consistent campaign was necessary to lead the people of the U. S. to triumph
through hard work, conservation and sacrifice. If there had been any doubt about the
ability of the CES to have an impact on the lives of the people in Michigan, the war erased
them.

The period from the end of the war to the University's Centennial in 1955
encompassed enormous growth of both Michigan State College (rechristened Michigan
State University in 1955) and the CES. In 1950, Michigan State had 20,000 students, up

10

from 6,000 a decade earlier, and Michigan farmers doubled the value of their farms
between 1940 and 1950.1 Eficiency was an unquestioned value, both for the new
university and for the farmers of the state. By providing the new techniques for farming
that were enabling farmers to grow more with less, the CES helped to increase the supply
beyond demand. Agriculture branched out into marketing to help farmers deal with
surpluses. International exporting became an Extension concern. The number of
Agriculture Agents went fi'om 75 in 1950 (many of whom also had Home Demonstration
and 4-H responsibilities), to 117 in 1960 (73 County Extension Directors supported by 44
other Agriculture Agents). Overall, there were 418 full-time positions in the CBS in 1960
(Olstrom and Miller, 1984).

The number of farmers dwindled from a third of the US. population (32 million) in
1910 to a sixth in 1950 (25 million) to only two and a halfpercent in 1986 (5.2 million)
(Rasmussen, 1989: 119). While this trend was accelerating in the 1960s, the CES
responded to the social outcries of that era by diversifying its efforts in urban areas and
expanding programs to meet a growing number of social ills. In the 1960s, the federal
government branched out into a wide array of social services. Some of these services
helped the CES; others forced cutbacks, in both county service and size of major divisions
(such as marketing). The Home Economists and 4-H leaders moved out from under the
shadow of the Agriculture program areas to establish their own programs and increase
both their numbers and their role in serving their constituents. The CBS Family Living
(formerly Home Econonrics) program area focused its efforts on helping people in urban
areas negotiate the maze of federal social programs and began a few of its own. One of
the most important of these was the Expanded Nutrition Program (ENP), which arrived in
1968 backed by $1.5 rrrillion in federal funds for its first year alone. ENP quickly became

a major part of Family Living, funding 136 aides drawn from county volunteers to assist in

 

1 Average acreage increased a mere 15 acres over the same
time period.

1 1
the dissemination of nutritional information to all the people of Michigan (Olstrom and
Miller, 1984: 122). While the resources of the CES remained predominantly tied up with
agricultural programs, grants and private firnding began to be awarded to non-agriculture
programs. The CBS was no longer a single-purpose entity; it was diversifying in reaction
to the changing needs of the people it was created to serve.

By the late 1960s, there was a significant trend towards large corporate farming, as
smaller farmers were driven out of the market by their inability to afford the farming
equipment necessary to achieve large yields and thus make a living selling crops in a
glutted market. US. agriculture, guided by the CES, was a victim of its own success. In
creating a vast resource to meet the U.S.'s level of consumption, U.S. agriculture forced
down the price of its products, with the result that farmers lost money by growing more.
What was good for the individual was not good for the collective. As new technologies
made it more economically viable for a few people to produce huge yields, hundreds of
thousands of farmers lost their livelihood.

Entering the 1970s, agriculture employed a shrinking number of farmers. While
the energy crisis raised prices in the early 19703, those prices had plummeted by the late
70s. By the end of the decade, there were 40,000 farms with sales of less than $10,000,
which placed even the thriftiest of families below the poverty line (Olstrom and Miller,
1984). The worst blow came in 1973, when a small chemical company mixed toxic
chemicals into a large feed additive order. Thousands of livestock were poisoned and had
to be slaughtered, putting hundreds of farmers out of business. There was little the CES
could do to ease the impact of this disaster. By 1980 the CES was refocusing its
programs on urban audiences, the social problems of farmers, and environmental issues.
Agribusiness was a two billion dollar industry, and the private farmer, the traditional

constituent of the CES, was becoming scarce.

12

The Structure of Extension at Michigan State

The CBS in Michigan has been under the administration of the College of
Agriculture and Natural Resources at Michigan State University since its founding.
However, the three original program areas within the CES - Agriculture, 4-I-I, and Home
Economics - have kept separate lines of authority. In 1941, the three program areas of
the CES - then called County Agriculture Agents, Boys' and Girls' Club Work, and Home
Demonstration - each had their own leaders at the state level, who were responsible for
their program area's programming, personnel management, and supervision. Starting in
1945, there were periodic attempts to make greater sense out of the organization's
structure. The 1945 effort proposed grouping Specialists in their respective subject matter
departments on campus, but it failed to move the specialists out from under the control of
the state-level administrators; the value of each program area's autonomy was too strong.
1945 also saw the creation of County Extension Directors (CEDs), who were agents
responsible for the administrative duties of the CBS in their county. While "permissive
legislation" (from Olstrom and Miler, 1984: 24) allowed agents fiom all three program
areas to be CEDs, the first non-Agriculture CED did not take office until 197 5. Finally,
the Home Demonstration Agents (who were to become Home Economists in 1965) were
made extramural faculty in the School of Home Economics (now the College of Human
Ecology) in 1945, thus granting them the same stature as the Agriculture Agents, who
were traditionally extramural faculty in the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources
(Olstrom and Miller, 1984: 23).

In 1955, CES Director Durward Varner was appointed Vice Provost of the newly
renamed Michigan State University, with the responsibility of coordinating all off-campus
programs for education, including both Extension and Continuing Education. Continuing
Education, initially attempted in 1926 under then-President Butterfield and a permanent

part of Michigan State since 1948, was concerned with formal education of adults, as

1 3
compared to the informal learning that was the mission of Extension. The uniting of these
two classes of programs was part of a larger effort to unify and coordinate MSU'S
research, teaching and public service functions. It was not successful (Olstrom and Miller,
1984). The coordination of goals conflicted with the values of specialization and program
area autonomy, and the refocus never took hold.

The decade of the 19503 also saw the rise of marketing within Extension, as food
prices dropped due to agricultural over-production. Michigan State, in a high growth
mode led by its internationally minded president, John Hannah, became an international
leader in extension. The Institute of Extension Personnel Development was founded at
the university in 195 7, and quickly became a leading center for extension graduate
education. As an example of the Michigan CES' national prominence, directors Varner
and Miller both went on to become presidents of land-grant universities following their
time as CES directors in Michigan (Olstrom and Miller, 1984: 84).

An internal budget crisis in 1965 resulted in a reorganization of field agents,
making two to three agents responsible for a multi-county area (as many as 5 counties per
office in the Upper Peninsula). The positions of aides and assistants were created to do
the routine work, thus fi'eeing up the agents to travel around their counties.2 Along with
this reorganization came several name changes: Home Demonstration Agents were
renamed Home Economists, and Boys' and Girls' Club Work became 4-H Youth
Development. The 1960s also saw the creation of Economic Development Districts,
which were groups of counties organized to plan community development under the aegis
of the U. S. Department of Commerce. AS community-level service was rising in
importance in Extension circles, the CES was a significant contributor to the Economic

Development Districts. Community Resource Development became a hill partner in the

 

2 Much of the early funding for aides and agents came from
ENP grants, and the reliance on "soft" grant money for aides
and assistants has continued to this day.

14

federal CES, raising its number of program areas to five (along with 4-H, Family Living,
Agriculture, and Marketing). However, the focus of Community Resource Development
(and its future incarnations as Resource Development in 1969 and Natural Resources and
Public Policy in 1974) was unclear. Natural and human resources were lumped together
under the same name without explanation, confusing the agents who had been socialized
to see Agriculture as one part and human development (Home Economics and 4-H) as a
separate (but supportive) part of Extension.

During the 19703, many changes occurred in the structure of the CES. A new
personnel rating system was instituted, and used as the basis for granting "continuing
employmen " (the agents' equivalent of faculty tenure) at the end of 4, 5 or 6 years in the
CES. In 1974, Marketing was absorbed by Agriculture, and Resource Development was
renamed Natural Resources and Public Policy. The first non-Agriculture CED was
appointed in the mid-703; before the decade was over there were a dozen non-Agriculture
CEDs among the eighty or so CED positions. These changes reflected a major shift in the
nature of the problems faced by CES agents, and marked the beginning of a rethinking of

Extension.

Priority Issues

The issues focus of the CES has changed dramatically over its existence. In the
19403, increasing farm production and helping people conserve resources for the war were
the unquestioned goals of all agents. Over the next four decades, there would be periodic
restatements of goals and attempted clarifications of the CES mission. The Scope Report
of 1958 underscored program development in the areas of: (1) efficiency in agricultural
production; (2) efficiency in marketing, distribution and utilization; (3) conservation,
development and use of natural resources; (4) farm and home management; (5) family

living; (6) youth development; (7) leadership development; (8) community improvement

1 5

and resource development; and (9) public affairs (see Kearl and Copeland, 1959). While
the primary goals remained the same, the list grew longer. The value of conserving and
cultivating natural resources was broadened to include human resources, although the aim
was more often an attempt to ease a crisis than to promote human capabilities. The
development of social science in the university paralleled the growth of non-agricultural
concerns, and by the 19603 the CES was deeply involved in addressing social issues.

During the 19603, the other divisions of the CES put forth their own plans for the
future. The Marketing division's 1960 work plan emphasized the following services for
producers: (l) interpretation of market information; (2) evaluating quality, grades and
standards; (3) sales policies; (4) market efficiency; and (5) the interpretation of state laws
and regulations. The obvious value in these services was the translation of difficult issues
and processes into plain language for the formally uneducated community. As previously
noted, the educational mission for the CES had no criteria for evaluating its own success
in raising constituents' awareness of important issues. Therefore, it is possible that
instruction in basic principles was no longer appropriate for all or even most constituents if
their level of education was higher than before. For suppliers and market firms the CES
emphasized: (l) the organization of structure of systems and firms; (2) organizational
efliciency, procurement, pricing and distribution; (3) financial and legal management; (4)
personnel management; (5) product and market development; and (6) market technology
and engineering (Olstrom and Miller, 1984: 120-1). Here, the dominant values are clearly
order and efficiency. The marketing division was concerned with making the right
information available to those who needed it, and providing better decision-making
processes for business than were currently in use. Unfortunately, the cutbacks of 1965-66
prevented a systematic dissemination of specific knowledge as advocated in the work plan.

4-H clubs set four goals for youth development in their 1961-62 plan: (1)
intellectual potential; (2) lasting personal values; (3) healthy minds and bodies; and (4)
interpersonal leadership (Olstrom and Miller, 1984: 128). The social science influence is

1 6
readily apparent here in the value placed on guided human development. Also apparent is
the hope that by educating the next generation, the problems faced by the current one can
be ameliorated. In 1963, Family Living put out a "Future Directions" report, which stated
that its goals were to help families: (1) develop and use the abilities of each individual for
productive living; (2) make use of goods and services and other resources; and (3)
contribute toward community social improvement (Olstrom and Miller, 1984). The
emphasis here is on the values of efficient use of resources and thrifiiness in using those
resources, goals similar to the drive for efficiency in Agriculture formally recognized in
1959 (Kearl and Copeland, 1959: 4-7).

The national 1968 report A Peeple and a Spirit set as its major goal improving the
quality of living, and targeted the disadvantaged and "young marrieds" just starting out.
The specific goals were to: (1) enhance the quality of decisions; (2) increase the ability to
interact effectively with others; (3) strengthen the ability to effectively utilize and influence
community services; and (4) enhance social, economic, and geographic mobility (Olstrom
and Miller, 1984: 121). These goals were a far cry fi'om traditional family services for
rural farm families. The shift was from the older values of stability and thrift to the values
of active involvement and participation by urban and other non-rural constituents,
individuals as well as families, in Extension programs. The terminology used suggests the
presence of social science ideas derived from the literature on human resources,
leadership, persuasion, and decision making. Also present was the idea of interaction
between community and extension services, where the community invests in programs
developed and run by the CES. The extension methods suggested here are a significant
shift from the dissemination focus of the Agriculture programs.

In the 19703, the growth of tourism into one of the state's three leading industries
led to a focus on environmental issues. The 1977 priority issues were defined as job
opportunity, energy conservation, and crime prevention (Olstrom and Miller, 1984). The

distinction between the divisions of the CES became more and more apparent, as the

1 7

Agricultural constituency shrank and social problems continued to escalate. Natural
Resources and Public Policy focused mainly on environmental issues, managing the natural
resources of Michigan and taking the lead in educating people about how to save energy
during the crisis of the early 19703. However, the structure of the CES remained centered
on agriculture even as the ratio of resources to constituency size and need increased. The
Extension values of directed education, agent initiative, and a limited focus on issues of
obvious practical importance were continuously reinforced and the imbalance of resources
unchallenged until the mid-19803, when a new mission for the CES began to take shape.

The CBS today is a sprawling web of diverse programs in hundreds of
communities across the country. Instead of a nation of rural farms, it faces a nation of
rising high-tech industries, production giants struggling to reinvent themselves, and a
suburban majority. Rogers et al. (1976) list the changes in the US. since the founding of
the CES: (1) small private farms have been replaced by corporate owned agribusinesses;
(2) agricultural production is now far higher than demand; (3) the farm population has
dropped to 2.5% of the whole; (4) the efficiency of labor has risen astronomically; and (5)
the land-grant universities have evolved from agricultural colleges to research universities
encompassing a much broader number of departments. In the 19903, the needs of the US
population now center on social ills: Drugs, broken families, crime, and environmental
degradation. Social expectations are high for accessible educational resources on a variety
of sociological, psychological, economic, and environmental issues, and there is no more
extensive network than the CES. The CBS met the challenge of agricultural production
and triumphed; now it debates its mission, and weighs whether it should attempt to answer
new challenges, serve a more diverse constituency, or commit itself to the maintenance of

existing programs for traditional constituents.

18

Michigan State University Extension: 1991 through 1994

In 1987, Paul Dressel's book College to University; The Haring Years at
Michigen State 193 5-1969 was published. One of the major themes of the book was the

former president's desire for Michigan State to serve its land-grant firnction in as many
ways as possible, including but not restricting itself to agriculture. Dressel (1987) notes
that even in the early 19503, faculty didn't care for extension work: "the faculty now
expected public service to yield private gain" (Dressel, 1987: 223). This attitude only
grew stronger with time, until the 19803 when the gap between field and campus staff was
a yawning chasm with only a few bridges strung precariously across it. The 1989 Cantlon
Report documented these problems: Absent linkages between agents with questions and
the specialists who could answer them, uneven support for different Extension programs,
and underappreciated specialists and field staff. The Cantlon Report recommended
improving lines of access for field staff to specialists, rewarding programs that benefitted
constituents in a way that did not destroy the program's eflicacy, increasing each and every
member's involvement with the organizational mission, and the appointment of a
committee to update the CES mission and vision. These two documents represented a
shift in the way leaders of Extension organizations conceived of the process of outreach,
and led directly to the change effort that is the subject of this thesis.

In 1988, Michigan State University began the process of reorganizing its
administrative structure and taking another look at its mission as one of the nation's few
universities that are both Association of American Universities-designated research
universities and federally designated land-grant institutions. The W.K.Kellogg Foundation
granted the university $10.2 million to support a new and integrated lifelong education
reorganization. James C. Votruba was named Assistant Provost for Lifelong Education.
In 1991, Gail L. Imig was chosen as Extension Director, the first non-Agriculture Agent

emf the first woman to hold that position at Michigan State. An awareness of

1 9

demographic and economic shifts committed the university to a campaign designed to
change the purpose and process of Extension in Michigan. Votruba and Imig began to
reconceptualize lifelong education and certain Extension firnctions as "outreach." The
name of the CES was changed to Michigan State University Extension (MSUE) as a sign
of its changing culture. MSUE consolidated the 4-H, Home Economics, and Family
Living units under the Children, Youth, and Families (CYF) program area, while
Agriculture and Natural Resources (ANR) were joined, eliminating the Natural Resources
and Public Policy program. Together with Community and Economic Development
(CED), these program areas represented the new diversity and broader mission that the
university leaders wanted for MSUE. In 1991, the university outreach regional ofiices
were consolidated with the MSUE regional offices, signaling a degree of integration of
outreach and Extension. A greater integration of Extension with the academic portion of
the university was interpreted by some as opportunity, and by others as a threat.

The report Pieneering the Lepd Qapt Univgsity fer the Tweng-firg Century
(1991) described the environment of Michigan institutions of higher education as facing
constrained resources, shifting interests of students and other constituents, and great
dynamism in many fields of knowledge. The Extension tradition of socially responsible,
high quality advanced education and research for the public good had to be made relevant
to the new environment. This was to require dramatic change. Perhaps the most central
value advocated by the report was that of collaboration, a mutually beneficial process of
working with the constituent, other agents and campus faculty to apply both university-
and community-based knowledge to problems (Roberto, Meyer, Preston, and Dearing,
1994). This was in contrast to the standard model of knowledge dissemination, where
knowledge was generated by the university and applied by the agent to solve community-
based problems. The new goal was the empowerment of clients, teaching them to answer

their own questions, solve their own problems, and teach the next generation themselves.

2 0
Yet for many, the new term appeared to have little distinction fiom what had always been
done.

In 1992, the university Provost appointed a university committee comprised of
deans, directors, and chairpersons to evaluate the extent and importance of outreach at
Michigan State. While the committee deliberated for 18 months, Director Imig and the
heads of the three program areas took the lead in an "Issues Identification Process," in line
with a national trend by extension organizations. This regionally-based process asked
constituents what Extension services they used and what they would need from MSUE in
the future. The process was described as "inclusive, continuous, and democratic" Me
on Michigep's Fpture, 1992) and divided responsibilities between campus administrators,
field staff, and several specially designed "information management" teams. The first
phase involved preparation for gathering the needed information by establishing
comrrrittees and work groups to run the process. The second phase encompassed the
identification, clarification, and prioritization of the issues identified through meetings with
targeted groups. The third phase involved the identification of needed partnerships within
communities and regional synthesis of important issues. Fourth, the results of the overall
process and response options were reported back to the central committee. Plans were
made to disseminate the results to the organization, its partners, and clientele. Last, the
process was to be evaluated and adjusted as needed to ensure that the new
institutionalized procedures would be effective in answering client needs.

Through this Issues Identification process, conference speeches, university
publications, and word of mouth, the message of change was spread throughout MSUE.
Constituents were to have an important and formative voice in MSUE direction. In the
generation of issues at the regional meetings, Agriculture was rarely represented in the
issues concluded to be "most important." The difference between past and firture was
readily apparent. The improved coordination of Extension agents, new cooperative

arrangements between Michigan State, other universities in the state, and community

2 1
organizations, and an emphasis on including constituents in collaborative planning for all

program areas are all elements of the vision for the firture.

The Importance of Organizational Culture

The central concern of this thesis is to explore the ways in which members of an
organization interpret messages that are intended to change their organizational culture.
Starting fi'om a definition of culture, this paper will identify the key Extension value
clusters present in (1) Extension documents, and (2) interviews with Extension agents.
The value clusters elicited will reveal the heart of the existing culture of Extension and the
new vision for it. This approach to the problem of cultural evolution and change will lead
to a model for interpretation and action by the members of an organizational culture. The
terminology will incorporate terms from a number of research literatures, but the major
focus will be on culture as a paradigm. Through this focus, the processes by which
individual members make sense of their world will be described and categorized, and
general recommendations made for firture efforts at guiding a paradigm shift within an

organization.

CHAPTER TWO
THE CREATION AND MAINTENANCE OF ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE

Defining Organizational Culture

Cultural Paradigms

Culture is a way of seeing the world, legitimized by the consent of its members
who have found this vision useful in guiding and operating the organization (Schein,
1992). This definition suggests that culture operates as a paradigm, a structured world-
view that not only defines the content of interpretation but also the process by which this
content is constructed and the standards against which it is measured. Thus, a paradigm is
not only a map, but also the directions for map-making (Kuhn, 1970: 109).

The elements of organizational culture are threefold, according to Schein (1992):
(1) The level of basic assumptions, or deep structure (Gersick, 1991), the foundation for
the organization as a social entity; (2) the level of values, which are the means of applying
these assumptions to define both what is possible and what is desirable; and (3) the level
of artifacts, or behaviors that have meanings within the framework of those values.
Organizations begin with the explicit goals of their founders, goals that structure the
organization and define the processes used in achieving those goals. These goals are
designed to bring the organization into its first equilibrium period (Gersick, 1991). Over
time, repetition of communication becomes patterned, thereby embedding values deeply in
the processes and explicit goals of the organization. The culture grows stronger with
time. When values are left unchallenged, they come to be primary assumptions of
organizational members about what is right and good. The values that are referred to
most fiequently and emphasized with the greatest intensity become the basic assumptions

of the organization, and as such structure members' views of the world in which the
2 2

23

organization exists. Thus, the deep structure of organizational culture is created by
members' increasing confidence in the values derived from those initial, often arbitrary,
decisions about how to behave in the process of achieving explicit goals. Over time,
alternatives are inconceivable. At this point the organization is described as mature. Its
culture is frozen (Schein, 1992).

The role of values in the everyday functioning of organizations must be examined.
Values are standards of preference for selecting between actions based on cognitive,
affective, and directional criteria (Williams, 1979; Schein, 1992). Values are touchstones
for those who wish to demonstrate their understanding of the organization's history and
their commitment to its purposes. To use Williams' (1979) phrase, values are judgments
about what should be, built upon the framework of what is. However, to take values one
by one is to ignore their most important attribute: They are relative for any one person or
other unit, and so some values are more important than others. Value systems must be
examined in order to get at the differences between organizations, individuals, or cultures.
Therefore, the effect of any one value on behavior is mediated by the place of the value in
an organization member's value hierarchy (Rokeach, 1979) and their perception of the
degree to which the value is truly relevant to a specific situation.

The idea of a value hierarchy is an important one, but it is not a sufficient definition
for a culture. Rokeach (1973) claims that two types of values exist, terminal and
instrumental. Terminal values are a desired end-state, whereas instrumental values are the
accepted means of working towards that end-state. However, Rokeach errs in separating
the two types into separate hierarchies. If instrumental values are important because they
provide a standard for judging one's pursuit of terminal values, they should not be
separated in measurement. Instrumental values may have varying import for different
terminal values. For example, the instrumental value of ambition might be seen as more
important when applied to the terminal value of happiness than to the terminal value of

salvation, regardless of the terminal value's relative importance in the individual's

24

hierarchy. The implication for measurement is that Rokeach's (1973) one dimensional,
parallel hierarchies cannot represent the complexity of organizational cultures, where
different terminal and instrumental value combinations are simultaneously held by
members with different organizational roles and responsibilities. Terminal and instrumental
values must be measured conditionally in order to present a valid picture of the

organizational culture.

Selection into Organizations

Values and basic assumptions are the foundation for socialization into an
organization. The mission of leadership is to promote a vision, which serves as a standard
for doing things and evaluating outcomes of one's actions (Gioia and Chittipeddi, 1991).
Leadership is an everyday phenomenon, not an exceptional one; if it is less obvious in the
day to day functioning of the organization, it is no less important. Members need to be
similar in outlook for the organization to succeed in its chosen purpose.l Leaders are
responsible for promoting the "cultural paradigm" under which all members are expected
to operate. The messages of the leadership socialize new members implicitly more than
explicitly via a slow imprinting of the organizational perspective upon their behaviors and
judgments. The attitudes and behaviors that are learned by new members are grounded in
the organization's values and basic assumptions. In learning them, new members begin to
internalize the evaluative standards they need to operate as full-fledged members of the
organization. Socialization involves both (1) persuading the organization's new members

to adopt the culture as part of the process of committing themselves to the organization

 

1 Note that different types of organizations strive for
different kinds of success in their respective environments.

25

and its mission, and (2) repeatedly reinforcing the culture through explicit appeals to the
decisions of those members who have already accepted them.

It is important to note that culture is not a one-way street fi'om leaders to
members. As new members enter the organization, they bring different past experiences
and motivations for action. Those who bring new and relevant past experiences and are
motivated to attempt change will be innovators within the organization. They impact its
culture (Weick, 1979; Jones, 1986). However, their success will depend as much on the
way in which they are socialized as it will on the attributes they bring. Van Maanen and
Schein (1979) propose six dimensions for socialization, and suggest that different patterns
will result in different orientations towards change. There are three possible innovation
role orientations, according to these authors. First, the member could be a custodian, one
who wants only to preserve things the way they are at present. Second, the member could
be a content innovator, one who always tries to do his or her job better by attempting new
strategies and tools. Last, the member could be a role innovator, who attempts to redefine
what his or her purpose within the organization is at every turn. A role innovator is a
paradigm-breaker, someone who has been encouraged to challenge assumptions in every
aspect of organizational life as part of his or her organizational role identity. Individual
differences such as those noted above will interact with the socialization pattern to
deternrine which end of the continuum the new member gravitates toward. The innovator
orientations are generally more desirable, but the role innovator is both rarer and less
predictable; in an industry where predictability is necessary for success, role innovators are
distinctly unwelcome, and for good reason. Thus, it is important for organizations to
select the right kind of people as new members and encourage them correctly to fit them
into the existing structure.

As time passes, organizational cultures may grow stronger and more complex.

The paradigm that grew out of initial interactions is strengthened by communication and

familiarity, to the point where it is unquestioned. Schneider (1987) explains this process

26

through what he calls the Attraction-Selection—Attrition cycle, by which members learn
about, join, and leave an organization. According to Schneider (1987), the people in an
organization define the context, and so analysis should focus on the differences between
groups and the similarities within them. Attraction involves people learning about the
organization and being attracted to it to the extent they perceive it as embodying the
values they themselves hold. That is, their paradigm is already quite similar to the
organization's culture. Selection concerns the organization's choice of new members from
those applicants who appear most similar in perspective and goals to the organization. If
the new member's paradigm is seen as capable of adjusting to the culture by the
organization's gatekeepers, the member is welcomed. Attrition suggests that new
members who fail to accept and internalize the paradigm will remain peripheral members
at best, and will most likely leave the organization quickly and with little fanfare, driven
out by the dissonance that arises from working in an environment in which they do not

accept the firndamental rules for seeing, interpreting, and judging the world.

The Importance of Value Systems

Before delving deeper into the nature and types of value systems that exist in
organizations, the relationship between individual value hierarchies (a psychological
concept) and organizational value systems (a sociological concept) must be described.
Rokeach (1979) argues that values are just as powerful sociologically as they are
psychologically:

It is thus conjectured that the parallelism between societal and individual
goals leads to a parallelism between societal and individual values, and
consequently that the universe of discourse will turn out to be the same,
with the same array of ultimate goals and the means for achieving them
meaningful [sic] when attempting to identify, describe, or measure both
institutional and individual values. (Rokeach, 1979: 51)

27

We use the language of goals and values at all levels of human existence. Rokeach (1979)
claims that this allows us to draw connections between levels that can explain the
relationships of individuals to organizations. In a study of the institutional values of
scientists, Rokeach (1979) found that the best indicators of an institution's values were the
value system attributed to the institution by its gatekeepers and the personal values of the
gatekeepers themselves.2 These findings support the image of socialization that is
proposed here and suggest a method for inferring organization level variables fi'om
individual level data.

In assessing types of organizational value systems, we must take into account the
environment in which the organization operates. Gordon (1991) argues that companies
are founded on industry-based assumptions about customers, competitors, and society,
and these elements are the boundary conditions for managers' construction of strategies
and structures when the organization is just beginning. In short, the environmental
conditions at the time of the organization's founding are incorporated into the
organization's basic assumptions. Gordon (1991) argues that this is necessary but not
definitive; the organizations within a particular industry will have very different cultures,
but all will have to incorporate some basic principles if they are to survive and grow.
Cultures do not exist in defiance of reality, they exist in order to explain and operate
within it. A culture that assumes the environment is noncompetitive when it is very
competitive, or that customers want reliability when in truth they want novelty, will not
survive. Thus, the specific characteristics of the industry at the time of the organization's
founding will help shape its original values and basic assumptions.

The value system in a specific organization will be shaped by several factors. First,

the environment will require that the organization hold particular values concerning

 

2 The worst indicator was the personal values of future
gatekeepers currently in training; i.e. graduate students in
the physical sciences (Rokeach 1979).

28

competitiveness, customer/constituent requirements, and societal expectations in order to
be successful (Gordon, 1991). Second, the history of the organization within the
environment will affect the content and order of the value system. Prior crises that called
some values to the fore and relegated others to insignificance will be remembered, and the
conditions under which some values hold and others do not will be widely known if not
explicitly stated. Third, the origin of values - from crisis, habit, or charismatic leader - will
define the conditions under which that value is thought to hold sway (Wiener, 1988). For
example, a value of cooperation learned through crisis might not be seen as applicable
under normal conditions, whereas a value of cooperation promoted by a highly regarded
leader might well be a rule of interaction. In times of crisis, however, the place of
cooperation in the value hierarchy might be higher in the first organization than in the
second. As noted previously, Rokeach's unidimensional value hierarchies cannot
accommodate this fact. Both individuals and systems depend on innumerable
contingencies, which Rokeach's (1973) theory cannot accurately address. Thus,
organizational value systems should be seen as clusters, with basic assumptions about end
states and the desirable routes to those end states at their center and the values that have
developed for application to specific situations orbiting them in patterns developed and
ingrained over time.3 This loose construction of cultures allows for evolutionary but not
revolutionary change, as the nature of the change it permits is constrained by the order and
content of the value systems themselves.

The development of a culture is identical to the development of a paradigm as
described by Kuhn (1970). Cultures arise in order to provide a framework for asking

questions and testing viable alternatives until a definitive answer is discovered, proved,

 

3 This development parallels that of normal science (Kuhn,
1970): The longer a paradigm is used, the more assistance
it offers to members striving to meet the goals of the
community.

29

and replicated. The organization is initially created with certain overriding goals; in order
to answer them, a set of principles for operation are created. Some will be explicit, like
the organization's rules for standard operation. Others will be implied, such as definitions
for basic components of the organizational environment that automatically preclude
certain other alternatives fi'om being worthy of testing. Gersick's (1991) punctuated
equilibrium model encompasses both these conceptualizations. Under her model, the deep
structure defines the process of evolution (organization's day-to-day operations) and
revolution (organization's reactions to crisis). The following sections will address each of
these processes in turn. First, the process of evolutionary change will be described,
focusing on how it grows more complex without ever becoming complete. Second, the
means by which revolutions come about will be evaluated, and the factors by which it is
shaped defined. Once these processes have been adequately described and their relation to
the deep structure of an organization explicated, the questions that researchers should ask

about an organization will be clear.

Maintaining the Status Quo

The Incommensurability of Cultures

Cultural change occurs on two levels. On the first, the change is merely an
extension of the same basic principles to cover greater ground, and the shifting around of
values within their clusters as perceptions of the situation change. The second change
involves the replacement of one set of basic assumptions with another; this change is
always resisted by the culture and its members. Bartunek and Moch (1987) refers to the
first sort as first order change and the second as second order change. In order for first
order change to be successful, members must be content innovators (Van Maanen and

Schein, 1979), willing to adjust their behavior to improve their work. Second order

30

change requires leadership by role innovators, people who recognize the limits of one
culture and devise another to replace the inadequate one. The equilibrium cycle that
follows will not be kind to role innovators who continue to introduce uncertainty into the
organization when it is not seen as necessary.

Bartunek and Moch (1987) also describe third order change, which is the
development of a capacity within the system to change the culture as events require. The
resulting organization is equivalent to Weick's (197 7) concept of a self-designing
organization, where the system includes the capacity to change itself. Organizational
capacities for self-design are described in terms of the importance they place on innovation
and change. Ifthe entire organization is comprised of role innovators, then the
organization is capable of self-design, of continual adjustment. As Bartunek and Moch
state, "third-order change attempts aim to help organizational members develop the
capacity to identify and change their own schemata as they see fit" (Bartunek and Moch,
1987: 487). This scenario is rare, as the majority of pe0ple desire more stability than a
self-designing organization can offer. Without socializing members to be role innovators,
third order change is not possible because the existing cultural values are incommensurable
with the vision introduced to replace them.

The major source of the difficulty in second and third order organizational change
lies in the incommensurability of cultures, a condition essential to the effectiveness of the
existing culture. Incommensurability means that any two cultures have non-identical
standards for judgement; thus, it is impossible to "prove" one inferior to the other in direct
comparison, as neither one recognizes the legitimacy of the other's standard (Kuhn, 1970:
97-98). Without this condition, cultures would not grow stronger with time and use, and
would not provide the level of assistance that its members take for granted in their work.

Given a sophisticated culture appropriate to the organizational environment, both
the organization and its members can achieve great things. Because cultures rule out

irrelevant facts at the level of individual interpretation, they help specify the attributes of

31

the phenomena of interest to allow an investigation of otherwise impossible depth and
sophistication (Kuhn, 1970: 24). In addition, they shield their members from an awareness

of difficulties and problems not amenable to interpretation under the culture:

A [cultural] paradigm can, for that matter, even insulate the community
from those socially important problems that are not reducible to the puzzle
form, because they cannot be stated in terms of the conceptual and
instrumental tools the [cultural] paradigm supplies. (Kuhn, 1970: 37)

This is at once a great help and a crucial vulnerability: While freedom fi'om having to
worry about large sections of existence is an immense boon, failure to acknowledge these
problems as relevant can lead to an inability to adapt when the environment external to the
organization and its culture changes. Because they are so usefirl, cultures are never
rejected unless there is another ready to take its place (Kuhn, 1970). Until that time, the
benefits of the current paradigm are so great that its limitation of vision goes unrecognized

and unmoumed.

Cognitive Consistency and Cultural Commitment

Festinger's theory of cognitive consistency (as described in O'Keefe, 1990)
provides an excellent rationale for why organization members are often adamant in their
refirsals to consider any level of cultural change. Cognitive consistency is defined as, "the
idea that persons seek to maximize the internal psychological consistency of their
cognitions (beliefs, attitudes, and so on)" (O'Keefe, 1990: 61) Thus, cognitive
consistency theory is concerned with the balance between mutually relevant beliefs,
opinions, attitudes, and values. The other side of this, dissonance, occurs when people
experience an imbalance among these cognitions. The theory predicts that when people
experience dissonance, they will be motivated to reduce it by one of two means: Either
they will attempt to reduce the number of dissonant cognitions, or they will devalue some

important cognitions and increase the relative value of others. In the context of changing

32

a culture, consistency with the original culture will be an unspoken value, and all the
specific benefits of retaining the original culture will contrast favorably with the unknown
advantage of accepting a change (Kuhn, 1970). Thus, first order change will be far easier
than second or third order change. Without faith in the leadership and a careful
construction of messages to emphasize continuity on at least some terminal values (i.e.
only suggesting first order change explicitly), cognitive consistency theory predicts that
members' easiest route to eliminating dissonance will be to ignore the new messages,
devalue them, or interpret them as reafiirming the values they already hold. Thus, in order
to create value change, the source must shift the burden for easing dissonance onto the old
terminal values. At this point, the exact nature of members' commitment to the

organization will become crucial in determining their response:

What one must understand, however, is the manner in which a particular
set of shared values interacts with the particular experiences shared by a
community of specialists to ensure that most members of the group will
ultimately find one set of arguments rather than another decisive. (Kuhn,
1970: 200)

The Attraction - Selection - Attrition model (Schneider, 1987) explains how the
members can be jarred into dissonance by the announcement of change. Members
originally come to an organization because they believe its perspective complements their
own, and are selected to the degree that this is so. Rokeach and Grube (1979) state that
members need to organize their attitudes, beliefs and behaviors so that they will enhance
their self-conceptions as moral and competent human beings. Thus, members with long
tenure will be very selective about accepting proposed value changes because they imply
that the members were previously in error. While self-dissatisfaction could lead to value
change for those members who feel that the change is due to something they did wrong
(Rokeach and Grube, 1979), messages that explicitly state that what was done before was

wrong risk alienating their audience, who joined the organization in part due to just that

33

perspective. Thus, a member's attendance to a message fiom the organization will be

determined by her or his acceptance of the cultural paradigm.

Identification

Members' identification with the organization or a subgroup is an additional source
of stability within an organization. Cheney (1983) states, " A person identifies with a unit
when, in making a decision, the person in one or more of his/her organizational roles
perceives that unit's values or interests as relevant in evaluating the alternatives of choice. "
Ashforth and Mael (1989) speak of social identification as the perception of oneness with
the organization, and label it a perceptual construct distinct fi'om the internalization of
values and beliefs. When faced with messages advocating value change, the degree to
which a member feels part of the organization - regardless of actual value similarity - will
be a strong predictor of whether the member attends to the message's content or simply
ignores its import as having no relevance to the situation. A member with a strong sense
of identification will attend to all messages, and therefore will be likely to encounter some
dissonance when faced with cultural change messages. A member with little sense of
identification with the organization will likely fail to attend to the message's implications,

hearing the words but failing to see the meaning they hold for her or his own behavior.4

 

4 In this case, the member is not committed to the paradigm,
and so the message is neither dissonance-inducing or
particularly relevant. Should the message become relevant,
the member will have an easier time evaluating it on its own
merits. However, making the message relevant will require a
very different strategy than inducing dissonance.

34

Summary

Organizational cultures remain stable for three reasons. First, the
incommensurability of cultures ensures that change will not be undertaken lightly, as
second and third order changes require members to reject one culture for another despite
the socialization they have had under the existing culture. Second, the ways in which
cultures structure members' experiences prevent them from accepting arguments for
change until the burden of dissonance can be eased onto the existing culture; the particular
values in the original culture will mediate this process. Last, the Attraction - Selection -
Attrition cycle leads to strong identification by members that will likely result in
dissonance, but also allows members to ignore messages when they have weak
identification with the organization, thus preserving the status quo. These three factors
illustrate the processes by which organizational members can deny or downplay the need
for change. The next step must be to recognize the processes and conditions under which

change messages will be interpreted as relevant and directly meaningful by members.

The Forces of Change

Doing what you have always done is necessary in short-term adaptations.
Doing what you have never done is necessary in longer-term adaptations,
and both need to be done simultaneously. (W eick, 1977: 42)

Models of Environmental Change

There are two major theories about how cultural change occurs. First, many

researchers speak of cultural change as involving the unfreezing of the old culture, the

cognitive restructuring of its values and behaviors, and the refreezing of the new culture.

35

The old culture must be disconfirrned: A need for change must be recognized by all
members, and that disconfirrnation must be connected to the members' behaviors and
values under the old culture in a way that causes anxiety and/or guilt. In the end, the new
solution must provide psychological safety to the members of the organization by
demonstrating successfirl resolution of the problem without the sacrifice of their identity
with the organization (Schein, 1992). The difficulty in unfreezing a culture increases with
the age and prominence of the organization. A mature organization must face either
massive infusions of new blood or a total reorganization process such as that brought on
by merger or bankruptcy to cause its old culture to unfreeze (Schein, 1992).

On the other hand, other researchers argue that the creation of ambiguity in the
members of the organization can arouse an atmosphere of change. There are four stages
to this process: Envisioning, where the leaders develop a new vision to address current
problems; signaling, when the change campaign is announced to the members of the
organization; re-visioning, where the messages of the leadership are evaluated and
responses sent; and energizing, when feedback is interpreted by the leaders and the first
substantive change activities occur (Gioia and Chittipeddi, 1991). The last two parts of
the process are repeated many times, as the new culture is negotiated between the
leadership and the members of the organization. The major difference between the
unfreezing and ambiguity-inducing theories is in the required severity of the need for
change. Gioia and Chittipeddi (1991) claim that while a crisis provides a compelling
reason, it is the careful management of the aroused ambiguity that encourages a resolution
in line with the paradigm advocated by the organizational leadership. Schein (1992)
argues that a crisis is necessary for members to overcome the dissonance of rejecting their
paradigm and make the required adjustment in their values and behaviors. Neither of
these formulations is adequate by itself. Kuhn (1970) notes that while the process of

revolutionary change is gradually negotiated at a community level, the shift is a sudden

36

event for each member. Thus the elements must be combined in a model that addresses
both the organizational level and the individual level of acceptance of the vision.

Bartunek (1988) proposes a four stage model of individual member reframing that
can encompass the various elements that are essential to an understanding of the cultural
change process at both levels. While her stages are similar to Schein's (1992), they are not
as rigid or linear, instead leaving room for feedback between members and leaders that
lead to a negotiation of the new name via Gioia and Chittipeddi's (1991) cycle of sense-
making and sense-giving. Bartunek's (1988) four stages are: Unfreezing, preparation,
frame generation, and testing. During the unfieezing stage, the member perceives a need
for change. The strength of this perception depends on three factors, each with an
intervening variable: (1) The messages sent fi'om leaders, modified by the member's
perception of the leaders; (2) the messages sent by coworkers, modified by the member's
perceptions of his/her coworkers; and (3) perceptions of the environment, modified by
existing values. The preparation stage involves the member's preparation to collect
information that will be used to develop new understandings, and eventually a new
paradigm. At this stage, there are two variables: (1) The strategic ambiguity of leaders'
messages and (2) the member's perceptions of the environment. Once again, existing
values act as an intervening variable to modify the effects of the main variables. The
flame generation stage involves the generation of a new flame, or cultural paradigm, to
replace the one that has been called into doubt. The major factor here is the dissonance
aroused by the contrast between existing values and the new values proposed in leaders'
messages. The final stage, testing, involves applying the new frame against the current
environment. These four stages encompass all the elements discussed so far, and provide
a useful framework for the elaboration of theory and the proposal of a methodology for

studying an organization's cultural revolution, one member at a time.

37

Shifting the Burden of Dissonance

The situational requirements for making change messages relevant to
organizational members are different at each stage. First, in order to successfirlly unfieeze
a member's cultural commitment, the change must be readily perceivable as different from
the organization's existing values and basic assumptions. If the members do not see the
change as one involving fundamentals, the change they make will merely address surface
issues, keeping the same structure while altering its facade.5 That is, a second order
change will be enacted as a first order change. Second, unfreezing also requires the
connection of the member's current behaviors to the reasons for change. It will be nearly
impossible to justify changes in what members do if none of their behaviors are responsible
for bringing about the current crisis. Whoever has created the problem will be expected to
fix it, and so as many members as possible must be implicated in the need for change. This
parallels Kuhn's (1970) point that the original paradigm (i.e. culture) causes the crisis by
not being able to answer all the questions its holders want it to solve, and that this inability
to move forward is a central motivator in many scientists' conversion to a new paradigm .
Third, in collecting information to create a viable new fi'ame, there should be a readily
perceivable environmental change in either values or assumptions. Gordon (1991) states
that changes in the industry environment reverberate through organizational structures to
call into question the value systems on which they are founded. Thus, a change in the
important attributes of the environment is the most direct route to calling an existing
culture into question. Finally, when it comes time to test the new culture, there must be a

good match between the new organizational values and the requirements of the

 

5 Note that this is one of the three outcomes Kuhn (1970:
84) lists for a crisis: Avoiding fundamental change by
finding a way to resolve the problem facing it under the
rules of the existing paradigm.

38

environment. If not, the culture will fail the test, and the member will be thrown back into
a state of confusion, likely re-embracing the old culture for the lack of a recognizably

superior option.

Syllogistic Argument and Strategic Ambiguity

In order to cause cultural change, organizational members must be led to confront
inconsistencies between their actions and values and the goals they wish to achieve, both
individually and for the organization. Williams (1979) states that values operate as
motivations for specific definitions of appropriate goal objects, but they only influence
behavior when a cognitive link between the specific situation and the norms governing
appropriate and/or mandated behavior activates them. This makes changing values
extremely difficult. When a receiver rates a given value very highly, and that value is
perceived to be highly congruent with other values in the cultural system to which the
receiver belongs, the resistance to change in that value will be at its highest point. Ifthe
values in the change message have an opposite direction fiom members' highly salient
values as a member of the organization, then the change message will not be attended to,
and therefore change will not occur. Thus, in order to work around this problem of
cognitive consistency, there must be multiple paths to the eventual conclusion.

The accepted definitions of what values are relevant to which issue will shape the
responses of members to change messages. The value clusters accepted by members of
the organization will structure their thinking about what messages are important and how
they are to be evaluated. However, while values cannot be manipulated directly, members'
perceptions of which values are important to a given situation can be influenced through
the conjunction of values accepted by members with the values that the sender wants
members to apply to the issue at hand as a justification for a particular course of action.

Rokeach and Grube (1979) describe the process of value change as involving an attempt

39

to increase the self-awareness of the receivers about the contradiction between their values
and the values of important reference groups. This strategy involves motivating members

through a change in needs and/or perception of societal goals and demands:

the extent to which individuals will remain satisfied or become dissatisfied
with themselves will depend on the extent to which they perceive
themselves as conforming to the unidirectional demands of the social
groups with which they most identify. (Rokeach and Grube, 1979: 242)

This strategy of value re-education is required by the need for cognitive consistency
between one's self-conception and one's values and beliefs. To achieve a change in
culture, organizations must preserve the member's identification with the organization
while altering the basis on which that identification is built. The route to success involves
the use of Eisenberg's (1984) concept of strategic ambiguity.

Strategic ambiguity6 is the use of indirection to accomplish goals. Eisenberg
(1984: 231) states that, "Ambiguity is used strategically to foster agreement on
abstractions without limiting specific interpretations." Thus, strategic ambiguity can be
operationalized as the number of potential justifications (value premises) for accepting a
belief as true that a member can draw fiom a message. The relationships between values
is best expressed by Cheney and Frenette's (1993) three-tiered taxonomy of rhetorical
messages. Their first concern is with values, which can be further specified as either
instrumental values, justifications for particular courses of action, or terminal values, the
desirable end-states that result fi'om those courses of action. Second are logics, which are
defined as strategies indicating which interests of the organization should be pursued.
Logics are links between individual and collective aims; they operate as meta-values,
superordinate value premises around which other values cluster. As such, they are
identical to the basic assumptions of Schein (1992). Third are accounts, which are the

reasons given for choices made. Accounts are lengthy statements of interrelated thought-

 

5 This is distinct from Gioia and Chittipeddi's (1991)
ambiguity by design, which is a receiver characteristic.

40

units, from which value premises may be derived. The choices can be for prior, present,
or future actions; the reasons being discussed are often thought to be defensive, but this
does not have to be the case. When several values clustered around one central value, the
central value is assumed to be a logic of the organization. Given this taxonomy,
researchers can draw out the rhetorical syllogisms used by rhetors to persuade
organizational members and assess the extent and type of strategic ambiguity being used.
In the same way, responses to such messages can be compared directly to the syllogistic
arguments to evaluate the efficacy of the messages in getting the target to apply new
values as desired.

The appropriate method for analyzing values and strategic ambiguity is cluster
analysis.7 What Cheney and Frenette (1993) label as logics are identical to the key terms
which ground cluster analytic interpretations of texts (Foss, 1989). Values are found to
cluster around these key terms within the framework of accounts; the patterns of
clustering within those accounts can serve as an indicator of strategic ambiguity.
Therefore, in changing an organizational culture, the leader introduces new values into
existing value clusters and uses new and old values in concert to justify preferred actions
and beliefs. This connection between the new value and all the instrumental values gives
members an alternative structure for the same values they already hold. In this way,
members become familiar with the elements of the vision as well as the existing culture. If
the leaders can demonstrate how the new terminal value leads to greater success in
answering key questions that members ask, the members will be able to start seeing the
world through the new vision. Ifthe leader cannot bring members to recognize the
alternative vision as an alternative route to fulfilling the same terminal values, the change

effort will certainly fail.

 

7 The rhetorical, not statistical variety (see Foss, 1989).

41

S ummaty

In conclusion, the model for cultural change depends on the nature of the values in
dispute and the leaders' rhetorical use of strategic ambiguity to arouse dissonance among
members that can be resolved through the adoption of the vision as the new culture. By
incorporating the elements of the new vision into all clusters of accepted values, the
leaders will be able to shift the burden of dissonance onto the old culture by associating
past acts with present problems. Once the members are primed to see the world through
the new structure of value clusters, improving the successful functioning of the
organization via the new vision becomes possible. However, leaders must pay close
attention to the values in operation among the members of the organization and be very
careful to construct messages that shift the burden of dissonance from the need for change
to the values and behaviors that were responsible for causing and emphasizing the need for
change. Failure to properly appreciate the way in which members see the world will lead
to negative results, both for the leaders advocating a change and for the researchers

attempting to explain what went wrong.

42

Research Questions

The following research questions are extensions of the points made in the
preceding literature review. First, it has been argued that different environmental
conditions will lead to different values being required for organizational effectiveness.
This should be reflected in the change in organizational value clusters over time to
accommodate the changing environment.

RQl: How do the value clusters of the CES/MSUE difl‘er across historical eras?

Second, value clusters become reinforced by repeated communications over time.
Thus, the historical patterns of values should be expected to influence the current culture
and the vision that has been put forward as a new culture. However, the program areas of
MSUE have very different environments. Whereas Agriculture faces a dwindling
constituency, CYF has more and more program options available. While Agriculture has
historically been the most important (and therefore, best funded) division, CYF has been
marginalized and seen as a secondary area of concern. Agriculture's production focus
allows its agents to often apply known scientific solutions to acute problems. This is in
contrast to CYF's focus on improving the lives of members of society, a mission that
requires continuous involvement and mutual commitment from agent and constituent. The
values that arise out of such different experiences are unlikely to be the same. Over time,
the particular responsibilities of each program area lead to the development and
reinforcement of organizational systems that are specialized to meet the precise needs of
the different program areas. But the greater the focus, the less potential for
generalizability exists. This sets up the second research question:

RQ2: How do the value clusters of MSUE differ across the formal mission
statements of the program areas?

43

Just as organizational value structures are reified over time, so too are the value
clusters of individual agents. The length of time in which agents have become accustomed
to their program area's roles and responsibilities reinforces the particular lens they apply to
their work. Given the identification that has taken place to keep them as members of the
organization, their particular concerns color their view of the organizational world as a
whole. As noted above, the task characteristics of MSUE agents across program areas are
very different. The greater the familiarity with a particular task, the more set the solutions
and methods of evaluation become. This suggests that agents with different experiences
hold different values and thus evaluate messages in different ways. Some options will be
less acceptable than others based on the agent's level of familiarity and prior experience
with them. Thus, the third research question focuses on agents within program areas:

RQ3: How do the value clusters of MSUE agents differ across the program
areas?

Fourth, the section on cultural paradigms suggests that what an agent does on an
everyday basis will shape his or her perceptions of what is required to be successfirl in
Extension. Anecdotal evidence suggests that there are considerable differences between
the perspectives of on-campus leaders and members of Extension in the field (i.e., county
based agents). The sense-making process always develops in unexpected ways; how field
agents react to leadership messages is a key area of study if our concern is to evaluate the
effectiveness of the leaders' change initiative. The fourth research question is:

RQ4: Are the value clusters promoted by MSUE leaders similar to those found in
the discourse of MSUE field agents?

CHAPTER THREE
INVESTIGATING MSUE'S CAMPAIGN AND ITS EFFECTS

Research Questions
1. How do the value clusters of the CES/MSUE differ across historical eras?

2. How do the value clusters of MSUE differ across the formal mission
statements of the program areas?

3. How do the value clusters of MSUE agents differ across the program
areas?
4. Are the value clusters promoted by MSUE leaders similar to those found in

the discourse of MSUE field agents?

Data Sources and Analysis

In assessing the value premises articulated by leaders and those of MSUE agents,
three sources of data were used. The messages containing new organizational value
premises was operationalized as (1) overheads from a speech given by the Extension
Director at the annual Extension School held on campus at Michigan State University in
1992, and (2) the 1993 publications describing the specific missions of MSUE'S three
program areas. Second, a variety of historical Extension documents fiom 1948 to 1983
were analyzed for value clusters in order to identify the historical roots of the current
culture and the new vision. This survey of value clusters at multiple time points before the
1990s will provide a useful comparison of key terms and value clusters both historically
and currently within MSUE. Third, interviews with 17 Extension agents from around
Michigan and across program areas were tape-recorded and transcribed for analysis of
value clusters in relation to each agent's personal history, location, and program

responsibilities. This data was then compared to the value clusters identified from the

44

45

statements of the vision and the historical documents to answer the research questions
noted above.

The historical and vision documents are important for two reasons. First, they are
formal statements of the organization's mission and challenges. Thus, they define the
organizationally sanctioned view of MSUE'S purpose and acceptable reasons for particular
actions and policies. Second, they are concerned with all levels of Extension, from the
federal to the program areas of MSUE. Because these messages are specifically aimed at
Extension agents (either nationally or within the state), they are relevant to the internal
fimctioning of the organization. While the diversity of Extension audiences addressed by
the historical documents may limit comparability of the documents themselves, it provides
a broader picture of the overall cultural environment of Extension. This lack of focus is
compensated by the vision statements, which have an audience of nearly all current MSUE
personnel, who are expected to attend the annual conference, participate in its events, and
read the mission statement for both their program area and for MSUE. Thus, these
nonreactive sources provide the basic materials of part of the ongoing socialization
process within the organization. In sum, these documents represent a universal, formal
targeted message for the members of Extension. This message, more than any other,
represents the organizational leadership's position in the continuing negotiation of MSUE'S
culture.

Interviews offer the researcher rich data in dialogue form. By providing a non-
evaluative, confidential channel for agents to voice concerns and champion ideals, the use
and evaluation of organizationally sanctioned values can be tapped in a directed manner.
By framing the data collection as a personal interview, detailed representative samples of
individual member's side of the cultural negotiation can be elicited and recorded for
comparison with the recommended values and behaviors drawn out of the formal
organizational documents. The questions asked were of three varieties: (1) the agent's

personal experiences and responsibilities as an Extension agent; (2) their interactions with

46

and evaluations of the larger Extension organization, focusing on the county and regional
levels; and (3) their perceptions of state-wide Extension and its relation to the university.
Analysis of value clusters was intended to answer questions about: (1) the agents'
perceived need for change within the organization; (2) the terminal values used to justify
or reject recommended actions; (3) the instrumental values held in common by members of
a particular organizational division; (4) acceptable definitions of outreach; and (5) the
preservation of historical value clusters by current agents. These questions and
appropriate probes structured the interviews around the values that define MSUE'S culture

for its members.

Data Collection Strategy for Documents

Published documents and extensive presentation notes authored by national and
state Extension leaders were collected and analyzed for value clusters relating to the
mission of Extension. Historical documents covered the time period from 1948 to 1983,
while the vision statements were all produced in either 1992 or 1993. The data fi'om the
decades before will provide a time series analysis of leadership values which can be
contrasted with those emphasized after the arrival of the new Extension Director in July of
1 99 1 .

Data Collection Strategy for Interviews

The initial data collection strategy was organized around focus groups held in each
of the six regions of the state. A list of research questions and focus group questions was
developed and submitted to both an Extension specialist and to the Director of the CYF
program area, Dr. Leah Cox Hoopfer. Their insightfirl comments led to a revision of the

focus group questions that was more specific in wording and generalizable across

47

Extension. Sampling, however, was unsuccessful. Initially, Regional Extension Directors
(REDS) were contacted and asked to aid in the recruitment of agents for focus groups.
Packets of recruitment letters and research consent forms were sent out to those regional
directors who returned telephone calls and electronic mail. This strategy was completely
ineffective. Two of the Regional Directors were inaccessible; one did not return my
telephone calls, the other had a non-operative telephone number and never answered
electronic mail messages. Of the other four, two passed my request for assistance to
assistant directors or regional program leaders, who were very diflicult to contact. A
total of six agents were interested in focus group participation, two in each of three
regions.

Several reasons for the low response rate became clear. First, official channels
took too much time and were disregarded by field agents, whose concerns are centered in
their counties. Second, requiring agents to travel long distances to spend an hour and a
halfin a focus group was unrealistic. The option of scheduling the focus groups to
coincide with a regional meeting was rejected because of the difficulty in finding a time
that worked for me and a desire to not interfere with the officially scheduled
programming. Third, negotiating a time with eight agents with different schedules proved
too difficult a task.

Having failed to devise an effective means of bringing agents together to discuss
the change initiative and how it related to their jobs, I resolved to take my data collection
to the county ofiices and perform individual interviews with agents. This overcame
several problems. First, the agent no longer needed to travel, leaving him or her free to
work immediately before and after the interview. Second, the agent only needed to
coordinate his or her schedule with one person. To make their decision easier, I
purposefirlly scheduled blocks of days for data collection, maximizing my own flexibility.
Third, I contacted each agent directly by telephone, clearly stating the purpose of my

study, the time commitment required, and the nature of the questions that I would ask.

48

While several agents did not return my calls, every agent who spoke with me agreed to an

interview. The list of contacts was deve10ped by selecting names from the 1993-1994

Faculty and Staff Directogz for Michigan State Univers_ity, based on agents' county and

program area affiliations.

 

Interviews were held at locations convenient to the members of MSUE. Fifteen
were in agent's county offices, and two in my office on campus. The topical population of
interest included Children, Youth, and Family Agents, and Agriculture Agents. Six
Children, Youth and Family agents, eight Agriculture agents, and three County Extension
Directors with extensive programming responsibilities were interviewed. One County
Extension Director had previously been a Home Economist, another was originally 4-H,
and the third was hired directly into the position with a background in industrial
Agriculture. All six regions of the state were represented. The sample included seven
female and ten male agents. One female was an Agriculture agent, and one male was a
CYF agent. One female County Extension Director and two male County Extension
Directors were included. There was one African-American in the sample; no other agent
appeared to be a minority. Six agents had been with Extension for either three or four
years, another six had a tenure of six to 10 years and the last five had been in Extension
for more than 20 years apiece, with a grand total of 120 years of Extension experience
between them. These demographics are representative of Extension as whole. Thus, the
sample permits a comparison of program area responses, both separately and in

comparison with the other major program area. 1

 

1 As there are only three Community Economic Development
agents in MSUE, that division was left out of the analysis.
Three agents, separated geographically, is not a sufficient
number for a subculture to develop, and so their
perspectives are not relevant to the divisional analysis.
The odds of their inclusion in a random sample are small
enough to merit their exclusion from the focus groups.

49

There were three reasons for limiting the sample to CYF and Agriculture agents.
The most important one is that these two groups represent the most distinct subcultures
within MSUE. Agriculture has a long tradition and many agents in positions of power.

Its agents will be the least benefitted by any change, and so are a high priority audience for
the vision. CYF is a new creation, but one with the Director's ear and a plan that closely
mirrors the direction expressed in the MSUE vision. Thus, these two program areas
represent polar opposites within MSUE, and so are the best choices for a study of cultural
change. Second, CYF was the explicit focus of the larger research project of which this
thesis is a part. Third, CYF and Agriculture are the major players in the cultural debate.
The other program areas have less of a voice and less at stake. Community and Economic
Development agents are few in number and part of the newest program area. Their
subculture is likely to be less well developed than those of CYF and Agriculture, and with
only handful of agents spread around the state, they are unlikely to pull together as a unit.
Natural Resources was excluded because they represent a relatively small proportion of
ANR agents and are likely to be similar though less extreme than Agriculture agents in
their opinions. Most importantly, they would have added an additional dimension to an
analysis already bursting at the seams. They were excluded because there was not a
compelling reason to include them.

Interviews lasted an average of one hour, with the shortest being 40 minutes and
the longest nearly two hours. Agent selection was based on location and program area,
with the goal being a representative balance of counties and program areas. Participants
were asked to provide opinions and justifications on a number of issues related to their
work as Extension agents. The interviews were tape-recorded and converted into
transcripts for analysis. The value clusters identified from the transcripts were coded like
the values derived from the rhetorical analysis of Extension documents to allow for
comparison and determine where the rhetoric of leaders has failed and where it has

succeeded in becoming part of the organization's culture.

50

Value Analysis Procedures

The procedures for the value analysis were derived from the chapter on cluster
analysis in Foss (1989), with some ideas drawn from Cheney and Frenette (1993). The
unit of analysis was the particular document or individual transcript. Four documents
relating to the current vision, five historical documents, and 17 transcripts were analyzed
using this method. In cluster analysis, there are four steps ( Foss, 1989). First, the key
terms must be identified. Published documents were read for recurring values in primary
locations, such as chapter headings, summaries, and conclusions. Interviews were first
coded for accounts, then those accounts were read for important values. Up to five key
terms were identified for each document, with the exact number being based on the length
of the document and the narrowness of its focus. Second, clusters of other values were
identified by reading through the documents and identifying subpoints that used other
values in describing or justifying the application of the key term. Third, patterns of
linkages were identified by listing the context in which the clustering values occurred with
the key term. Last, the motive behind these linkages was determined by comparing
clusters across time to note the inclusion of new value linkages within the same contexts

as existing linkages. This served as the operationalization of strategic ambiguity.

Value Documentation

Before proceeding to the rhetorical analysis, several notes about values and how
they are documented are necessary. First, values are underlined in the text for clearer
identification by the reader and to demonstrate how the value clusters are constructed.
Second, values are operationally defined as any terms that are used as either an
instrumental justification (i.e. the value is important because it leads to a desirable end) or

as a terminal rationale (i.e. the value is a desirable end in itself). These definitions are

51

based on Rokeach's (1973) theory of values and also draw on the definition of value
premises discussed in Cheney and F renette (1993). The distinction between instrumental
and terminal values is not applied to individual values because values are often used
instrumentally in one cluster and terminally in another. Thus, the distinction is highly
dependent on context, where editorial notes would disturb the flow of the text.

Third, difi‘erent applications of values and different value clusters alter the sense of

a value to its holder. Because of this flexibility, a strict definition of each value found in
the historical documents, the MSUE vision and the interviews with agents is impossible.
However, a general definition of the value's sense is possible; these definitions are
provided in Table 3.1. The order in which they are presented may appear haphazard at
first glance, but there is an order. Values are grouped with other values for several
reasons:

1. The values represent multiple levels. For example, peOple, community,
county, and global are grouped together because they refer to the levels of
focus used by Extension, program areas, and agents.

2. The values represent multiple perspectives on a set of issues. For example,
focus and selectivity are related perspectives on how Extension priorities
are used.

3. The values are thematically similar. For example, opportunism, firturing,
and innovative technology are grouped together because they all refer to an
innovative, future-oriented approach to Extension work.

4. The values are opposites. For example, generalization and specialization
are two opposite approaches to agent knowledge.

By grouping the values in this way, the trends and contrasts described later should be

easier for the reader to recognize.

m

Education

Self-Learning

Staff Learning

Continuous Learning
or

Lifelong Education

Collaboration

Cooperation

Coordination

Efficacy
Efficiency

Excellence

Equity
Valuing

Formal
Informal

52

Table 3.1

Definitions of Extension Values

Definition

Providing information to those without it.

Helping people become able to help themselves.

Agents' level of formal and informal education and expertise.
Unceasing availability of information services for those who need

them, at any stage of their development.

Incorporating the knowledge of individual and group clients in
programs.

Working with other organizations to utilize their resources for a
common purpose.

Internal organization of Extension and the land-grant university.

Achieving goals as intended.
Timely achievement of goals.

Achieving the best possible result.

Balanced and just treatment or allocation.

Judging something by an accepted standard for quality.

Officially sanctioned system within an organization.

Personal contacts and a lack of formal requirements or processes.

_Val_ue
Objective
Research
Field
Knowledge

Comprehensive
Diversity
Lifecycle

Unity

Generalization
Specialization

Participation

Leadership

Focus

Selectivity

Centralization

Decentralization

53

Table 3.1 (cont)
Definitions of Extension Values
Definition
Independent of stakeholder bias.
University-generated information.
Beyond the university and East Lansing, units based ofi‘ campus.

Definitive true information.

Inclusiveness of all groups and/or categories.
Differentiated groups.
Across the tirneline of human development.

Common foundation for multiple themes.

Being knowledgeable about a wide range of topics.

Developing a specific area of expertise.

Involvement in activities.
Responsibility for the direction of activities and/or quality of

relationships.

Marking an issue as important.

Prioritizing in order to select between issues.

Bringing different elements together into one location or under one
title.

Dispersing elements to many locations or under many titles.

 

Quality of Life
Economy

Competitive

Opportunism
Futuring
Innovative

Technology

Change

Tradition

Management

Translation

Customer-Driven

Accessibility

Interdisciplinary
Multidisciplinary

54

Table 3.1 (cont)
Definitions of Extension Values
Definition
Relevance of individuals.
Relevance of collective group.
Relevance of a specific political and geographic area.

Relevance of an international perspective and international issues.

Desirable experiences in work and play.
Financial environment.

Ability to be a winner in a scenario where some win and some lose.

Always seeing alternative options as relevant to organization.
Making decisions with an eye to firture conditions and needs.

New methods and tools.

Recognition that situation is in flux, unstable.

Relevance of past beliefs and behaviors to present.

Methods devoted to controlling and allocating resources as needed.

Communicating information in a way that accurately depicts
content in language the receiver understands.

Attending to the needs of clients.

Ability to acquire information or assistance as needed.

Working with other academic disciplines.

Working across academic disciplines.

CHAPTER FOUR
THE VALUES FOUNDATION OF EXTENSION IN MICHIGAN

Since its founding in 1914, the Cooperative Extension Service (CES) has
experienced many changes. In studying the culture of Extension, it is important to identify
the historical and rhetorical contexts in which these changes occurred. Specifying the
values of interest requires an analysis of documents from various points in Extension's
history to reveal which values have survived, which have perished, and which have
changed their meaning within the organization's context. The timeline in Table 4.1 lists
the mission statements over the history of the Michigan CES, now MSUE. This chapter
addresses the values found in these documents. In light of these historical values, Chapter
Five analyzes the recent vision statements to identify the important elements of the change
initiative. The results of analyzing the interviews for the values applied in agents' sense-

making of the change initiative are reported in Chapter Six.

The Historical Context of Extension Values

There have been periodic shifts in the priorities and definitions of the Cooperative
Extension Service every 10-15 years. Documents reviewing the success of Extension
work and the goals for the future follow soon after each of these critical periods, marking
the shifts in emphasis and definition. This review of Extension documents begins with the
1948 national Joint Committee Report on Extension PromPolicies and Goalg and
concludes with Extension in the 80's (1983), also a national document. The other
documents reviewed include: The 1959 Kearl and Copeland review of the national Scam
R_e,pg_t's recommendations, the 1968 national statement A People and A Spirit. and the
1973 Michigan State University Lifelongllniveraity report. The presence of only one

state-specific report may seem odd, but no dramatic "recipes for change" were articulated
5 5

56

for Michigan until 1973. The federal reports reflect the federal importance of the CES;
state extension organizations often adopt innovations that have been promoted at the
national level. Also, Michigan Extension has had a major impact on national efforts. The
1948 report was written by a committee chaired by then Michigan State President John
Hannah, and the 1958 Scope Raport from which Kearl and Copeland elaborate was
produced by a committee chaired by the former Michigan CES Director Paul Miller.
Current MSUE Director Gail Imig chairs a standing committee of the National
Association for State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges, which is very influential in
national extension policymaking. Another key MSUE administrator, Leah Cox Hoopfer,
was Director of the national 4-H program before being asked to direct MSUE'S Children,
Youth and Families program area. So, the Michigan organization has been and is still

closely linked with the national extension service.

57

Table 4.1

Mission Statements across the History of Extension

Smith-Levar Act, 1914:
(Extension is) to aid in difiirsing among the people of the United States useful and
practical information on subjects relating to agriculture and home economics, and
to encourage the application of the same. (quoted in 1948: 6)

Joint Committee Raport on Extension Proggma, Policies, and Goals, 1948:
The primary function of the C00perative Extension Service in agriculture and

home economics is education. This Nation-wide extension service is performing
this function in an ever-widening range of subject matter and with the aid of an
increasing number of techniques....1t is important to recognize that the application
of scientific developments and the adoption of more efficient production methods
and practices have always contributed to the general welfare. When farmers fail to
adopt improved practices, both the farmer and the general public suffer. (1)

A Guide to Extenaion Prom far thg Futu_re,1959:
One thing above all else will govern Extension's "programs for the firture" - the
needs of those we are privileged to serve. We know that Extension will continue
to deal in education, both liberal and practical. We can be certain that it will find
its major content in the research activities of the USDA and the Land-Grant
system. (2)

A People apd A Spirit, 1968:
(The) Cooperative Extension Service interprets, disseminates, and encourages

practical use of knowledge. It transmits information from researchers to the
people. But it is also an agency for change - a catalyst for individual and group
action. It conducts programs of education for action and stresses organizational
and educational leadership. (17)

58

Table 4.1 (cont)

Mission Statements across the History of Extension

The Lifelong University, 1973:
For Michigan State University, lifelong education implies:

- A responsibility to foster commitment to lifelong education among its students
and audience and to aid them in developing self-learning motivations and skills

- An increased sensitivity to the educational needs of the citizens of Michigan and a
dedication to removing barriers to educational opportunity

- A responsibility to actively apply its appropriate knowledge, expertise, and
research capacities to assist in solving problems central to lifelong education

- A responsibility to continue and expand the availability of institutional resources
for community problem solving

- The examination of existing interinstitutional relationships and, wherever
appropriate, the creation of new ones. (14-15)

Extension in the 803, 1983:
Extension's job is education. The Service transmits practical information produced

by research centers and universities to the public. Extension's aim is to help people
identify and solve problems, many times through the use of new technology. (1)
-The basic mission of Cooperative Extension is to disseminate, and encourage the
application of, research-generated knowledge and leadership techniques to
individuals, families, and communities. (7)

59

1948: The Hannah Report

Key Terms: Education, Coordination.

The 1948 Joint Committee Report on Extension Programs. Policies and Goals was
created to address the need for changes in the structure of Extension. The Preface states
that many of the basic ideas of Extension were formulated before the First World War;
with the Second just completed, it was time for a reevaluation of the organization. The
general objectives of the study were: (1) An appraisal of the services and experiences of
the Cooperative Extension Service for past years; (2) A careful study of the important
basic problems in connection with cooperative extension work; and (3) To develop
definite recommendations as to how the Cooperative Extension Service can best meet the
problems of the firture (p.iii-iv).

The 1948 report began with a statement of what Extension had accomplished since
1914. This was followed by a list of objectives and a description of the scope of its
mission. The third and fourth chapters dealt with relationships between the CBS and the
USDA (of which the CES is a part) and with other agencies and groups. Chapter five
concerned the Extension services within the Department of Agriculture, and chapter six
concerned the place of Extension in the land-grant colleges. Technical matters related to
teaching methods, the training of program staff, and financing were addressed in chapters
seven, eight, and nine respectively, with the final chapter being devoted to trends and
outlook for Extension. Thus, the report was organized to root Extension in its traditional
accomplishments and mission, explain how it worked with other agencies and within the
context of the land-grant system, illustrate existing methods of organizational operation
and maintenance, and project forward into the future. The structure of this report is

similar in many ways to the 1992 vision, as we shall see.

60

Education

As the primary firnction of Extension, education must be treated as a key term.
While this value permits a broad scope, there are limits. For example, agents are not
allowed to act as organizers of farmers' groups, manage cooperative business enterprises,
or take part in the work of farmers' organizations (1948: 19); none of these activities are
educational, and so they fall outside the Extension mission (selectivity). Because
Extension is an educational organization, it must remain abjective, providing facts and
theories instead of serving the self-interest of its members or clients. The duties of
Extension, then, are s_e_l_egt_iya: They do not include the provision of services unless that is
the only way in which the educational mission can be satisfied.

The broad educational mission of Extension brings together several other values.
First, education is based on scientific research, and so the understanding that Extension

 

wishes to impart is more than just technical knowledge: It requires the understanding of
the participant, who will not have to continually return to Extension for advice on the

same matters. This is captured in the statement that

whereas extension has done much for people, it is what extension has
helped people to do for themselves that achieves the greatest results.
(l948:5)

This suggests the value of self-learning, the ability to learn for oneself. The outcomes of
this focus on self-learning are excellenca and lgderghip, as the people who truly
understand what they have been taught become capable of teaching and leading others.
Thus, self-learning is the foundation for organizational firm, because it creates a host
of clients who can assist Extension in bringing education to others.

Second, education requires the participation of people in order to be successfirl
(M). If a person does not wish to learn, they cannot be taught. Perhaps more
importantly, if they do get involved, Extension becomes more like a service provider and

less an educator. This is also true for Extension agents and other program staff, who

61

should yalae knowledge and seek to increase their own (MM) so they can be
better generalists in the field. The technical knowledge can always be taught; however,
the right attitude must already be in place for a person to become a successful agent.
Likewise, agent education should be supported by Extension through opportunities to visit
conferences and organizational Mg of their field knowledge. This valuing should
include faculty rank and rewards, such as continuing employment (similar to tenure).
Education should be a cgntinual process for both agents and clients: Adult education is
never complete.

Third, education has a broad audience, not a restricted one. While historically
Extension's audience had been farmers, the 1948 report makes it clear that Extension
ultimately serves the entire nation, urban and rural alike. The specifics focus mainly on
rural families and youth, non-farm as well as farmers, but urban needs are cited as
requiring future investigation. The need for education is cgmprahengive, so Extension

must be prepared to provide education to any and all who require it.

Coordination

While education is the center of Extension's mission, the need for coordination of
resources and programs is paramount to the organization's am. Extension has county,
state, and federal levels of each of its program areas, and the way in which Extension is
integrated into each land-grant university is different. In addition, there are many other
federal agencies, both within and without the Department of Agriculture, with which
Extension's mission overlaps. Taking advantage of these other agencies is crucial to
delivering needed edacational programs efficiently and effectively, without duplicating
each other's efforts (selectivig) (1948: 15-16). Thus, pooperation and coordination are
similar here: Extension resources are div_ers_e and unorganized, and so both internal

coordination and external gooperation are necessary to fulfill the mission (efficacy).

62

In order for coordination to be eiffliya, it requires clear and consistent leadership
to make sense of national priorities as well as state and local needs. One recommendation
of interest is the grouping of teaching, research, and extension firnctions within subject
matter departments in the land-grant colleges, rather than dividing them up on the basis of
on-campus and off-campus education (1948: 28-29). This suggests a M of firnction for
the colleges, where rewards and status are assigned (M) based on quality rather than
type of work. In 1948 this seemed achievable; we shall see that later times were not as

concerned with equip).

Motives

The 1948 Hannah report set forth an agenda for the nation's land—grant
universities, broadening the scope of the mission in spirit to match the words of the Smith-
Lever Act that made all citizens of the US. potential clients of the CES. Agents were
emphasized as content innovators. In addition to increased coordination and cooperation,
agents were to take advantage of improved communication and transportation to reach
clients in groups, through bulletins, and over the radio. The self-learning of these clients
made them into local leaders and even potential collaborators; where it was possible,
democratic program planning was recommended. This suggests the idea of
empowerment, but it places the power in the university and in the agents who then
bequeath it to their clients through education. This is distinguished fiom being
empowering, where power is recognized as already present but unrecognized in the clients
themselves.

In essence, the authors of the 1948 report sought to bring about change in
methods by expanding the mission instead of limiting it, thereby improving the efficacy of
the organization at the same time it was addressing more social problems. This was a first
order change, altering the behaviors needed to achieve the same goals as before. The

world had been through two world wars and a ten year economic depression since the

63

founding of Extension; the environmental changes made a shifi in the Extension mission

necessary.

2.

64

Table 4.2

Key Terms and Value Clusters in 1948,

rank-ordered by relative importance (National CES)

K_ey Term

Education

Coordination

}O.°°

9:99.93!"

NQMPPN!‘

Value Clusters

Self-Learning, Excellence, Leadership, Efficacy.

Research.

Selectivity.

Objectivity, Selectivity.

Participation, Efficacy.

Staff Learning, Valuing, Generalization, Knowledge.

Opportunism, Staff Learning, Valuing, Field,
Knowledge.

Continual Staff Learning.

Comprehensive

Efficacy.

Education, Efficiency, Efficacy, Selectivity.
Cooperation, Diversity, Efficacy.
Leadership, Eflicacy.

Equity, Valuing, Unity.

65

1959: Kearl and Copeland elaborate on the Scope Report

Key Terms: Educatiop, Opportunism, Participation, Cooperation.

In 195 8, the Scope Report1 set forth the scope and responsibilities of Extension
following one of the most prosperous decades in American history. From this, A Guide to
Extens_i9n Programs for the Future (Kearl and Copeland (Eds), 1959) was created to
detail the program requirements for the areas noted in the Scope Report. Nine program
areas were described, starting with an overview of how Extension was relevant to the area
and then describing the current situation and recommendations for firture programming
efforts. The conclusion of the 1959 report made connections between the various
recommendations for the different program areas and set up the general framework for all

firture extension programming.

Education

As in 1948, education is at the center of the Extension mission:

Extension has a single firnction to perform -- education for action,
supported by facts derived from research, and directed at specific needs
and problems. (1959: 48)

Education for action is identical to self learning, which is the primary goal for both clients
and agents. Developing local and Qommunity leadarship is again connected to fif;
Lear_m°pg. However, staff learning is now intended to be specialized instead of general.
The new reaction to a ever more complex world is to increase the expertise immediately
available to agents. Continual learning is critical, as most fields ghanga rapidly enough to
require periodic updates on new advances to avoid having out of date knowledge. A
value new to the education cluster in 1959 is glpbal significance: As the world grows

smaller, knowledge of world issues and how one's actions are related to them becomes

 

v—V.

1 The Scope Report Committee was chaired by Paul A. Miller,
the Director of the Michigan CES at that time.

66

ever more important. Thus, education in global significance is another responsibility of

Extension.

Opportunism

This value refers to the proactive seizing of opportunities to extend programs and

 

increase 93m. Within 4-H programs, opportunisrn has been a tradition for decades; in
1959 it is applied to other program areas. Opportunism is best suited to times of flux and
chapga, where flexibilig in goals and methods is required to remain an active and potent
(affgcliye) participant in the organization's environment of interest. It is important for new
educatignal programs because it prepares people for the future (mm—flag) as well as the
present, and it is key to developing leaders because lgadership means making leaps of faith
in order to better serve one's followers in the present and in the future. The use of
anoyative technology such as the mass media is one recommendation arising out of the
need to seek alternative means of reaching the target audience repeatedly and effectively.

In short, Opportunism is the philosophy of action, not reaction.

Participation

Before the adupational goals of Extension can be achieved, it must get potential
clients to be active in programs. Self-laa_rmng cannot be achieved without a person's
commitment to the ideals and goals of an edacatipnal program; thus, participation is a
necessary though not suficient condition for the success (aftipapy) of Extension. This also

takes place at the group level: Group action is often necessary for effective programs in a

 

communig, which is the context of individual development (people). Among specific
program areas, it is vitally important that youth be allowed to participate in the design of
programs for them once they reach the appropriate stage of development. If youth are not

consulted, efficagg will drop and potential leaders will be stifled. The ultimate goal of

 

increased participation is the creation of leaders from and for all walks of life

67

(comprehansive); in this way, participation has a critical role to play in Extension's
educational mission.

Cooperation
Extension is not the only agency that provides educational programming to
farmers, homemakers and youth, nor should it act like it. Thus, cooperation with these

other organizations has a critical role to play in the effective delivery of aducational

 

programs. For example, in the forty years since the founding of the CES, the number and
importance of marketing firms has swelled dramatically, to the extent that most farmers in
1959 have little contact with the firm that markets their products (Ma). In order to
increase the efficiang of the agricultural system, there must be COOperative arrangements
with the farmer, the marketing firm, the processor, distributor, and retailer
(comprehensive). Without these connections, controlling market costs, expanding the
market, and helping people understand the whole system are nearly impossible goals.
Such cooperation must take place at the county, state, and federal level in order to be
M.

Cooperation is not just important to agricultural production and marketing, but
also to natural resources and community development. Nor is it restricted to large firms:

Seizing the appotatpity to cooperate with local volunteer leaders can make a world of

 

difference for community programs, and their participation has the added benefit of
educating them through practical application, which has always been a goal of Extension.
Finally, cooperation can be further increased through the use of innoyative technolcgy like
the mass media to disseminate ideas and information, either within the context of an

existing partnership or as first contact with firture cooperating agencies and individuals.

68

Motives

The major purpose of the 1959 report is to provide direction for firture Extension
work, increasing the sophistication of Extension's educational methods and reaching out to
more audiences with better tools. The change is instrumental rather than fundamental:
The details may change, but the approach remains the same. Thus, the report encourages
content innovators among agents and recommends first order change for the organization
as a whole. The elevation of Opportunism to the center of a value cluster pushes
Extension to seek out new challenges more than it encourages the development of better
solutions to problems. However, this shift in emphasis uses Opportunism as a tool for
staying one step ahead rather than the core value of a new vision. Where role innovators
could be encouraged, the 1959 report instead encourages content innovators.

While there are suggestions among the program areas of Family Living and 4-H
that the Extension mission is one of empowering individuals to be leaders, the Agriculture
and Natural Resources program areas focus more on empowerment, where Extension
grants power to its clients through teaching them research knowledge fiom the university.
This distinction makes sense in the abstract, as presented in the document. However,
what is most important is how it is translated into practice in the field by agents working
with their clients; unfortunately, this comparison can only be made in the present, so we

can only speculate on the differences in 1959.

69

Table 4.3

Key Terms and Value Clusters in 1959,

rank-ordered by relative importance (National CES)

K_ay Terms

Education

Opportunism

Participation

Cooperation

PPNS‘

.V‘PP’N!"

PP’N!‘

9‘.“

99:593.“?

Value Clastars

Self-Learning.

Leadership, Community, Self-Learning.
Specialization, Continuous Staff Learning, Change.
Global.

Change, Flexibility, Efficacy, Participation.
Education, Futuring.

Leadership.

Eflicacy.

Tradition.

Innovative Technology, Efficiency.

Education.

Self-Learning, Education, Efficacy.
Community, People, Efficacy. "
Leadership, Efficacy.

Leadership, Comprehensive, Education.

Education, Efiicacy.
Change.

Efficiency, Comprehensive, Efficacy.
Opportunism, Leadership, Community,
Participation, Education.

Community.
Innovative Technology.

70

1968: A People and A Spirit

Key Terms: Edugatiop, Qppgrttr_ni_srp, Cpopemtiop, Dim.

In 1966, a joint committee of officials from land-grant universities, the USDA, and
the federal CES was convened to study the changes in the US. and recommend changes in
the structure and priorities of Extension. There were three major goals:

(1) Determination of major policies and programs needed to serve the public; (2) Establish
a base for future cooperation and better mutual understanding of Extension's role between
the three organizations represented on the committee; and (3) Identify the public interest
which Extension is expected to serve. The 1968 document was the outcome of the
committee's deliberations and studies.

A People M A Spirit starts with the history of the United States, its institutions
and the goals of its citizens. Priority issues for the U. S. are identified, followed by the
presentation of a metaphor: Society is seen as a river, with the mainstream requiring
reconnection with those eddies and pools which have become separated in order to serve
the whole of society. The place of Extension is then detailed, beginning with attitudes and
opinions, followed by future projections and detailed descriptions of program areas. The
report closes with identification of needed resources, a review of the relationships in which

Extension is enmeshed, and a summary of recommendations for the entire document.

Education

The role of education is central to bringing the alienated and other groups back
into the mainstream of society. The goal is gomprehmsive in scope: All program areas
and all pagpte must be included within Extension programming efi‘orts. As in 1959 and
1948, self-learning is the most desired outcome: One should "develop the ability to
control destiny" (1968: 59). Continuous stafl imp" g is crucial to success in the future
(tutu—ring and affigagy); the types of staff will be diversified, with some retaining the

traditional functions, others being more smialized in subject matter relevant to clientele,

71

and still others being "subprofessional aides," responsible for assisting the other two types
of county staff in difficult and large-scale programming (1968: 74). Contin_u_al_self-
lgrtmlrg is an important component of the Quality of Lifa programs, as the ability to learn
is essential to complete human development. Extension is obligated to ensure that all
individuals have the necessary physical and social environment (951% of opmrtunig) in
which to develop their full potential (1968: 61). Without this support, the mainstream
grow increasingly smaller as people drop out, until the nation cannot hold together
anymore. In this way, education is crucial to the survival of the US.

The mainstream metaphor also suggests that W is the key to Extension
success in education. Without everyone's (comprahepsive) participatign, the mainstream
will shrink; if enough people drop out, it will become a trickle, and the costs of dealing
with so many separate groups will bury the government. When clientele do mpate in
education, then the best results are obtained (excellence): Leadis are created,
communities invigorated, and other agencies spring up in the favorable climate to take part
of the burden away from Extension (cooperatipn). Ultimately, the mainstream brings

rewards to all through education.

Opportunism

Taking advantage of opportunity is an American tradition. From the first, pioneers

 

have been the backbone of this country. Having set up this historical background, the
1968 report applies the same perspective to Extension: Success comes fi'om taking
preemptive or anticipatory action, not from waiting for the environment to demand a
reaction. Thus, the 9_har_rg§ in the economic and political environment is essential to the
value of opportunistic Extension programming. Given the metaphor of the mainstream,
opportunities must be taken at all levels, from individuals (pggpie) to communities to

global organizations. Extension's role must be that of a leader of other organizations,

72

being the first to venture forth into uncharted realms. To do less would be to shame the

tradition of the US. as well as Extension.

 

Cooperation

The sc0pe of cooperation required by the committee that authored the 1968 report
is compteheg've, encompassing other federal agencies within and outside of the
Department of Agriculture, land grant universities from 1855 and 1890, comupities and
community colleges, county and city governments, and the governments of other nations
(gtgtfl). The purpose of these aims; linkages is educatiop, whether it entails collecting
resources from a variety of sources or merely referring clients to the appropriate agency
for their needs. Coordination is part of cooperation in this document. In order for the
recommended changes to be effectively coordinatad within the many levels of Extension,

there must be cooperation with other agencies:

An effective program of Extension requires an identification of Extension's
role in the field and carefirlly established relationship patterns with other
agencies, organizations, and institutions. (1968: 90)

Among the primary partners in Extension planning are the USDA and the National
Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges (NASULGC), co-authors of A

People and A Spirit.

Equity
The equity term is sometimes called balance in A People and A Spirit; for the
purposes of this analysis, they are identical. Unequal opwrtunity is a devil term2 in this

document, and it is repeatedly attacked across a variety of contexts. Among them are the

 

2 In rhetorical theory, a devil term is one that carries
within it the most antithetical message to the one the
rhetor wishes to send. In contrast, a god term is one that
conjures the most important message the rhetor wishes to
communicate.

73

alienated, those people who have departed the mainstream and do not wish to return (the
hippie counterculture is one example relevant to the document), and the Negro land grant
colleges and universities (founded in 1890), whose resources are far less than those of the
1862 land grant schools. However, while equity among program areas is encouraged,

agriculture is first among equals:

The basic thrust of recommendations contained in this report calls for the
Cooperative Extension Service to adapt its staff and program effort to
serve more adequately the broad scope of social and economic problems of
the nation while strengthening its assistance to the agricultural sector of the
economy. (italics added; 1968: 89)

Despite this genuflection to the traditional purpose of the CES, the need for balance in

resources and respect is required for effective programming across the diverse functions

 

 

and program areas of Extension:

the degree of change can be greatly accelerated if sufiicient financial
resources are provided to allow for meaningful and significant expansion of
program efforts in the nontraditional areas of program activity. (1968: 89-
90)

Thus, equity is essential to the change effort recommended by the authors of A People and
A Spirit. This recognition of the rising importance of non-agricultural issues to Extension

and the nation becomes the core of the 1992 vision.

Motives

In 1968, the US. government was still optimistic about the potential for
government programs to address and even solve daunting social problems. This optimism
is reflected in A People a_nd A Spirit. The authors recognize many problems, and propose
a solution for nearly every one. Agents are seen more as custodians of the Extension
mission than as innovators in their own right. With the cooperation of so many other
organizations at the center of the vision, individual accomplishments are ignored in favor

of groups.

74

The scope of Extension is expanded to encompass many areas only tangentially
related to agriculture and education. This change is a second order one, for it changes the
mission of the organization. Problems of limited resources and the need for selectivity in
programming are not mentioned, leaving the impression that Extension is an organization
of enormous capacity existing in a world where all the resources it needs to firlfill its
mission are accessible through its own resources and cooperation with other agencies.
Empowerment is not present here, as the cooperative efforts of government agencies are
depicted as the route to success in restoring the country to its tradition of high quality of
life. A grand program is suggested in A Pegple and A Spirit; yet it assumes a world much
more plentifirl and cooperative than the one most recognize. It is likely that the rosy
vision was thought necessary to make the desired changes possible, but there is only so

much that wishing can make so.

2.

75

Table 4.4

Key Terms and Value Clusters in 1968,

rank-ordered by relative importance (National CES)

Terms
Education

125

 

Opportunism

Cooperation

Equity

99°F.“

99°F)?“

H

b)

PP’NE“

Value Clusters

Equity, Opportunism.

Self-Learning.

Comprehensive, People.

Participation, Comprehensive, Excellence,
Leadership, Community, Cooperation.

Continuous Staff Learning, Futuring, Efficacy,
Diversity, Tradition, Specialization.

Continuous Self-Learning, Quality of Life

Tradition.

Change.

Leadership, Tradition.
People, Community, Global.

Comprehensive, Community, Global.
Diversity, Education.
Coordination, Eflicacy.

Opportunism.
Efficacy, Diversity.
Change.

Tradition.

76

1973: The Lifelong University at Michigan State

Key Terms: Lifelongaeducation. Cooperation, Cpmmunity.

In 1970, then MSU President Clifton Wharton, Jr. established the Commission on
Admissions and Student Body Composition to review Michigan State's policies in those
areas. One of the Commission's recommendations was an in-depth study of MSU‘s
present and firture role in providing ongoing education to Michigan citizens. As a result,
the Task Force for Lifelong Education was formed. The document that resulted from the
Task Force's two year study was called The Lifeloag Univerfly, and it focused on the
process of lifelong education. This document is important to Extension for two reasons.
First, the ideas mentioned within are direct precursors of many of the ideas found in the
1992 presentation to Extension agents and the 1993 Repgrt of the Provost's Committee on
Outreach: Extending Knowledge to Serve Sogigy, which emphasized the integration of
outreach into the work of faculty at Michigan State. Second, the connection between the
two eras of change is the presence of James Votruba, who was one of three graduate
student members of the Task Force in 1973 and was appointed Vice Provost for
University Outreach in 1991. His current position makes him responsible for the
combined educational efforts of what were formerly the Cooperative Extension Service
and the Continuing Education Service. This link between the values and responsibilities of
the two eras suggests a connection of ideas that must be explored in order to understand

the evolution of the Extension culture.

Lifelong education

Given the title of the 1973 report, it is no surprise that lifelong education is the
first key term. While lifelong education (elsewhere termed Entinuous learning) has
always been a value of Extension, it has not previously been the centerpiece of the
mission. In Th; Lifelong flaiversity, Michigan State is portrayed as having a tradition of

 

lifelong education, with both the Cooperative Extension Service (1914) and the

77

Continuing Education Service (first proposed in 1926, formally a part of the University

since 1948) playing significant roles in the University's land-grant mission. In fact,

Michigan State is...already a lifelong university. In discussing ideas that we
thought were speculation, we often found that they were actually being
implemented in programs and activities. this is indicated by the frequency
of words such as expand and increase rather than begin or create. (1973:
62-63; italics from original)

Thus, it comes as no surprise that lifelong education is treated equitably with the other
primary university functions. As a primary function, expellence in programming is
required. In addition, lifelong education is a fimction whose programs must be advertised
to Michigan citizens so that they might take firll advantage of the improved and expanded
programs offered by Michigan State.

The 1973 report explicitly uses the term self-learning to describe the most

important component of a successfirl (effective) lifelong education effort: Teaching

 

people to become systematic, self-initiating learners (1973: 27). This is both a terminal
value and an instrumental one: It is a worthwhile goal in itself, and it leads to the
achievement of other valuable end states, such as the development of local institutions'
collaborative potential in lifelong education. This value cluster foreshadows the clusters
found in the 1992 presentation as part of the new vision for Extension.

‘ In order to best accomplish its lifelong education mandate, MSU is expected to act
in opportunistic ways to gatralize lifelong education responsibilities, coordinate between
university units, and create copperative partnerships with other social and educational
institutions. C00peration is particularly important for reaching into mm_n1pnities; this
echoes the Extension value of involving extending knowledge to people who need it off
campus. Innovative techmrlpg'ttfi are one solution to the problem of extending lifelong
education into cpmmupjties, and the participation of gommpm'ty colleges in bringing
lifelong learning to all citizens (comprehensive) is seen as a potentially special relationship.

However, it is crucial to include means of evaluation (valuing) of how communig projects

78

meet long-term needs (customer-driven) and the relative worth of the multiple models for

lifelong education that MSU employs.

Cooperation

Just as Extension repeatedly emphasizes the need to cooperate in order to create
the best outcomes through the most M use of resources, so too is the Mtg
education firnction best served by the University taking on only the burdens for which it is

best suited (selectivig). By being selective, MSU can be opportunistic in its own areas of

 

expertise (specialization) and leave areas outside that specialty to other social and
educational institutions (cooperation). These other institutions will be guided by MSU's
knowledge of how to maximize @219! in organizational partnerships beyond the
university. By utilizing more and better cooperative arrangements, lifalong education can
be brought to everyone who desires it (gomprehensive).

Coordipation of internal resources is important to cooperative success (May),
as MSU must be careful to stay within its means and not duplicate efforts. It also helps
when encouraging use and facilitation of programs. In addition, there must be evaluation
(ya_l_u_ir_rg) of community programs to ensure the effectiveness of off-campus units. An
essential part of this will be to take advantage of the oppomnities presented by
community colleges to deliver lifelortg education programs. It is through such patterns of

cooperation that program delivery to communities will be enhanced.

Community

The key to the overall lifelong education effort is encouraging it within Michigan
communities. The participation of communities, cooparation between the university and
community resource people, and funding fi'om the state, local, and municipal levels
(coordinatipn) all contribute to the fiaapy of lifelong education in communities (1973:

37-3 8). Among the Task Force's recommendations is the creation of a visible community

79

liaison within the new organizational structure of the university. This position could be
important in assuring that the lifelong education efforts in a community are customer-
d_r_iyea, and thus relevant to community needs. By bringing lifelong education into
communities, MSU makes it accessible to those who cannot live near or commute to
campus.

With ppportunities for lifelong fiucation in communities, students are expected to
obtain some of their formal education in their home communities. This allows them to
work and attend classes at the same time, making it easier to afi‘ord a college education.
Also, professional workers can improve and update their skills without taking an extended
leave of absence for more schooling (lifelongeducation). Again, community colleges
provide MSU with an opportunity for extremely beneficial cooperation. Cooperation and

coordination are both essential to community lifelog education programs. In order to

 

make sure that the lifelong education programs are excellent, professional evaluators

should be brought in to evaluate the programs (valuing).

Motives

The Task Force on Lifelong Education attempted a second order change in the
focus of Michigan State, but it was depicted as only first order. The Task Force was
carefirl to note that many of the programs it recommended were already implemented, thus
requiring a shift in emphasis rather than values. However, we know from the history of
Extension (see Chapter 1) that these efforts were isolated and undervalued by the
university; when the Task Force recommends changing university policies, it is asking that
the trends it has identified be elevated from tangential to central importance. This is a
second order change.

The idea of empowering communities and their residents is explicitly recognized in
The Lifelong University. Lifelong education is depicted as the right environment in which

people may flourish rather than being the means of implanting potential into pe0ple. The

80

importance of this document to Extension should not be understated: The focus on
community and cooperation in order to achieve educational goals for all the citizens of
Michigan is what has been advocated for Extension in the three documents discussed
previously. However, the 1973 report focuses on the land-grant university instead of the
federal Extension service, aiming its calls for change at a much more local level. Many of
the ideas presented here will appear later, adding firrther evidence to the argument that
none of what is said is new, it is only rephrased and recombined to meet the needs of

different rhetorical environments.

l.

2.

81

Table 4.5

Key Terms and Value Clusters in 1973,

rank-ordered by relative importance (Michigan State University)

K_ey Terms

Lifelong Education

Cooperation

Community

80:89.“?

QMPWNE“

I—d

>199???"

“99°99

Value Clustars

Tradition.

Equity.

Excellence.

Advertise.

Opportunism, Centralization, Coordination,
Cooperation.

Self-Learning, Efficacy, Collaboration.

Cooperation, Community.

Innovative Technology, Community, Participation.

Valuing, Community, Customer-Driven.

Coordination, Centralization, Opportunism.

Efficiency, Lifelong Education, Selectivity.
Selectivity, Opportunism, Selectivity, Specialization.
Efiicacy, Lifelong Education, Comprehensive.
Coordination, Efficacy.

Valuing, Community, Efficacy.

Opportunism, Community, Lifelong Education.

Participation, Cooperation, Efficacy,

Lifelong Education, Coordination.
Lifelong Education, Accessibility.
Lifelong Education, Customer-Driven.
Cooperation, Coordination, Lifelong Education.
Opportunism, Lifelong Education, Education.
Opportunism, Cooperation.
Lifelong Education, Excellence, Valuing.

82

1983: Extension in the 80's
Key Terms: Change, Tradition, Education.

In 1983, the national CES published Extension in the 80'a, a document that was

 

intended to review and restate the roles and responsibilities of the component parts of the
Cooperative Extension Service. This effort was to serve as the foundation for a firturing
process, extending the role of Extension into those areas where it could retain its
relevance and continue its tradition of excellence. The two fundamental questions of the
committee that drafted the document were (1) What is the appropriate scope of Extension
problems? and (2) How can Extension help solve these problems? The remainder of the

document attempts to answer these questions.

Change

Change is an important component of the arguments raised in Extertsjon in the
893. Changes in available knowledge, in client needs, and in the socio-economic status of
the nation required a shift in Extension activities. Extension is described as an agency for

change, with a tradition of cooperation with others to bring education to those who need

 

or want it (1983: 1). In order for Extension to remain effective, it must coordinate its
organizational structure better, develop a focua on the problems it will address, and

equitably parcel out its resources (1983: 5). Extension must also be flexible enough to

 

respond to change for the greater good of pagpla and communities (1983: 5). Thus
change in Extension is required; yet the change suggested is only first-order, a shift in
activities rather than fundamental assumptions (1983: 24). As Extension is presented as
having a tradition of change, altering the course is a natural part of firlfilling the Extension

mission, to help people identify and solve problems (self-learning).

83

Tradition

As noted above, Extension has a tradition as an agency of ch_a_anga that uses
cooperation with other organizations to achieve its educational goals. The purpose of the
document is to extend that tradition of excellence into the firm (1983: 5). This tradition
of excellence is particularly apparent in Extension's cooperative work on behalf of
commercial agriculture; here, the cooperative element is labelled the key to Extension's
afllaay (1983: 17). One of the document's recommendations is an increase in the amount
of formal as opposed to traditional informal evaluation (yalpiag) of Extension programs to
better address gommunig needs (1983: 23). Another is using new media (innovative
technology) to achieve Extension's educationfl mission; Extension has a tradition of
adopting new media to better deliver its programs (Opportunism), adopting radio in the
1920s and television in the 19503 (1983: 21). Last, Extension has a tradition of offering
lifelong learning to its clients (1983: 24). In these ways, Extension prepares for the future

using the same principles that served it so well in the past.

Education

The tradition of Extension's educational mission to the past is made perfectly clear

 

when the value of self-learning is introduced by quoting the 1948 report:

whereas extension has done much for people, it is what extension has
helped people to do for themselves that achieves the greatest results.
(l948:5;1983:4)

Education is implicit in the basic mission of the CES:

The basic mission of Cooperative Extension is to disseminate, and
encourage the application of, research-generated knowledge and leadership
techniques to individuals, families, and communities. (1983: 7)

Thus, the values of research, leadership, and comqu cluster with education.

 

Interestingly, this mission statement does not support the 1948 quote: Dissemination is

not self-learning, because the power to decide on what is disseminated resides entirely

84

with Extension. People are not empowered in this case, as they know only what the CES
chooses to tell them.
In altering how Extension operates, greater attention is recommended for target

audiences. This focus and the use of innovative technologies such as media to access hard

 

to reach audiences is necessary to provide an increased number of educational

 

opportunities. Also, the document states that continuous staff learning should be valued
more by Extension because agents will need to have the opportunigg for continued
Lear_r_rtr_rg and commensurate rewards if Extension is to attract and keep the desired quality
of agents (1983: 17-18). Last, mph is cited as the basis for the CES' major

educational efforts.

Motives

The 1983 report attempts to present a necessary second order change as first
order, involving shifts in emphasis without changing the fundamental culture of the
organization. To this end, change is paired with tradition to demonstrate the precedent for
what the authors advocate: Adjusting to suit the times. Thus, role innovators are
encouraged. Cooperation is cited repeatedly as a part of the educational tradition in order
to justify changes in funding emphases and greater equity in existing arrangements.

Empowerment is part of the mission, but it is more an issue of granting power than
encouraging it in people. Much of the document has an instrumental focus, getting the
word out rather than doing what that word actually entails. But by framing change as a
minor adjustment, the authors of Exten_sion in the 19805 maximize the chance that their
recommendations will be adopted while minimizing the likelihood that change will make a
difference. Within four years of this document's publishing, Michigan State began to
undergo another change effort, starting with Dressel's (1987) history of the Hannah years,
building through the 1989 Cantlop Report, and culminating in the vision presented at the
Michigan State Extension School in the fall of 1992.

Ks! Tet—m
Change

Tradition

Education

85

Table 4.6

Key Terms and Value Clusters in 1983,

rank-ordered by relative importance (National CES)

:“P’Nr‘

.O‘V'PP’N?

M 91113.61

Tradition, Cooperation, Education.
Self-Learning.

Efficacy, Coordination, Focus, Equity.
Flexibility, People, Community.

Excellence, Futuring.

Change, Cooperation, Education.

Excellence, Cooperation, Efficacy.

Valuing, Community.

Innovative Technology, Education, Opportunism.
Lifelong Education.

Tradition, Self-Learning.

Research, Leadership, Community.

Focus, Innovative Technology, Accessibility,
Opportunism.

Valuing, Continuous Staff Leaming, Opportunism.

Research.

86

The Historical Mission of Extension

Before delving into the value clusters found around the key terms of these
documents, some attention to the mission statements is deserved. As these statements are
the summary of the organization's purpose for being, they provide a standard for
importance that is too easily lost when working through the details of the documents'
recommendations and explanations. Following this discussion, the more specific value

clusters will be easier to rank in importance, both within documents and across time.

Education

Every document takes care to state that the primary purpose of the organization is
education. There are two themes present: (1) Research-generated knowledge is
translated by Extension for magical use by audiences, resulting in effective education: and
(2) Encouraging the pmicipation of audiences through education for action, making
people active participants in meeting their own needs (filmy. The 1914, 1948, and
1959 documents all contain the first theme, while 1968, 1973 and 1983 mention both
themes. Thus, the empowerment of people to use their own potential (the second theme)
is a relatively recent addition to the mission of Extension. In contrast, the earlier missions
focus on providing power to people. It has already been noted that not all of the
documents have this theme within the overall report; their presence or absence in the

mission suggests where it is a key term and where it is only part of a cluster.

Comprehensive

When asking about the breadth of the Extension mandate, all the documents
provide the same firndamental response: Extension's audience is every citizen in the
United States. However, the programs available are not always comprehensive. In 1914,

the program areas for Extension work are agriculture and home economics; 1948 suggests

87

that the scope is expanding but makes it clear that farmers are the major focus. The other
documents do not limit their scope, although 1959 anchors its programs in the US
Department of Agriculture (USDA). In 1968 and 1973, however, there are no limits
placed on the scope of Extension's educational programnring. 1983 is less expansive, but
also does not set boundaries, and in fact advocates the use of new innovative technology
in fulfilling its basic mission, which suggests both a drive for greater efficiency and a

means of overcoming prior limitations on programming scope.

Level of Focus

The level referred to is the answer to the question: Is Extension oriented at the
county, community, state, national, or global level? The 1914 mission is targeted at the
national level, which should not be surprising given that the Smith-Lever Act created
Extension; the organizational structure was first defined at the national level, then
extended downward to states and counties. The 1948 report also takes a national focus in
its mission, but later recommendations are focused more on the state level, particularly in
the context of the land-grant universities. In 1959, there is a suggestion of a more local,
county perspective, but the only explicit mentions are of the federal organization (USDA)
and the state-level land-grant college system. The 1968 national report speaks of
Extension as a national level organization with responsibilities in communities and to the
rest of the world (glaM); of the five documents, its scope is the most comprehensive.
The 197 3 Michigan State University mission of lifelong education is coordinated at the
state level but implemented in communities. Finally, the 1983 report frames the work of
Extension at the state level by referring to Extension's role in transmitting information
from universities (state level) to people (an undifferentiated audience that by default is at
the state level). It is no surprise that the most specific level is found in the only state-level
document; what is surprising is that so few of the others refer to the level at which all the

educational work of Extension is done.

88

C ustomer-Driven

How are the needs that Extension attempts to meet through its educational
programs determined? For most of these documents, this question is not answered
directly. In 1914 and 1948, the application and adoption outcomes appear to have less to
do with identified needs than with the dissemination of unquestionably valuable research
knowledge. The 1968 mission is similarly described, and although it adds a focus on
education for action, the mandate appears to derive fi'om the organization and not the
people it serves. However, the 1959 mission begins by identifying the people served by
Extension as the source of a programming agenda. The 1973 document stresses increased
sensitivity to the educational needs of Michigan citizens, suggesting an increased role for
the audience in identifying issues. In 1983, formal evaluation (Elaiag) to ensure that
programs meet community needs is recommended. The focus on audience needs appears
to be a growing part of the Extension mission, as it appears first in 1959 and is elaborated
on in 1973 and 1983. This trend could be usefirl to the authors of the change initiative as

a foundation for advocating improvements.

Conclusion

The Extension mission has remained stable in its fundamentals since its founding
in 1914, but the scope of program area and the involvement of its audience in setting the
program agenda have changed over time. Level of focus is likely an artifact of all but one
of these documents being national in scope, but it remains an important area of concern.
Ifthe level of focus is not merely an artifact of a document's scope, level of focus becomes
a crucial point of contention between the different levels of Extension. IfExtension places
more value on state level work than on work in the counties, for example, there will be
strife between those who work at the state level and those who work in the counties. This
will be a prime issue in Chapter Six when discussing county-based agents' views of the

state-level change initiative.

89

Important Value Clusters Across the Eras of Extension

Having described the value clusters around the key terms at each time point and
the evolution of the mission statements, it is time now to compare the value clusters
around recurring key terms at different times. The changing clusters of values around the
key terms represent the cultural history of Extension. Thus, charting the pattern shifts
should suggest the cultural context in which current Extension messages are sent and
interpreted. More importantly, knowing what has gone before gives us a baseline for
measuring the change in agents' values after being exposed to the new vision. Thus, the
historical context described here sets up the current cultural paradigm. If agents deviate
from this historical culture on those points of incommensurability with the new vision,
then the vision can be said to be potent in bringing about the desired value changes in

Extension agents. If not, the change initiative has failed.

Education
Education is the one key term common to all five documents, representing the
common focus of Extension throughout its history. In 1948, we find that teaching clients

pbjective research-based knowledge is the route to self-learning, which has the firrther

 

benefit of producing people fit to be leaders. The goal of self-learning is repeated in the

 

1959 report, with the addition of a community context in which the leaders Extension
helps develop are found. 1968 adds the need for providing equal (atrial) ppportunity in
education to a comprehensive audience to achieve continual self-learning and improve the
nation's gualig of life. 1973 adds the requirement of education being fifalpng and echoes
1959 in placing it within a cpmmunity context. The 1973 report also identifies an increase
in the availability of people and organizations as collaborators through self-learning, which
improves afii_ca<_:y by removing the part of Extension's burden by creating those

collaborators who work with instead of for Extension in meeting audience needs. In 1983,

90

the traditional goal of self-learning through research-based education to create leaders in

 

ppmmunities is advocated. An additional route to this goal is through the use of
innovative technologiaa such as electronic media to make education accessible. Thus, the
goal of client education remains firndamentally the same over time, with a clearer sense of
its benefits for communities through the leaders and Extension collaborators it creates
within them.

Because education is so important to Extension, it is also connected to values that
concern more instrumental issues connected to the delivery and efiicacy of Extension
programs. In 1948, education is the basis for selectivity in programming and agent
responsibilities: If a program does not have an educational component, then it is not part
of Extension's mandate. If an agent is not actively educating in a particular activity, then
that activity is outside the scope of his/her responsibilities. This sentiment is only stated
explicitly in 1948, but all the other Extension documents refer to it implicitly. The 197 3
report recommends that Michigan State advertisa its educational programs within the
communities to overcome the problem of low turnout. It also stresses the importance of
being customer-driven by communng needs in order to get the participation required for
effective education. This need to advertise and be customer-driven are elements that
reappear in the 1992 vision.

The importance of education to the Extension mission covers the learning of
agents as well as clientele. The 1948 report encourages staff learning that will make
agents better generalists, but all of the subsequent documents recommend specialization
instead. In 1959, continual stafi‘ learning to develop specialization is recommended to deal
with an increasingly complex environment. In 1968, the responsibilities of agents are
made more specific and the positions of aides and assistants created to deal with the more
mundane details. It is not surprising that the 1973 report recommends mm education
for staff as well as clients to keep them on the cutting edge. The 1983 report states that

the organization should provide opportunities for continual staff learning and include such

91

learning in their evaluation (valuing) of agents. What is not mentioned in any of the
documents is the value of learning in the field; every reference to staff learning is in the
context of formal university education. This point will be expanded when discussing the

interpretations of agents in Chapter Six.

Opportunism

Seeking out opportunities for better fiilfilling the Extension mission is not valued
equally across the eras of Extension, waxing and waning over time. Thus, the 1948 report
only discusses Opportunism in the context of developing staff learning. The 1959 report
identifies Opportunism as a 4-H tradition and connects it to fir—tumg and the deve10pment

of leaders. Changes in the Extension environment require agents to be flexible and one

 

 

way to achieve that is for agents to be opportunistic in making Extension an effective
pgicipant in many varieties of educational subjects and methods. The opportunistic use
of innovative technplpgies in programming is one such method. But it is the 1968 report
that places the highest value on Opportunism, connecting it national traditions and tying its
importance to the level of c_tha in society, which in 1968 was high. Extension's tradition

also includes being a leader of other organizations in cooperative efforts, and no such

 

opportunities should be allowed to pass by. Opportunism by Extension was important at
all levels in 1968, from individual papal; to their communities to the world in which
everyone lives (gLob_al). Only in this way could equal (may) opportunities be made
available to everyone, as required by the mainstream metaphor of society.

The importance of Opportunism changed dramatically between 1968 and 1973,
when one of the major values connected to Opportunism was its opposite selectivity:
Michigan State was to be adac_ti_ve_ in its programming based on its areas of specialization,
and be opportunistic in its cooperative efforts to maximize the proportion of its programs
that fit under its areas of specialization. Another area of opportunity in 1973 was in

centralizing and coordinating the university's lifelong education functions to minimize

92

overlap between programs and maximize cost effectiveness. The stature of opportunism
in 1983 was still lower, with the only two instances being Extension's tradition of

opportunism in adopting innovative technologies to improve access to its educational

 

programs and the need to give agents opportunities for continual staff learning. Thus, it
appears that opportunism has been on the wane in the recent past. The place of
opportunism in the new vision will have to be interpreted in this light, as an attempt to
raise the importance of this value through connection to other values has both positive and

negative precedents, with the negative being more recent.

Cooperation

As Extension has been the Cooperative Extension Service for nearly 80 years, the
value of cooperation has been a key term for a long time. Interestingly, in 1948 it was
coordination that was most important to educational My. However, since then
cooperation has been essential to edugational affirmy by removing some of the burden
fi'om Extension. In 195 9, change in the environment (e. g., the rise of marketing firms)
made cooperation necessary for some issues, such as marketing farm products, often
involving all of the organizations involved in the particular issue (comprehensive). This is
also important in 1968, when comprehensive cooperation with both comqu and m
organizations is declared necessary for afiegtiaa programming. Cooperation with
community Leanna and the use of innovative technology are also cited in 1959 as means of
improving educational outcomes.

The 1968 report proposes a different place for cooperation when it suggests that

 

comprehensive participation in the mainstream creates leaders invigorates communities.
and fosters a favorable climate in which organizations with which Extension might
cooperate are created. Thus, cooperation becomes an outcome as well as a means to
achieving Extension's mission. The 1968 report also makes coordination dependent on

cooperation for its eflicacy, a reversal from 1948, and reaffirms that education is the goal

93

of all Extension's diverse cooperating partners. A similar pattern is found in 197 3, when

 

improvements in cooperation are connected to more comprehensive lifelong education.
An example of this is the greater e_ffi_cacy of lifelongeducation due to more cooperation
between the university and the community. However, this expectation was not yet
empirically proven, so evaluation (Mg) of the aflicapy of cooperators in the
community was recommended. Interestingly, in 1973 coordination was assumed to be a
requirement of cooperative M, the rationale being that Michigan State could not
efl‘ectively choose areas for cooperation without knowing what it was already doing.

The 1983 document returns to the tradition of Extension cooperation in its
operation as an agency for alanga through education. In fact, cooperation is cited as the
key to excellence in Extension work. Thus, over time cooperation has been a stable value
for Extension, with other values clustering with it to explain the multiple ways in which
cooperation leads to better educational outcomes. However, the success of Extension in
maintaining its partnerships may be an issue of concern. For example, in 1959 it was
recognized that farmers, businesses, the land grant university and all levels of government
were contributors to agricultural success. But in 1983, there was a call for stronger links
between those groups. The obvious implication is that the cooperation lapsed, with
unfortunate results. This in turn suggests that the reemphasis of historical values is often
necessary, and not just an example of cultural inertia. Thus, the importance of
cooperation and Extension's success at maintaining its relationships could be extremely

important to the change initiative's effectiveness.

Community

The value of community should be of great concern to Extension, because
Extension does its work in communities more than in universities, states or nations. In
1948, community was not mentioned, as the primary concern at that time was the

coordination of the organization to better disseminate information. While the audiences

94

who were to receive this knowledge were in communities, there was no explicit

recognition of that fact. In 1959, it was recognized that developing community leaders

 

and getting community groups to participate in programs led to effective programs for

 

individual people by encouraging self-learning. Community development was also helped

by cooperation with volunteer leaders. Similar outcomes were expected in 1968, when

 

communities were supposed to be invigorated by the participation of people in education.

This involvement led to the creation of leaders and gave Extension a favorable climate in

 

which to locate cooperative organizations. The opportunism that fueled so much of the
1968 document's recommendations was applied at the community level as well as that of
individual mp1: and of the world in which they lived (QM) as part of the drive for
better educational outcomes.

The 1973 document was the first to have community as a key term. Community
was tightly connected to lifelong education: The only way to make lifelong education
possible was to make it accessible in communities. Attached to this were values of being
customer-driven in order to meet community needs, being opportunistic in programming
by cooperating with community colleges, and using evaluation (M) in order to assure
excellence in community lifelong education efforts. Finally, the participation as well as the
cooperation of a community was connected to the at‘iaag of lifelong education programs
in that community. The focus on community is smaller in 1983, but it is part of the basic
mission, which speaks of education based on tam knowledge and leadership
techniques being brought to individual peppl_e and into communities. There is also a
continued emphasis on the need for evaluation (yfiu'arg) to be certain that programs meet
community needs. These trends suggest a fiuitfirl focus for the change initiative and a

likely option for strategic ambiguity.

95

Equity

The value of equity is most relevant when applied to the definition of clientele. All
citizens are defined as potential clients in 1948 (comprehensive). In 1959, urban
constituencies are specifically addressed as deserving Extension education. "Special"
audiences were mentioned that same year; later documents specified these audiences as
alienated (1968) and unsophisticated information seekers (1983). The 1968 report makes
equity in the educational opportunities available to people a centerpiece of its arguments
for change. Educational boundaries are explicitly addressed in both 1973 and 1983 as an
obstacle preventing balanced service to deserving constituents. The overall implication is
that early distinctions between rural and urban audiences have given way to an explicit
mission to serve all citizens (comprehensive), particularly those who are both most in need

and least accessible.

Summary

Of the value clusters described, education and cooperation are the most stable.
Throughout its history, Extension has had an educational mission, and cooperation has
always been key to educational efficacy. Education has two themes, one emphasizing the
research tradition of land-grant universities and the other the empowerment potential of
Extension education. The former places all the power in Extension and keeps it there; the
latter gives it to the clients that Extension helps. The focus on cooperation has been
justified by an appeal to thrift: If other organizations have capacities that can benefit
Extension programs, then bring them in to take some of the burden off of Extension.
Selectivity and cooperation are a consistent cluster, with coordination also being included
as necessary to know where cooperation is most needed. Ultimately, the pairing of
cooperation and education as imprinting research knowledge on people limit the Extension
mission, and it is this confusion of where power really comes from that drives the new

vision of MSUE.

CHAPTER FIVE
THE VISION OF MSUE

The Co—Learning Model

Co-learning captures some of the most important aspects of the new vision for
MSUE (see Roberto et al., 1994). The model exemplifies the difi‘erences between the new
vision and the culture it is designed to replace. They are not, however, identical; the
MSUE vision contains themes related to the organizational structure that have nothing to
do with the co-learning model. Roberto et al. (1994: 7) identified four major components
of co-leaming: It is a (1) collaborative1 and (2) mutually-beneficial process of applying
(3) university-based knowledge and (4) community-based knowledge in which participants
work to solve (5) community based problems. In contrast, the dissemination focus
common to Extension before the change initiative is characterized as a one-way
dissemination model, which assumes that (1) community-based knowledge is neither as
important or valuable as university-based knowledge and (2) any benefits that agents
obtain from their work are a result of their developing their own resources and
understanding (Roberto et al., 1994: 8). In essence, the contrast is between the historical
perception of cooperation as required by a selective environment and a new value of
collaboration that makes involvement with individuals and other organizations both
necessary to achieve self-learning and resulting in mutually beneficial learning by university
and community members.

The co-learning model helps us to understand the nature of the MSUE vision's

attempt to shift agent values regarding Extension. This model is designed at the university

 

1 Roberto et al. (1994: 8) define collaboration as "an
interactive process in which participants work together,"
where this common effort takes equally from all parties
instead of privileging the resources of one participant over
the other(s).

96

97

level, and is intended to be applied to all forms of university outreach, beyond existing
Extension programs and initiatives. The particular arguments made by the leaders of
Extension are not identical to change efforts made elsewhere in the university, most
notably the 1993 gaport of the Provost's Committee on Univeraigg Outreach, which was
written for MSU faculty. However, the spirit that drives both sets of arguments is the
same: Outreach and Extension must work collaboratively with both community and

university knowledge resources to effectively solve community problems.

Bringing the Past into the Present

MSUE helps people improve their lives through [an] educational process
that applies knowledge to focus on issues, needs and opportunities.

(Mission Statement, Overhead 5, Fall 1992 Extension School presentation)

In 1992, the new director of MSUE went before the assembled staff of the
Extension service at the annual Extension School on campus to announce major changes
in the structure of MSUE and the responsibilities of its members. The director, her
program leaders and the regional directors jointly presented an overview of Extension's
new vision through a talk with over a hundred overheads. The presentation began with a
statement of Extension's new mission, followed by a list of Values and Guiding Principles.
The remainder of the presentation detailed the changes in policy and structure that were to
be implemented and introduced the Issues Identification process as the new means of
identifying critical issues in Michigan.

From this presentation, six key terms can be identified. First, MSUE was
introduced as committed to change, with the majority of changes being found in Extension
policy, particularly for administration. This also included contrasts between past and
current policies throughout the organization. Second, education was reaffirmed as the
central component of the Extension mission. However, the majority of mentions involved

the education of Extension stafi‘ rather than constituents. Third, developing a focus was

98

advocated for the organization and for its individual members. Fourth, coordination or
facilitation was important for successful implementation of the new structure as a model
for all Extension work. Fifth, customer—driven collaboration was key to the change in
outlook encouraged by the presentation. Sixth, dynamic cooperation in the form of
partnerships within and outside of the university was encouraged. Many of these key
terms had been used before in historical documents, but the value clusters that were built

around them were very difl‘erent in 1992.

Change
The first part of the mission statement labelled MSUE an organization "Committed

to Change," with the additional points that change should be creative and that change was

 

a positive sign of a dynamic (opportunistic) organization. From the beginning, change was
associated with organizational may. Given Extension's long history as an educational
institution, it was not surprising that education was one of the primary contexts of change.
The changes suggested concerned instrumental rather than terminal values associated with
education. Staff development and training (Mg) replaced performance appraisal
as the label for agent evaluation (m), meaning that the new standards were core
expectations and elective expectations assumed by the particular agent. Educational
initiatives replaced standards, and agents were expected to meet the specific performance
goals of their own development plan (opportunism) instead of being assessed on multiple
categories and general opportunities determined by the administration. In short, agents
were expected to assume responsibility for and actively participate in their own learning
(staff learning). In fact, not only were rewards scheduled closer to the time they became
deserved, they were broadened to include more training and additional equipment for one's
work as well as pay increases.

Beyond staff education, one of the trends and perspectives focused on "Challenge

and Change in Education and Training." This trend was connected to a variety of contexts

99

within which oppprtunities for Extension's initiatives existed. These contexts included
universities, the workplace, cultural diversity, the connection between work and family,
small businesses, and innovative workplace technologies.

Other values that frequently clustered around change were flexibility,
decentralization, and innmaative technology. The new structure was seen as taking
advantage of new technology and its own resources, both material and human, to make a
system that placed responsibility for program development in the counties and allowed for
a variety of approaches to meeting needs that were identified at community, county,

regional, and state levels.

Education

The primacy of education in MSUE is unarguable, as apparent by its position in the
mission statement. The inclusion of opportunitieg among desirable MSUE fpc_i makes this
an activist mission, not a reactive one; Extension can draw on university knowledge to
identify critical concerns and develop a solution that improves gualig of life. As already
mentioned above, education was frequently associated with pining; both for extension
stafl‘ and as a need in a variety of work and family contexts. Flexibility and
decentralraa' tion in staff education (staff learning) and evaluation (Laying) were also
common, with the m of both the total Extension mission and individual agents being
the expected outcome. Finally, the use of innovative technology in educational program
delivery was encouraged for both county programs and for workplace education and

training needs.

100

Focus

The identification of a focus needs to be distinguished fi'om selectivity. m
involves creating a fiamework for the investigation of an issue by Extension, marking a
boundary around a concept. Selectivity entails using this boundary as a limit on
Extension's mandate, thereby providing a justification for not addressing every issue. The
vision applies focus to a broad scope of issues without suggesting any standards for
selectivity . For example, the introduction of the nine trends and perspectives of
importance to Michigan begins with "Focus on Michigan's Future." Each of these nine
trends has at least four subpoints; this use of focus identifies critical issues without
suggesting how Extension might be selective in its approach to them. Thus, the scope of
Extension appears to have few limits.

The idea of focus appears in two important overheads. First, the graphic of a
telescope with the word "FOCUS" is used to introduce new buzzwords such as "No
Boundary Thinking" (flexibility) and the affirmation that Extension is "Centered in the
Present, Connected to the Past, and Focused on the Future." The latter overhead
connects t_r_ad_iti_on and framing to the idea of focus. Second, the third stage of the Issues
Identification process is labeled "Priority Setting" (M). As Issues Identification is the
formal procedure for recognizing the needs of Michigan communities and formulating a
new program structure for Extension that will best address the primary concerns, the
importance of focus (but not selectivity) is essential to the new vision.

Education is an important focus, with W programs and appropriate
staffing for a county's educational needs being critical elements. Focus is also required for
program and agent ifiaag, with the precise focus arising out of W with
clients. Opportunism is a focus identified in the mission statement, while Mara is
linked to focus in the recommendation that Extension focus on the outstanding resources

of people and experience (yaluing field knowledge).

101

Coordination

Coordination or facilitation is essential to the drive for decentralization; a
coordinated efi‘ort at regional and county levels is required for the vision to be realized.
Regional and County Extension Directors are expected to coordinate programming and
staff development (staff leam'ng), as well as provide leadership to the other agents.
Coordination of Extension with University Outreach was cited as necessary to facilitate
development of university outreach network and programs. The excellence of educational
programming depends on close coordination between Regional Extension Directors and
program directors. Finally, coordination of the different program areas' agendas is

recommended as part of the effort to turn Extension into a unified (nntty), forward-

looking (futuring), and dynamic (opportunistic) organization.

Collaboration

The importance of including clientele in issues identification and program planning
is essential to firlfilling a customer-driven mission. Collaboration was one of the values
explicitly cited by the Director in her portion of the presentation; the other values listed
were excellence. diveraity, i_n_t_eg1ty, ppem (or honesty), accessibility, and balance (or
M). In addition, the list of guiding principles that followed the values included being
customer/issue focused, anticipatory (firturing), commnnity based, knowledge driven, and
empowering (self-learning); all of these are dimensions of collaboration. The effi—caay of

Extension work in the counties is linked to identifying customer expectations across the

 

diversing of those customers and using their input (partieipatipn) in decision making.
Coordination of on-campus and off-campus Extension staff was important for the
customerfiriven effort, as was the pattieipatian of existing clients in Issues Identification.
In sum, the inclusion of client views in the new structures and processes of Extension was

presented as a key part of the change effort.

102

Cooperation

Cooperation involves the creation and maintenance of partnerships with other
agencies and institutions to improve the ifiaagg of programming in meeting the
edueational needs of the people of Michigan. Note that these programs do not have to be
run by Extension; cooperation focuses on meeting the social problem rather than
preserving the respective spheres of influence of different agencies. Thus, it is
comprehgsive in its scope. Cooperation does not have many values clustered around it,
but it is central to achieving the mission: " [Extension] Seeks and Develops New
Partnership Arrangements Within and Beyond to Enhance Content, Enhance Quality, and
Enhance Effectiveness." Thus, cooperation is associated with film and coordination
("within"). In addition, cooperation is linked to education: " [Extension aims for a]
Dynamic Partnership Linked in Research Application and Educational Outreach," where
the partnerships occur at the federal, state, and county levels for both profit and non-profit
organizations. This suggests a comprehensive goal for cooperation Extension work,
including all other providers within the overall network of Extension efforts. Finally, it
should be remembered that for nearly 80 years MSUE was the Cpoperative Extension
Service in Michigan, making cooperation a value with a great deal of tradition behind it.

 

Motives

There are three motives that can be identified fi'om the value clusters described.
First, changing the way in which the university reaches out into communities is presented
as both necessary and in line with traditional values of Extension. Extending university
research into communities and to individual citizens is still the goal, but structural and
procedural changes are required to continue serving Michigan. The value cluster of
coordination, unity, opportunism and futuring uses the historically accepted values of
coordination and opportunism to justify a firturing approach and a perception of the

program area agendas as united in their ultimate goals. Second, the essence of this change

103

is found in the advocation of a active, inclusive method of identifying issues that Extension
can and should address. Input fi'om clientele is sought through formal channels, and client
participation in decision making about which issues have priority is required. Acceptance
of the values of being customer-driven and requiring coordination within the organization
are used to encourage participation by people in decision making about program offerings.
This develops their collaborative potential and thereby improves the efficacy of Extension
by developing additional resources in the people it serves. The desired outcomes are
improved responsiveness to community and individual needs and a demonstration of the
continuing importance of land-grant universities and their Extension branches to
prosperity at the state, region, and county levels. The tradition of Extension's relevance to
its clients is based on its choice of an appropriate focus; it is easier to maintain this
tradition if Extension looks to the firture in order to anticipate fixture needs (futuring).
Third, the need for staff whose ideals are in line with modern issues and concerns is a
potent subtext of the presentation. Two value clusters around the key term change are
relevant here. First, efficacy and education, two of the more commonly paired and cited
values throughout Extension history, are used to justify change as a appropriate response;
the central values of Extension are at stake, so change is necessary. Second, the cluster of
flexibility, decentralization, and innovative technology makes the change more desirable
for agents because it decentralizes responsibility to the county office where agents work,
encourages them to be flexible in their programming by removing constraints, and places
innovative media technologies in their hands for use in fulfilling the mission of Extension.
We shall see if this combination is tempting enough to encourage change in the attitudes
and behaviors of Extension agents in Chapter Six.

Fundamentally, the MSUE vision is concerned with changing the definition of self-
learning, which is synonymous with the more modern term empowerment. Extension is
being moved fi'om envisioning its mission as bringing power fiom the university to the

public to a vision of applying both university and community knowledge in tandem to

104

solve problems. Labonte (1994) states that the use of empower as a transitive verb makes
the task self-perpetuating because it leaves power in the hands of the professional agency

and its agents:

Professionals, as the empowering agent, the subject of the relationship,
remain the controlling actor, defining the terms of the interaction.
(Labonte, 1994: 255)

However, when empower is used as an intransitive verb, reflecting only on itself, it makes
power into something that groups and individuals can seize for themselves. In this case,
Extension does not give power to individuals, it helps them recognize it and seize it for
themselves. The distinction between cooperation and collaboration is important here:
Cooperation is based on selectivity in the university's resources, but collaboration is based
on valuing field knowledge that can supplement and further inform the knowledge of the
university. The change is from empowerment, which implies that Extension has to do
something to its clients in order for them to develop, to empowering, where Extension
works with instead of for its clients to develop their competencies and potential for the
betterment of both the clients and Extension.

The impact of this presentation, then, should be assessed across three areas. First,
are there differences in how the program areas make sense of the need for change and
formulate their own missions and procedures? In the past, Agriculture has been the
primary focus of Extension work. In this presentation, Agriculture is mentioned within the
context of the environmental and economic issues, but the majority of trends and
perspectives focus on issues that fall within the scope of Children, Youth and Families
programs and work in Community and Economic Development. The changed staff
criteria support an activist, continuous learning approach for Extension agents that is itself
part of the Children, Youth and Families mission. The type of empowerment described in
each program area's mission statement should reflect this, with Children, Youth and

Families having a mission of empowering compared to Agriculture and Natural Resources'

105

empowerment. Where Community and Economic Development will fall is unclear due to
its relatively brief history.

Second, how well was the distinction between past culture and present vision
communicated to agents? Ifthis distinction was not clear, little change should be
expected, as new values will be perceived as existing ones in new wrappings. This is
particularly likely for Agriculture and Natural Resource agents, who will have the longest
institutional memory and so will be strongly influenced by traditional statements of the
Extension mission, which emphasize empowerment over empowering. Children, Youth
and Families agents will be more likely to acknowledge the difference because their
program area is itself a part of the change initiative, and so salient to them. Community
and Economic DeveIOpment would not necessarily recognize the difference because their
program area is too recent to permit a baseline for comparison.

Third, is the new formal structure adequate for the vision? Will formal procedures
such as Issues Identification adequately serve the purposes of Extension, or will they be
reinvented to fit the preferences of agents who have their own view of what their clientele
need? Once again, program area differences are expected to manifest themselves, with
Agriculture and Natural Resources rejecting the changes that infringe on their authority
while Children, Youth and Families agents accept the changes as opportunities for gaining
more resources and respect from the university. Community and Economic Development
is unpredictable because its mission is different in its details than the vast majority of past
Extension efforts. The first of these questions will be answered by analyzing the mission

statements of each program area here; the latter two will be answered in Chapter Six.

106

Table 5.1

Key Terms and Value Clusters in the 1992 MSUE Vision,

W
é
a

 

O
«i

Education

Focus

Coordination

Collaboration

rank-ordered by relative importance.

(Michigan State University Extension)

.O‘P‘PP’F‘JT"

p—d

U)

PP’NT‘

NH

3‘"

flQ‘MPP’N!‘

Value Clusters
Creativity, Opportunism.
Efficacy, Education.
Valuing, Staff Learning.
Opportunism, Staff Learning, Participation.
Education, Opportunism.
Flexibility, Decentralization,
Innovative Technology.

Opportunism, Focus, Quality of Life.

Change.

Flexibility, Decentralization, Valuing,
Staff Learning, Efficacy.

Innovative Technology.

Flexibility.

Tradition, Futuring.

Valuing, Community.

Education, Multidisciplinary.

Efficacy, Collaboration.

Opportunism.

Excellence, Valuing, Field, Knowledge.

Decentralization.

Staff Learning, Leadership.
Excellence, Education.

Unity, Futuring, Opportunism.

Customer-Driven.

Excellence, Diversity, Integrity, Openness,
Accessibility, Equity.

Customer-Driven, Focus, Futuring, Community,
Knowledge, Self-Learning.

Efficacy, County focus, Diversity, Participation.

Coordination, Customer-Driven, Participation.

6.

107

Table 5.1 (cont)

Key Terms and Value Clusters in the 1992 MSUE Vision,

K_ey Term
Cooperation

rank-ordered by relative importance.

(Michigan State University Extension)

.V'PP’NE"

Value Clustere

Efficacy, Education.
Comprehensive.

Efficacy, Coordination.
Education, Comprehensive.
Tradition.

108

Mission Statements for Extension Program Areas

In 1993, each program area of MSUE put out a mission statement describing its
mission, values, and strategies for achieving its aims. As one of the major concerns of this
study is to identify the differences between how agents in each program area perform their
tasks and describe their mission, these documents are an important source of value
information. The analysis will begin by analyzing each mission statement for key terms
and value clusters. This will be followed by an analysis of the differences between the
1992 vision and the three program areas in their missions and the values clustered around
their key terms and those of the historical documents reviewed in Chapter Four. These
differences will provide a fi'amework for understanding how agents in each program area
should differ in their interpretations of their responsibilities and justifications of their

chosen courses of action.

Children, Youth and Families: Catch the Vision!

Michigan State University Extension Children Youth and Family Programs
maximizes the resources within communities and the university to help all
individuals reach their full potentials across the life cycle. (Catch the

Vision, p. 1)

Key Terms: Education, Life Cycle, Divetsity, Collaboration.

Education

Education is the goal and primary concern of CYF programs, and is often found in
phrases such as "education across the fifaeyela." This enduring relevance is applied to
both the people served by CYF and to the program staff who keep the programs running.
Important outcomes of education are filearning and self-efficaey, which are the ability

to learn what you will need to know by yourself and the ability to function without

109

assistance, respectively. Action plans for education often include cooperation with other
agencies in their irnplementation and oppprtunism in finding ways to serve diverg
audiences. The impact of educational programming on both individuals (people) and

communities is expected to be evaluated (valuing).

Lifecycle

The concept of programming across the life cycle is essential to the CYF mission,
with explicit connections to the values of @anstty (all levels of development and learning
styles) and comprehens_ivenes_s_ (everyone is a potential client because everyone progresses
through life the same way). Its presence in the vision statement (quoted above) links it to
collabpration and self-emcacy. Lifelong education is one of the four major values listed in
that section, second only to learning (edncation) in importance and connected to the value
of eflficisy in both the present and the future (Limiting). Collaboration with individuals
(peppie) is required for efliaagt, since the only way for learning to be continuous is for the
learner to internalize it by actively working with educators to develop his or her potential.
This is empowering, rather than empowerment; the locus of control is in the client, not
Extension. By conceptualizing their mission as across the life cycle, CYF sets its three
components within a common developmental framework and accepts a broad mandate for

problems in Michigan.

Diversity

The diversity of programming efforts, clientele, collaborators, and expertise are all
essential parts of the CYF mission. Communitiea and individuals (peeple) are both
recognized as having diverse strengths and challenges, and the presence of diversity allows
for calm participation in programming. Diversity is the fourth of the four values
addressed explicitly in the Values section of the document, along with learning

(education), lifelong education (lifecycle), and research-based quality programming. The

 

110

implication is that a failure to accommodate the diversity of audiences and their needs will

prevent CYF fi'om achieving excellenee in its edueatipnal programming across the 1k

eycle.

Collaboration

Collaboration is central to the action plans of CYF, and so is closely connected to
the opportunism of CYF. Research-based quality programming, one of the four values
explicitly addressed in the document, is seen as promoting collaboration and fostering
participant and community ownership; thus collaboration is connected to pmicipation and
community. Cooperation is linked with collaboration in the mission, where both are to be
facilitated by CYF programs, and in the action plan to create new partnerships to include
the strengths that arise out of CYF's collaborations. This firrther enables both Extension
and its clients in their respective goals. The flittmng action team is expected to draw on
the enters; strengths of CYF collaborators and clients to take advantage of opportunities
to develop superior proactive programs (excellence and oppottpnism). Innovative
technologies are seen as a new route to developing firture collaborations, perhaps one
where collaborators create educational programs for CYF program staff. Overall, CYF
encourages collaboration at every level and for a comprehensive variety of purposes, in
line with the expectations for empowering set forth in the 1992 conference presentation on

the new Extension vision.

Motives

The motives of the CYF authors are very close to those of the authors of the 1992
vision statement: Encouraging a proactive, diverse, collaborative effort by staff and
clientele to develop new program initiatives and assist people in empowering themselves.
The value clusters are similar to those of the 1992 vision, sharing the key terms of

education and collaboration, with CYF subsuming cooperation under collaboration.

111

Change is absent because CYF is the new model for Extension. Thus, the key terms of
diversity and life cycle have import for the rest of Extension as well as CYF. The scope of
programming initiatives is growing, with focus taking on the connotation of distinction
rather than priority. Non-traditional audiences are brought within the range of acceptance,
and collaboration with all clients is encouraged to develop the programming that is needed

both now and in the firture.

112

Table 5.2

Key Terms and Value Clusters in the 1993 CYF Mission Statement,

rank-ordered by relative importance.

(Michigan State University Extension - Children, Youth and Families)

1m Terms
Education

Lifecycle

Diversity

Collaboration

PP’NS‘

93“.“? .V‘PP’NS‘

.O‘V'PP’NI“

Value Clustere

Lifecycle.

Self-Learning, Self-Efficacy.
Cooperation, Opportunisnr, Diversity.
Valuing, People, Community.

Diversity, Comprehensive.
Collaboration, Self-Efficacy.
Education.

Efficacy, Futuring.
Collaboration, People, Efficacy.

Community, People.

Equity, Participation.

Education, Lifecycle, Research.
Excellence, Education, Lifecycle.

Opportunism.

Research, Participation, Community.
Cooperation.

Futuring, Diversity, Opportunism, Excellence.
Innovative Technology, Education.
Comprehensive.

113

Agriculture and Natural Resources

Michigan State University's Extension Agriculture and Natural Resources
(EANR) program provides research-based educational programs to
Michigan citizens involved in, or affected by, the state's agriculture or
natural resources to help them make informed decisions, prosper, and
contribute to Michigan's economy and quality of life. This directly or
indirectly affects every Michigan citizen. (EANR Mission Statement, p. 1)

Key Terms: Educatien, Management, Opportunism.

Education

Education is the foremost value for ANR, but its scope is more limited than that of
the 1992 vision and CYF. While the mission statement quoted above appears
comprehensive, the deletion of the clause "or affected by" and the last sentence narrows
the mission to a facna on agricultural producers, the traditional constituency of Extension.
It is difiicult to avoid the impression that the idea of a broader audience is just tacked on,
not truly integrated into the mission. The goal of self-efficaey is in line with the other two

program areas analyzed and with the Extension tradition of helping people help themselves

 

(self-learning). The firm of educational programs in general is touted in descriptions of
Integrated Pest Management, Animal Management, and Waste Management programs;
that is, in every one of the document's major headings. Enhancing Michigan producers'
ability to compete nationally and internationally (M) is a major goal of education, with
the logical extension that this increased competitiveness is good for Michigan's economy.
Cooperation is cited in the context of working to improve both scouting and grower
education regarding pest management and for encouraging better and more pervasive
composting as part of waste management. Unlike CYF, the desired outcomes are tangible
and specific, which suggests the possibility of determining the right balance (M)

through evaluation (valuing) of concrete program outcomes.

114

A foundation in research and a contribution to Michigan citizens' u i of life are

 

instrumental and terminal values (respectively) related to Extension's educational mission.
One route to this improvement is via the translation of the research into ordinary language
for practical use. This transformation is described as educational, not a service, as it helps
people apply knowledge to solve their own problems. This fits the definition of
empowerment: The university's knowledge is what grants power to people instead of the
people discovering the power through Extension's guidance and their own community-
based knowledge.

Management

Management is the recommended approach to the problems and issues faced by
ANR, where control of the environment is required to ensure the proper outcomes. This
instrumental value is tightly connected to economic advantage, and often involves
educatien of the client in the methodology of management so s/he will know what to do in
the firture (sifllearning) to control the source of the problem. It also involves
epoperation with other agencies, as Extension sometimes helps people by directing them
to a source of information and support apart from Extension. This supports the selectivity
of Extension programming, taking advantage of other resources to avoid becoming a
service provider in order to better firlfill its obligations as an educational agency. Once
again, empowerment is valued over empowering. Another advantage of the management
approach is to institute a program that can deal with a problem epntinpously, rather than
having to start from ground zero every time. For the issues addressed - pests, animals,
and waste - management must be continual, as all of them are constant sources of
difficulty. Developing the right management program involves interdisciplinary work and
the adoption of innovative technologies to keep pace with Mes in the economic
environment. Extension teaches clients how to manage pests, animal products, and waste;

its educational goal precludes providing management as a service (selectivity).

115

Management is applied to natural resources issues in the "Other Educational Efforts"
section at the end of the document, where it is recommended for Sea Grant, Water

Quality, and Forestry concerns.

Opportunism

Opportunism is the proactive, preventative approach advocated by ANR. Several
preemptive programs are described, but there is no information about how future
problems will be identified prior to their having negative effects on Extension clients. This
absence suggests that the formal issues identification process is not considered a part of
the new vision as it pertains to ANR programs. Opportunism is connected to keeping
Michigan producers competitive and the economy strong. Problems are not the only area
where opportunism is important: Animal production is cited as an area where anticipatory
(filming) expansion could result in beneficial effects (effleaey) as the market for such
products expands. Improving trade opportunities for Michigan agricultural products is
another area where preemptive education can lead to beneficial effects (flcacy). Once
again, while this focus is in line with thel992 vision, it is targeted at specific issues and
problems rather than being stated as an essential principle. This makes it an instrumental
value like management rather than a terminal value, which suggests that the new vision has

been interpreted as a revision of the existing culture instead of a revolution.

Motives
The major motive of the ANR authors is a desire to acknowledge change without
admitting to a decreased need for ANR programming. The mission pays lip service to the
comprehensive ideal of the 1992 vision, but does not address the need for a new, continual
and collaborative process of need assessment. The ANR mission statement speaks of
providing empowerment rather than being empowering, holding fast to the tradition of

Extension when it was dominated by Agriculture. Opportunism is used to justify the need

116

for more forward-looking programs instead of change; in this way continuity with past
approaches can be maintained and calls for change answered with the claim that "we've
been doing that all along." The strategy is to make a second order change in principles
and assumptions appear to be a first order change in techniques. The firndamentals of
ANR work do not change, but the way in which they are dressed up for public
consumption does. Thus, it is likely that the deeper changes sought by the leaders of
MSUE will be reinvented as minor instrumental changes through ANR agents' individual
sense-making.

117

Table 5.3

Key Terms and Value Clusters in 1993 ANR Mission Statement,

rank-ordered by relative importance.

(Michigan State University Extension - Agriculture and Natural Resources)

K_ey Terms
Education

Management

Opportunism

95”.“?

...-a

5"!"

NP‘MPP’NT‘

Value Clusters

Focus, Tradition.

Self-Efficacy, Tradition.

Efficacy.

Competitive, Global, Economy.

Cooperation.

Equity, Valuing.

Research, Quality of Life, Translation, Knowledge.

Economy, Education, Self-Learning.

Cooperation, Selectivity, Education.

Continuing Program.

Interdisciplinary, Innovative Technology, Change,
Economy.

Education, Selectivity.

Competitive, Economy.
Futuring, Efficacy.
Education, Efiicacy.

118

Community and Economic Development

Michigan State University Extension Community and Economic
Development Program enhances human and economic well being and
quality of life in Michigan by providing educational and technical assistance
to business, government, and economic and community organizations.
(CED Mission Statement, p. 1)

Key Terms: Community, Education, Cooperation, Participation.

Community

Community is a relatively new focus for Extension, only recently separated out
fi'om other areas of development. The programs for CED are oriented at the community
level, and require the coeperation of other agencies, local government, and institutions and
the participation of individuals from all corners of the community. Within the mission
statement, education, the economy, and quality of life are tied to community. The
economy is also connected to community in the principles internal to MSU Extension,
where core competencies are to be developed for both community and economic
development in each and every Extension programming region. Developing leadership in
communities is an important part of human resource development, as is educating
community members to understand the economic, social, political, environmental, and
psychological impacts associated with community action. Also, the confltitiveness of
Michigan communities and the industries within them are 3 bags of CED program
initiatives. Thus, community operates as both a context for activities and a focus for

Extension efforts.

Education
Education is still key to the mission, but for CED it is seen as a type of program

delivery that can be contrasted with other methods, such as service provider. In the

119

context of community, education usually involves the development of some potential, such
as leadership or patticipation in decision making. It also functions to increase the potential
for collaboration within communities and improve competitiveness as a part of base
program initiatives. Within MSU Extension, it is linked to coordm' tion and participation
of both on-campus and off-campus resources to design and conduct the best programs,
and is connected to nnlty of Extension by the recommendation that programs draw on

Extension educators from across all program areas.

Cooperation

Cooperation with groups external to MSU is essential to effectively addressing the
issues relevant to communities, i.e. being customer-driven. CED maximizes impact
through cooperation with other agencies supportive of the program area, which often
focuses on leadership development, increased pmicipation of communng members in
decision making, and developing future (opportunistic) collaborations.

Comprehensiveneg and coordination are connected to cooperation for principles internal

 

to MSU such as developing and implementing M strategies for involving all MSU
faculty and other university resources. The econpmic impact of cooperation is mentioned
frequently, with the gm significance of the partnership strategies detailed under
program initiatives playing a role in the global economic situation. Cooperation at the
individual level includes working with other agencies to teach (education) employment
skills and knpwledge that will be useful throughout the Me. This is one of the few

occasions where the focus is at the individual level (peeple); nearly all the rest are at the

9.0mm level-

Participation
Participation addresses the involvement of various individuals, groups and

institutions in comqu decision making. Human resource development includes

120

leadership and community capacity development for all citizens, which is a comprehensive
M for participation. CED promotes active and representative citizen participation in
community and economic decision making and action plans, which suggests that it is
connected to the values of communig, the economy, and collaboration. Within MSU
Extension, both on-campus and off-campus educators are supposed to participate in
designing and conducting programs (comprehensive). The strongest connection is with
eollaboration, as the participation of clients and all members of MSU in Extension efforts
is required for collaboration with these different groups to be possible. Ifclients do not
participate in skill-building programs, firture (wing) collaboration is less likely because

they will have less to contribute.

Motives

The CED document falls between ANR and CYF in terms of its allegiance to the
1992 vision statement, but is closer to CYF than to ANR. The authors are most
concerned with making the community a primary focus of Extension planning and
incorporating it within the Extension mission. Accompanying this goal is a desire to
increase the amount of cooperation Extension has with other agencies and institutions.
However, the emphasis is more on empowerment than on how to be empowering. Both
are present, but at this time the more traditional empowerment predominates. In addition,
the economic environment is added to the family and natural environments already
understood as important contexts for Extension programs and initiatives. Since CED is a
relatively new program area, the document describes more initiatives than current
programs, which is in keeping with the 1992 vision's call for a shift in resource allocation
fi'om 80% program and 20% initiatives to 20% programs and 80% initiatives.

The CED document is an attempt to legitimize the program area as part of
Extension by connecting it to some of the values important to both the existing culture and

the new vision, namely education, cooperation, and participation. However, by appeasing

121

both it fails to describe the second-order change required by the MSUE vision, falling
back on the more traditional goal of empowerment. While the focus on community
increases the comprehensiveness of programming and creates a new realm of educational
opportunities, the methods advocated and the goals set forth are more in line with what

has been true in the past than what the MSUE vision sets forth for the firture.

122

Table 5.4

Key Terms and Value Clusters in 1993 CED Mission Statement,

rank-ordered by relative importance.

(Michigan State University Extension - Community and Economic Development)

Key Term
Community

Education

Cooperation

Participation

3" 9:59.“?

5"!"

Nr—I

9‘99.”

.V‘PP’NT‘

Yalu_e Clusters

Cooperation, Participation.
Education, Economy, Quality of Life
Leadership, Education.

Competitive, Focus.

Economy.

Community, Leadership, Participation.
Collaboration, Community, Competitive.
Coordination, Participation, Unity.

Efficacy, Community, Customer-Driven.

Leadership, Participation, Community,
Opportunism, Collaboration.

Comprehensive, Coordination, Efficacy.

Economy, Global.

Lifecycle, Education, Knowledge.

Focus, People, Community.

Community.

Leadership, Community, Comprehensive, Focus.
Community, Economy, Collaboration.

Futuring, Collaboration.

Education, Comprehensive.

123

Table 5.5

Key Terms Across the History of Extension

1 48 195 1 68 1973 19 3 199

Education Education Education Lifelong Change Change
Education

Coordination Opportunism Opportunism Cooperation Tradition Education

Participation Cooperation Community Education Focus

 

Cooperation Equity Coordination
Collaboration
Cooperation
1993 Pm Areas

_C_XF_ m; QED

Education Education Community

Lifecycle Management Education

Diversity Opportunism Cooperation.

Collaboration Participation

124

The New Mission of MSUE and its Program Areas

In the previous chapter, we inspected both the mission statements and the value
clusters of the historical documents over time. Here, we will do the same thing for the
MSUE vision and the three program areas. To allow for a comparison with the historical
analysis, the same groupings will be used for the mission statements: Education,

Comprehensive, Level of Focus, and Customer-Driven.

Education

Historically, the Extension Service has viewed education as its top priority, with
improving quality of life as the desired outcome; all of the missions agree on this.
However, while the vision remains abstract, the program areas all provide their own slant.
CYF focuses on education "across the lifecycle" (contintrous leamg), while the ANR
mission focuses on improving people's ability to make informed decisions and contribute
to the state economy via agriculture and natural resources . CED provides "educational
and technical assistance" to a variety of different types of organizations to enhance human
(quality of life) and economic well-being. Thus, ANR focuses on economic consequences,
CYF on the personal side, and CED addresses both.

The historical component applying tesflcn-based knowledge through education
to benefit clients is repeated in the ANR mission but not elsewhere. The MSUE vision
and the CED document do not identify the sources of their knowledge, but CYF speaks of
resources being maximized within the comqu as well as the university. This change is
significant, as it suggests the university might gain knowledge from the community as well
as the reverse. CYF prefers empowering, whereas ANR prefers empowerment.

However, it is still likely that the resources of the community are different than those of

the university, and that the necessity of both does not imply their similarity.

125

Comprehensive

The MSUE vision is apparently all-inclusive; it does not qualify which people it
helps improve their lives. The program areas are no less comprehensive. CYF states that
its mission is to help all individuals, again unqualified, and CED suggests a state-wide
perspective in speaking of human and economic well-being and quality of life in the state
of Michigan. ANR appears to be comprehensive: Everyone is affected by agriculture and
natural resources in terms of what they feed their families, how they power their homes,
and often where they work. However, as described in the analysis of the ANR value
cluster around education, the removal of one clause and the last sentence narrows the
focus to agricultural producers and those who work with natural resources, a much more
limited set of clients. The effectiveness of this phrasing in encouraging ANR agents to be

comprehensive in their scope will have to be assessed in Chapter Six.

Level of Focus

In the MSUE vision, education is the process through which improving peapla's
quality of life is achieved. This puts the focus at the individual level (pappie), where it has
historically been. The ANR mission also focuses on individual citizens (M), but
considers the entire state perspective as part of its attempt to be comprehensive. CYF
helps all individuals (M), but acknowledges the community context in which those
individuals are found. CED spends little time addressing the individual level of
programming, instead focusing exclusively on the commqu context. Therefore, CYF is
the only one of the program areas to address both the individual (page) and community

level, which are expected to be the major foci for agents based in the field.

C ustomer-Driven
The emphasis on "help" is found in the MSUE vision, CYF, and ANR mission

statements. The use of this term instead of a more directive one suggests that knowing

126

the needs of clientele is important to the organization firlfilling its mission, which is after
all education, not service. CED provides "assistance," which also suggests that there must
be mutual agreement between the program area and client for Extension to become
involved. The ANR and CYF missions reflect their different views of how to empower

clients. ANR begins its mission statement with the statement that it "provides research-

 

based educatienal programming, " which suggests that if the university doesn't have the
necessary knowledge or doesn't care about a particular customer need, then that customer
is out of luck (empowerment). CYF begins by "maximizing resources within

communn' ies" (empowering), suggesting greater community involvement in the program

than is found in any of the other mission statements.

Conclusions

The mission statements suggest that there is considerable difference between the
program areas in the extent of their audiences, level of focus, and attention to the
expressed needs of their clients. While the goal of fiucation is the same, the form it takes
appears to differ in methodology and value clusters. For a more in-depth comparison of
the change initiative and the cultural context of Extension we now turn to the value

clusters of the MSUE vision and the three program areas.

Comparison of Vision and Program Area Value Clusters

Just as we have compared the value clusters of Extension over time in Chapter
Four, so we shall investigate the value clusters around the key terms for the MSUE vision
and the three program areas. The first four key terms will be those covered for the
historical documents in order to develop a comparison. They will be followed by key

terms from the MSUE vision that should be found in each program area's statement.

127

Education

Just as it has historically been the focus of all Extension work, education is the key
to MSUE'S mission, where a faces on issues and opportunities in the educational process
leads to improvement in people's lives (gnalig of life). An important instrumental value
for agents is the decentralization of the organizational mechanisms for staff learning and
evaluation (Mpg), which is intended to lead to greater agent flexibility in educational

efforts. Innovative technologies are recommended as a means of facilitating contact

 

between campus and both communities and the agents based in them.

For CYF, education has the most value when it is across the fieayela, echoing the
1973 report. Self-learning and self-efficacy are the desired outcomes, again taking up a
theme already identified in the historical documents although not explicit in the vision
statement. Given the high value placed on p_eap_le in CYF, it is not surprising that the main

context for oppprtunism is in providing education to demographically diverse audiences,

 

as first suggested in 1968. This is in turn expected to result in more collaborative efforts
in the communities that provide an arena for individual development, as recognized in
1973. This differs from CED's educational mission, which strives to increase commqu
participation and leadership, with one expected outcome being the greater potential for
firture collaboration in the community. This is in line with both the trends and
perspectives identified in the vision and the communny' focus found in 1973.

The ANR document has similarities and difi‘erences with the CYF document. Its
goals are identical, seeking to bring about self-learning and self-efficacy, but rather than
having a focus on diversity the ANR focus is on its traditimrfl audiences of agricultural
producers, whose demographic diversity is less important than their economic
competitiveness. This focus is fairly broad, as ANR recognizes the need to prepare their
clients for dealing with a glrm market. As previously identified in many of the historical
documents, translating research knowledge to improve the quality of life of their clients

 

and the rest of Michigan is the fundamental goal of ANR programming. Note that the

128

success of agricultural producers has a direct impact on food prices and availability and
constitutes a major portion of the state economy. Thus, their success is connected to the
quality of life of all Michigan citizens.

The value clusters around education in the MSUE vision are difi‘erent from those
found historically, but the program areas all restate common historical themes, albeit not
the same ones. When comparing the program areas, CYF and CED appear to have
adopted the most ideas from the MSUE vision, most significantly cellaboration,
community and gliyerm. ANR appears to be the most trarlitional, grounding its values in
the fundamentals expressed repeatedly since 1914 of translation. research. and quality of

 

fife. For diversity, the nature of the ANR focus probably has more to do with its lack of
emphasis than an explicit choice: It is more important to make sure producers are
productive than to try and make the body of producers more demographically diverse.
How ANR agents value diversity in this climate will be interesting in its implications for

the importance of job characteristics to acceptance of organizational culture.

Opportunism

Opportunism is one of the new additions to the Extension mission in the MSUE
vision, being one m for education that will improve clients' qualng of life.
Coordination between the program areas is expected to promote the u_nity of firnction,
more fu_tu_ri_ng, and opportunism in programming and initiatives. Opportunism is valuable
at all levels of the organization: It is connected to the organization's process of flatly/e
flange and recommended for individual agents in their (nan) Learmrg. The connection to
ehange is found in 1959 and 1968, while the stafl learning context is found in 1948 and
1983. Fatu_ring is an outcome of opportunism in 1959, but the nm'ty of program areas'
function is only implied in the 197 3 report's emphasis on centralin'ng and coordinating the
functions of lifelong education. This is a major difference between the MSUE vision and

the 1973 report: The focus on decentralization in 1992 versus the focus on centralization

129

and increased coordination in 1973. While the MSUE vision recommends coordination
between the program areas, it moves the responsibility for it into the county offices instead
of keeping it on campus. This will be a crucial point in the analysis of agents' perceptions:
Do they prefer the 1973 structure or that proposed in 1992?

For the CYF program area, dim is connected to opportunism in several
contexts. First, opportunism is recommended in bringing education to diverse audiences.
Second, tagging and drawing on the (lb/age strengths of CYF itself makes it easier to
strive for excellence via opportunistic programming and initiatives. Third, opportunism is
essential for collaboration to take place. Without it, Extension will only be able to act as a
leader of passive audiences. CED makes a similar connection, arguing that cooperation
with other agencies is an opportunity to increase collabotation because it improves
communin leadership and participation, which results in a greater community potential.

In contrast, ANR has a very utilitarian view of opportunism, seeing it as necessary to keep
Michigan's gammy competitive and a good strategy for efl‘eetiye education. hr_tun'_r_rg is
seen as an opportunity to prepare for and take advantage of expanding markets. Thus,
ANR has much more concrete formulations of opportunism as an instrumental value,
while the MSUE vision and the CYF and CED program areas set it up as more of a
terminal value for the organization.

The historical context supports the ANR view in assumptions although not in their
details, with instrumental uses predominating in 1948, 1959, 1973, and 1983. The only
case where opportunism is a terminal value, in 1968, is at the opposite end of the
spectrum. In 1968, everything is seen as an area of opportunity, and all questions of
selectivity and even focus are disregarded in allegiance to the value of opportunism.
Whether the change that faces Extension in the 1990s is seen as threatening or beneficial

should be key to understanding agents' sense-making of the vision.

130

Cooperation

Cooperation is no longer part of the name of Extension, but it remains important
to staging efi‘ectiw educatimal efforts in the MSUE vision. This continues the historical
pattern of connecting cooperation and efiicacy, as found in all of the documents analyzed.
Because it focuses on the social problem and not on preserving the turf of various
agencies, it is a comprehensive method for fulfilling the Extension mission. This also
echoes the past value clusters around cooperation, particularly as found in 1959 and 1973.

Given this historical consistency, the statement that cooperation is an Extension tradition

 

is to be expected. In fact, similar sentiments are expressed in 1983.
CYF makes cooperation a part of their action plans for education, thereby tying

cooperation to opmrtunism and their ability to reach diverse audiences. ANR emphasizes

 

that cooperation improves education, but does not make connections to opportunism and
diversity. CYF pairs pollaboratipn with cooperation when listing the relationships that its
programs facilitate, while ANR subsumes cooperation under management and includes
varying levels of involvement from active joint work to referrals. Of the three program
areas, it is CED that makes the most of cooperation. Cooperation is essential to being
custom_er-driven in communities and must be paired with comprehensive coordinagon of

MSU resources for the most effective development of program strategies. The latter

 

cluster is also found in 1959 and 1968. By maximizing cooperation, leaders are created,

 

gommunity participation increases, and opportunities for firture collaborations develop.
The impact of cooperation on the economy is glpbal in scope, but also helps at the

individual level by helping create knowlpdge by edupating peppy]: across their mag.
Thus, cooperation is central to the work done in CED programs, overlapping with CYF
and the MSUE vision but going far beyond them in scope.

Historically, cooperation has been key to Extension's success. This is recognized

in all the vision and program area documents, with the greatest emphasis being in CED.

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This importance at the community level is reflected in the 1973 document, but all levels

are important across the history of Extension.

Community

The Issues Identification process introduced at the conclusion of the MSUE vision
statement has yalpitrg community input as a key mu; This is a change from 1948, 1959
and 1968, when identification of issues was left to Extension and other agencies.
However, the 1973 report makes community involvement very important to being
customer-driven. and the 1983 report calls for a more formal procedure for evaluating
(yaltri_ng) community needs. The MSUE vision also roots collaboration in communities,
grouping it within the Guiding Principles of being customer-driven. involving Mg,
knowledge-driven, and leading to Elf-lama. This is a new development, implied in
1973 but not explicitly stated. The past focus on community has focused more on creating
l_e_a_¢et§ and increasing participation, leading to potential for collabpr_a_tjpn rather than
describing its components, as the MSUE vision does.

There is no mention of community in the ANR document, probably because
agricultural producers are seen more as separate individuals than as a group that lives and
works together in the same place. With this perception in place, it makes little sense to
discuss a community that exists only as a label. CYF emphasizes both the individual
(pe_o_pl_e) and community level in discussing the need to evaluate (M) educational

impacts of programs. CYF also encourages collaboration through research-based

 

programming that fosters both participant and community ownership, and argues in favor

of the diverse audiences within a community having maitabla pgticipation in its programs.

 

As noted above, the 1973 and 1983 documents note the importance of v_al_rpr_rg impacts in
the community, but the rest of the CYF value cluster is new.
Naturally, Community and Economic Development (CED) places the greatest

importance on community. CED programs are oriented at the community level, and thus

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both require and encourage cooperation with other agencies and individual participation in
their gdpgationd and econpmic programs if they are to achieve their goal of improving
gpality of life in the community. The potential for collaboration depends on involving
community 16_3¢8_f§ and people participatipg in education; this cluster has been seen before
in 1968 and in the MSUE vision. Comprehensive Miriam of MSU resources and
cooperation with other agencies are important to helping a community; this combines the
previously selective focus on either coordirtation (1948, 1973) or cooperation (1959,
1968, 1983) as key to community affipm at different eras of Extension. Finally,
increasing community competitiveness is an important focus of CED efforts; this value
combination would also fit ANR, if the traditional audience of that program area were to
be thought of as a community.

The place of community in Extension's value clusters has changed over time and
differs across program areas. The history of Extension applies community as one of
several levels of program focus, and recently has acknowledged the need to assess the
impact of Extension at the community as well as individual level. The vision makes
community the flaw for the issues identification process and the context in which
collaboration will occur, a change from prior formulations that never got beyond
identifying sources of collaborative potential. ANR neglects community entirely, while
CYF closely follows the MSUE vision and CED expands on both to demonstrate the wide
applicability of the community value to Extension concerns. Whether this applicability has
been communicated to agents and whether they approve will be an interesting question for

the next chapter.

Summary: Program Areas
All three program areas shared the key term edgcatiop; cpoperation and
oppprtunism were both key terms for one of the program areas and frequently clustered

with other key terms where they were not key terms themselves. These values are all

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important elements of Extension history and the current vision; however, they have a
different place in each program area's value clusters. ANR and CYF rate education as the
mot important value, which is not surprising given the historical prominence of education
in Extension rhetoric. However, education does not go unchallenged in CYF as it does in
ANR. Management and ppportunism are both instrumental values for ANR, but fifp:
ayple, m and collaboration are all terminal values for CYF. CED also has all of its
key terms as terminal values, making ANR the exception among the program areas for

having one dominant value instead of several.

Program Area Strategies for the Future

The program areas' strategies for the future differ across three dimensions. First,
how are the program area missions defined? That is, what are each area's programs
intended to do? CYF attempts to set up an organizational structure that meets

programming goals for diverse groups across the lifegycle while allowing opportunities for

 

staff learning (a subset of education). CED takes a position as a community leader,
catalyst and facilitator, as with the Industrial Extension Service. ANR strives to apply
educational programs to address specific problems. Thus, the definition of success varies;
whereas ANR has specific targets and a quantifiable measure of its 913%, it is far more
difficult for CYF and CED to empirically demonstrate that they are being effective. The
problems of children, youth and families are best addressed through prevention programs
and continuing involvement in their lives. In contrast, the measure of success in ANR is
the elimination of the need for continual involvement on a particular issue. By taking a
broader and enduring perspective, CYF differentiates itself from the traditional Extension
paradigm of specifying a problem and solving it, departing once finished. ANR preserves

this paradigm, setting up the first contrast between program areas.

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Second, how do the procedures developed for the mission differ across program
areas? CYF has goals of getting and keeping knowledgeable and effective staff (valui_ng
staff learning), engaging in a fir_t_u_ri_ng process to encourage m thinking, developing
and applying models of development, and using a total comprehensive marketing strategy
to reach constituents and involve them in collaborative efforts. CED intends to act as a
catalyst for community development by focusing on the educatipnal delivery of programs

in human resource development, initiating leadership in communities balancing economic

 

with environmental needs, and planning for a competitive glgmal marketplace. ANR
works to implement an Integrated Pest Management system and an Animal Management
Advancement Project, pilot MSU - industry partnerships, target improving trade
opportunities, and set up an analytical framework for assessing (yaluing) competitiveness.
The apparent difference is again in the specificity of issues: Where CYF and CED
function on a conceptual level, ANR concerns itself with the implementation of practical
solutions to specific problems.

Third, what are the specific issues addressed by each program area? CYF
addresses the creation of "cutting edge programs" and an intent to "program across the
Male," with specific foci including nutrition, increasing apcessibilig through innovative
technology, superior marketing efforts (advertising), building networks and cooperating
with the Institute for Children, Youth and Families (ICYF) and the Agricultural
Experiment Stations. CED focuses on developing employment skills across the lifetime
(mg/ale), job maintenance and creation, public sector involvement (participation) in
communities, developing a common method of training agents (mg) for
industrial extension, and planning and implementing the Michigan Industrial Extension
Partnership (MIEP). Finally, ANR lists pest managamept, waste rLanage—meat, marketing
Michigan products, animal W dairy, livestock, field crops, fruit, vegetables,
forestry, sea grant, turf, consumer horticulture, water quality, floriculture and landscape

ornamentation as issues requiring ANR edugatipnfl programs. Once again, the specificity

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of ANR strategic planning is much greater than that of CYF or CED, with concrete issues
being set forth in place of abstract concerns about administrative arrangements.

In sum, we can describe the CYF approach as one focused on the creation of a
method for delivering programs and developing new ones, the CED approach as
organizing communities to improve, and the ANR approach as categorizing existing,

concrete issues and recommending the correct techniques to apply.

Implications for Analysis of Interviews

How then should past values be expected to play a role in the negotiation of a new
culture? There are three issues to be addressed. First, in which cases are the values found
in the historical documents incommensurable with those found in the vision?
Incommensurability occurs when applying different assumptions leads to conceptually
unrelated decisions. Second, what patterns of strategic ambiguity might be expected given
those differences? Strategic ambiguity is the conjunction of multiple values within a
syllogistic argument intended to raise or lower the relative prominence of a specific value.
Third, which value clusters are likely to be major topics of argument? The answers to
these questions will structure the analysis of interview data to mark the points at which
members of MSUE abandon the established cultural paradigm and accept a form of the
outreach vision encouraged by the MSUE leadership.

There are several points at which Extension paradigms might be incommensurable.
First is the distinction between focus and selectivity. The 1948 report uses education as a
justification for limiting the organizing activities of agents. The 1968 report creates both a
new breed of specialized agent and the position of program aides to increase Extension's
capacity to meet client needs. The philosophies behind these two documents are
incommensurable on this issue: Should Extension define its niche and do its best to serve

the state and nation within it, or should it strive to continually expand the scope of its

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mission and responsibilities? The 1992 vision uses focus both in the sense of critical issues
and selectivity, but its true emphasis is on foci. The attempt to cover over the difference
should not be expected to help the change effort.

The second distinction concerns cooperation. The vision presented argues for
MSUE playing a leadership role in bringing together difierent organizations to provide
resources for the many outreach programs that exist now and are being added to fillflll the
new mission. However, Dressel (1987: 226-7) gives four reasons why the CES was not
established as a single coordinating agency for public service, a similar goal to what is
articulated in the 1992 vision statement. These reasons include (1) the preeminence of
agriculture from the inception of the CES, which encouraged a tight focus to prevent the
diffusion of finding; (2) rapid change in the relationships between experiment stations and
departments as the latter took a narrower and more disciplinary view of teaching and
research; (3) increasing department and professorial focus on department, discipline,
and/or individual faculty advancement over service to society; and (4) the benefits of
consulting tempting scholars to practice their skills for both professional and monetary
reward, which raised their expectations for all scholarly activities, making service a poor
professional risk. In short, specialization has been the operating value for the university
since 1959 as Extension developed and expanded its focus. Specialists have been grouped
into academic departments and colleges with their own requirements for faculty
compensation and reward, while agents have been assigned program areas that serve a
similar purpose. In addition, the division between on-campus specialists and off-campus
agents has created a sharp distinction between the university and its extension services.
By 1955, Continuing Education and Cooperative Extension, originally sprung from the
same idea, had evolved into different organizations (Dressel, 1987: 223). They were
rhetorically reunited in 1991, when the Assistant Provost for Lifelong Education became
the Vice Provost for University Outreach, responsible for both extension and lifelong

education, but the success of this union remains an empirical question.

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Third, there is an important distinction between the letter and the spirit of the
Extension mandate found in both the Morrill Acts of 1862 and 1890 and the Smith-Lever
Act of 1914. Agriculture was a central industry employing a majority of the population
when the idea of a university for practical education came about. However, as the
employment patterns and lifestyle of the majority of Americans has changed, the focus on
agriculture was no longer in line with the spirit of the land grant university system, which
was to provide education to all citizens. While agriculture remains a central focus of
Extension efl‘orts, other constituencies have come into being. The mandate to supply
accessible education in practical applications of knowledge is appealed to as justification
for programs that answer the needs of these new constituents. The problem comes down
to an interpretation of the tradition of Extension: Is its defining purpose the education of
farmers and related constituencies regarding agricultural technologies, or is it an evolving
responsibility to all citizens to provide the opportunity for practical education? These two
traditions are incommensurable, and so a paradigm shift is required. Most importantly,
this incommensurability is fertile ground for ambiguity. Agents could see Extension as
having a tradition of change under either paradigm: The change could be a first order
change in the methods used to meet the same goals without changing the focus, or it could
be a second order shift to the broader focus with or without the change in method. Thus,
agents could go either way depending on their existing values.

The above paradigm differences suggest several uses of strategic ambiguity. First,
cooperation (and to a lesser extent coordination and collaboration) and participation are
major instrumental values justifying changes in activities and programs. Their greatest
concern should be with selectivity, but these values in particular allow for the refutation of
selectivity by broadening expectations for the resources available and the proportion that
can be put directly into programs instead of going to administrative costs. The unstated
assumptions that support this are the benefits of cooperation versus existing competition

and duplication of effort, the absence of costs associated with coordinating efforts, and the

138

resources that are accessible when all are participating in the effort. The mandate implied
by these assumptions could easily be misconstrued as a causal force: Because our values
would be justified if X were true, X must be true. This error in reasoning is a potent one
that, if encouraged, should reap positive results.

Second, the use of selectivity versus focus should be carefully observed. One way
in which this contrast can be elided is by using specialization as a substitute for selectivity.
Ifthe need is for specialization, then the benefits of cooperation and participation
mentioned above can be brought in to justify a broadening of mission based on the wider
access to resources and expertise made available under the new systems of cooperation (as
in 1968). Selectivity for the whole is no longer a viable concern in this case, instead being
redefined as an issue for individual departments and program areas.

Third, the tradition of the CES will be carefully edited to convey a sense of the
broader mission of outreach instead of the narrow one of extension. A comparison with
statements found in the historical documents already discussed will be illuminating, for
revisionism is a primary tool in cultural change efforts. One implication found in the
recommendations of the Report of the Provost's Cpmmittee on University Outreach
(1993) is the drawing of parallels between new plans and existing programs to suggest
that the university already accepts the implications of the change, even if that has not been
stated in so many words. It is much easier to argue for a revealed truth than a constructed
one, so every parallel between existing programs and desired structures will be taken up as
fiirther evidence that the new vision has already begun to take hold and is a natural
outgrth of the university's tradition. fle Lifelong University (197 3) uses this argument
in its conclusion. But a tricky problem still remains: How can this be extended from
programs where the desired structure already exists to those where it does not? The
danger in claiming that a change effort is already taking place is that members might take a
complaisant attitude and assume that no firrther change is necessary. To avoid this, the

argument must be phrased as a struggle to avoid falling away fiom the tradition of

139

Extension. When a report appeals to tradition as sufiicient motivation to adopt the
recommendations which improve the emcacy of Extension and addresses the fact of
change in the environment (and, by implication, within MSUE), the legitimacy of the
argument fiom tradition rubs off on the argument from environmental change. Thus,
when the call to change is paired with the rhetoric of tradition, members trying to argue
against the need for change are faced with a Catch-22: Ifthey claim the changes are not
needed, they deny part of the tradition they wish to uphold. But if they desire a different
form of change, they stray fi'om the mission of the organization. However, the distinction
between first and second order change noted above remains problematic; the language of
the change will have to be exceptionally ppambiguous to demonstrate which sense of
change is more in line with the history of Extension. Thus a vision can become a self-
fulfilling prophecy by coherently arguing for a return to "traditional" flexibility.

Last, the role of change in the negotiation of the vision must be addressed from the
viewpoint of strategic ambiguity. Tradition is one value likely to be associated with the
pursuit of new and better solutions to problems, whether of delivery, support, or
knowledge. By making innovation into a part of Extension history, future changes take
their place in a progression dictated by the mission of the organization. The technical
changes that are advocated will be less important than the assumption changes that they
mask. By beginning with improvements in delivery, the stage is set for more conceptual
changes that make sense of the new structure resulting fiom those innovations. Keeping
the conceptual changes secondary but present will be the major task of strategic ambiguity
in this case.

The previous paragraphs have set up the issues of particular interest to this study.
The important values of Extension over its history have been charted and are available for
comparison with both the 1992 vision and the values articulated by agents in interviews
about Extension. The values suggested by the 1992 vision might illuminate the

negotiation of the vision with the existing culture. Areas of incommensurability and likely

140

uses of strategic ambiguity have been reviewed. The next step is to apply these findings to
the statements of the people involved in the process, the agents and administrators of
MSUE. By using the fi'amework of paradigm theory to organize the suggested value
concerns, an accurate and informative account of the negotiation process' successes and
failures may be constructed out of members' responses to questions posed in the

behaviors, values and assumptions of the culture being negotiated.

CHAPTER SIX
THE FIELD CULTURE OF MSUE

The present study of the field culture of MSUE was derived fi'om interviews with
agents. This culture will be described in four parts. First, personal experiences of agents
will be described in order to set forth the demographics and prior experiences of the
interviewees. Second, the fimdamental factors in the field culture of Extension will be
discussed. Third, the agents' perceptions of extension, outreach, and MSUE'S mission will
be depicted. Fourth, the details of how agents applied their values to various aspects of
their jobs covered in the MSUE vision will be described. Quotes are used to illustrate
how agents make sense of their organizational world. In order to preserve confidentiality,
the agents are referred to by arbitrarily assigned numbers; Agents 1 through 8 are CYF
agents, and Agents 9 through 17 are Agriculture agents. By providing a constant label for
each agent, consistencies in particular agents' responses can be followed throughout the
discussion. Where necessary, details about the agent's county affiliation and job
responsibilities will be provided. In these cases, the number will be deleted to assure that
the agent's comments and affiliations cannot be used to deduce his or her identity. Gender
is also disguised by alternating between the pronouns his and her, and she and he.

Once this description is complete, the value clusters of Extension history and the
new vision will be compared to those identified in this chapter. Following this
comparison, the vision's success will be assessed and explanations presented for the
results. In conclusion, a portrait of the "new" Extension as it exists in the field is

presented.

141

142

Personal Experiences

The agents interviewed had a variety of backgrounds. The majority had some
contact with Extension before joining the organization. It was difficult to find agents with
over 20 years experience. Many older agents retired in the preceding year; in fact, nearly
every agent referred to some change in their own position, office, or nearby counties
within the past year. In most cases, the change came up in a negative context, with the
agent describing how his/her job required rebuilding relationships that previous agents had
broken. These examples were most often provided by Agriculture agents in rural counties
and districts.

There were some differences between relatively new and the more established
agents. First, agents with over 20 years of experience had contact with Extension (most in
Michigan, a couple in adjoining states) prior to joining, in either 4-H or fi'om farm work.
These agents had Bachelor's degrees and no desire for further formal education. In
contrast, agents with under 10 years experience were all either working on, or had
received, their Masters' degrees. One agent had a PhD. These newer agents had often
had some contact with Extension, but several had not before coming across the job
opening. This was commonly due to growing up in an urban area before 4-H was there.
Most of the less experienced agents (less than 10 years in Extension) had worked in
industry before beginning their Extension careers. Thus, they began at a slightly older age
than had the more senior agents. There was no difference in the number of Agriculture
and CYF agents across tenure.

When asked if anything about Extension had surprised them when they first
arrived, county politics was cited as an unexpected obligation, and a universally disliked
one. Several agents stated that they would like to be less involved in politics when asked
what they would most like to change about their jobs. Several agents with no or little

contact with Extension prior to being hired as agents stated that they were surprised with

143

the full range of Extension work, beyond their own speciality and program area. Several
agents mentioned that new agents had no formal direction upon reaching their office, and
had to get informal guidance from more experienced agents in their offices, and fiom

experienced agents with similar responsibilities in neighboring counties.

Agent Key Terms

The field offices of Extension agents are a different world from that depicted in
ofiicial documents. The agents had three fiindamental characteristics that serve as "key
terms" in this analysis. First, they are concerned with the practical use of knowledge.
They have little patience with abstract ideals and fuzzy visions, but want to know the
bottom line: Will people understand it? What will it teach them? Can clients continue
using the information without returning to Extension for more information? Second, they
have a strong allegiance to their counties. They live and work in specific areas with local
residents. Third, they love their jobs. The mission of Extension is described as being a
sacred trust, as involving missionary work. Agents are committed and self-motivated to
help people. They see the results of their programs and have to live with the
consequences, good or bad. Extension Agents ye the university in Michigan

communities, and they are proud of that fact.

Practical

Agents' desire for practical application of knowledge means they do not care for
administrative paperwork and meetings that have no concrete results. Agents 10 and 12,
both Agriculture agents, call the annual Extension School a waste of time, because they do
not think it provides valuable in-service education or adds anything to the work that

agents do:

144

A lot of times [Extension School's] a big waste of time. And people hate
going over there because of that. Unless they're there for a specific
committee meeting they're not getting any sound inservice education.

(Agent 12: 9)

Agent 10 describes the ways in which agents can avoid contact with administration and
get back to their counties as quickly as possible having made an appearance. The same
principle applies for administrative record-keeping. Agent 9 comments that it is pointless

for her to keep track of the categories of constituents she serves:

Cause to me, if I'm doing a good job it doesn't matter who it is, or what
group they are, they're gonna get just as much attention from me. So I find
it tedious to record the difi‘erent categories. I get a little upset about that.

(Agent 9: 17)

These agents are not alone; nearly every one of the agents stated at some point that they
wished they had less paperwork to do so they could get into the community and do their
real job of helping constituents instead of doing record keeping.

The practical orientation of agents is part of the way in which they differentiate
themselves fiom the university. While they identify strongly with its land-grant mission,
they do not believe that the university respects "faculty in the field" as much as they
deserve. Therefore, they emphasize the usefulness of their informal teaching in contrast to
the rigid strictures of formal education. Several agents had experience as teachers: One
had been a substitute teacher, another was a former principal and superintendent of
schools, and a third had previously been a professor at another land-grant university. All
agents considered informal education the mission of Extension. The difference comes
down to formal versus informal procedures: The majority of agents thought that informal
structures gave them the flexibility they needed to put knowledge into practice, while
formal structures were a waste of time and resources. To the extent that they saw the
university as creating formal categories, they rejected its educational methods as
inappropriate to the field where they did their jobs. Thus, there is a strong connection

between the values of practical use, informal structures, and a county focus.

145

County Focus

Agents' jobs depend on their serving the counties in which they work. This has
three impacts on their perceptions. First, they value knowledge obtained in the field and
believe that the university should change its methods of evaluation to reflect the
importance of field experience. For example, new agents spend their initial time on
campus instead of in the field where they will soon be working. Agent 16, an Agriculture

agent with over 20 years in Extension, comments that

When I went in, you spent a month working with the staff there, Extension
staff You had the opportunity to get exposure across the total
Extension....too much of the time now is spent on campus...and then you're
put into a county. I think that time spent in another county, learning what
Extension is all about, is a lot more valuable than two weeks spent on
campus going through those programs. (Agent 16:3)

In fact, the training provided in the field is sorely lacking:

My biggest surprise and disappointment was that we really do not do a
good job of training new people in the organization. You can sit there and
read all you want and look at all the pictures in the books, but until you
actually are in the role of an Extension agent for a six months, eight
months, a year, you really don't have any clear idea of what you're doing. I
mean, none. (Agent 11:2)

This leads into agents' second perception, that campus Extension administrators
and non-specialist faculty (as well as some specialists) have no idea what's going on in the
field, and thus are not qualified for their responsibilities. When asked what would most

help Extension work in the field, Agent 4 responded:

Competent people who understand what it is to work in the Extension staff
in the field in programming positions on campus....They don't want to
know and all they're concerned about is their little niche in the MSU
society and everything else is secondary to that...many times you need to
do it the way they want it done or you're in trouble. (Agent 4: 12)

In addition, agents thought that Extension's potential to perform the role of a "front door"

to the university was unrecognized by the university as a whole:

146

I think they [the university] have no concept of what Extension does, what
the possibilities are...they've really got to groom us to be a front door
access to people in the community to promote the university. (Agent 6:
23)

The solution to these problems is to get Extension administrators and specialists into the
field, where they can learn exactly what it's like. Agent 15 describes the response of

specialists who came into the field to work directly with clients:

state specialists who were involved in my program that came down and
said "boy it's good to hear what pe0ple think of the way we say you ought
to do something versus the way it gets done in the field." (Agent 15: 5)

Extension administrators and specialists who demonstrated their lack of field knowledge
were held in uniformly low esteem. Agents had no tolerance for campus faculty who

failed to recognize that there is life beyond East Lansing:

I've had a campus specialist who I asked to look at data on a research
project say "well, you can come to my office and look at it." And I went
"your office is 5.5 to 6 hours away from me. And you expect me ifI want
to look at those numbers to drive down to campus." (Agent 1: 9)

This attitude was summed up by the agent who said, "It's a lot firrther from campus to
__ county than fiom _ county to campus."

The third impact of agents' county affiliation on their perceptions was their
responsibility to county government for clerical, political and financial support. They were

not pleased with administration efforts to take them out of the county:

I feel that when you take on the responsibility of being a county agent then
you base your major parts of your responsibility in the county itself. ...I feel
that we've gotten away from this a little bit. The university expects field
agents to spend too much time on committees and things that's occurring at
the university and not enough time in their own counties where a fairly
sizable amount of our financial resources are coming fiom. I see new
agents coming on, for example, that I feel spend way too many days out of
their counties to really get familiar with their counties and their situations.
(Agent 14: 6)

147

Agents also valued their own experience in the field as more educational than campus
learning. Agents 1 and 4 both stated that at times, the agents need to get down and dirty

with clients in educational activities. As Agent 1 explained:

I always felt that I couldn't ask a volunteer to do something that I haven't
done myself...How could I support that person ifI hadn't experienced that
myself and knew what to expect? (Agent 1:15)

This was more common to CYF than ANR agents. Agent 17 set the limits on agent's roles
in describing his own as "an educator and a facilitator. I'm not a foreman." (Agent 17 :
11). However, Agent 17 did serve as president or secretary in several community
organizations because it was traditional for the county agent to hold those positions. This
need to answer client expectations regardless of campus-generated policy and true need
was strongest for the most senior agents, but shared by many with less seniority in both
program areas.

The county focus invokes several values. First, it reaffirms the value of informal
education, of learning by doing, by program staff as well as clients. Second, it elevates
field knowledge over campus knowledge, especially in the area of identifying needs.
Third, it places agents' obligations in the county and in communities instead of on campus,
and gives them a justification for refusing campus directives and responsibilities that take
them out of their counties. The best example of all these values is the insistence that
agents should be socialized in the field, not on campus. The field is where agents learn
how to do their jobs and make their contacts, and it is the field that they identify with and

are committed to serve.

Committed
The most consistent fact about the agents interviewed was that they love their

jobs. Every agent took pains to make that clear, although their reasons for commitment

148

varied. Agent 11 summed up the opinions of many agents when she answered a question

about what she would change about her job:

I wouldn't change my job....Other than the salary. You want my wish? My
wish is that I could make about 20% more than I do....I wish we could get
paid more. But other than that, my job I love. I wouldn't change...I smile,
I'm in a good mood virtually every day I come to work. How many people
in America can say that? (Agent 11: 12)

The low pay was used by several agents to demonstrate their commitment: Ifwe aren't
committed, the agents argued, why do we work long hours for low pay? This is also
reflected in the professional goals agents had. The most commonly articulated goal was
doing their best to help their constituents. Apart from this, many agents expressed
surprise at the question and responded similar to Agent 17, who said, "Well, I ought to
have some, shouldn't 1?" (Agent 17: 14). Among those who did have professional goals,
firrther formal education was the most common. Agents 3, 10, and 17 all recently
completed or were working on their Masters' degrees, and Agent 5 was considering going
for a Ph.D. These agents all had 10 or fewer years with Extension; none of the agents
with over 20 years experience thought further education was important for them.

The flexibility and opportunity that Extension work offered agents to do their own
thing was a major reason given for agents' commitment. Agent 17 enjoyed the
independence of his position, while Agents 7 and 12 stressed the chances they had to

stretch their responsibilities into new areas that were of interest to them:

my philosophy with Extension is that you do anything you want to do until
someone tells you no....you make a relationship with one group, or you set
up a program in some area and you continue to do those things you think
are important and valuable and you test the system to the point where if
somebody says no you know you've gone too far. (Agent 7: 4)

The flexibility of the agent and of the organization were both frequently mentioned as
characteristics of a good Extension agent: Someone who has the ability and the fieedom

to deal with a wide variety of issues in a situation-specific way.

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The commitment of Extension agents stemmed fi'om the values of having a people
focus, creativity, and flexibility. As we shall see in the next section, Extension's mission
has always been to serve the people, and this contact is both essential and highly
rewarding to agents. Creativity was ofien coupled with this people focus, as agents
enjoyed the chance to be creative in providing the education that their clients needed.
Finally, flexibility in their own work and in the requirements of the Extension organization
was cited as crucial to both their success and their enjoyment of their jobs. Anything that
impeded this flexibility was seen as negative, a detraction from the quality of their
experiences as a member of Extension. This value cluster was important to their wanting
to remain in Extension; as one agent said, "If I'm really still having fun, I won't retire at

60" (Agent 6: 6).

MSUE and the University

This section looks at the patterns in agents' definitions of outreach and extension,
the characteristics they ascribe to the Extension mission, and their interpretations and
ranking of the guiding principles recently articulated by the President of Michigan State
University. The resulting discussion is designed for comparison with the analyses of
mission statements in Chapters Four and Five. The degree of comprehensiveness, extent
to which they are customer-driven, the level of focus, and the values associated with
education will be assessed to determine whether the vision and program area mission

statements are reflected by agents in their own thinking.

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Outreach

The most common definitions of outreach were getting out into communities
(Agents 2, 3, 4, 6, 13, 14, and 17) and reaching out to people (Agents 1, 7, 15, and 16).
The former has a community-level focus, while the latter targets individuals instead.

it's how the university and their resources go into the community and
work...effectively there to help people....it's the way that we let people
know that we have something that can help them. (Agent 6: 13)

The tradition of translating research into practical information was only mentioned by
Agent 11, but being customer-driven by answering people's needs was cited by Agents 5,

8, and 9.

Outreach is really looking at all of the surrounding audiences and trying to
thoroughly understand the needs of the people and the surrounding
audiences. . . .Looking at, and examining thoroughly, what those resource
needs are and then really taking it there and delivering it (Agent 5: 16)

Opportunism was present in the definitions of Agents 13, 14 , and 17:

[Outreach is] providing people with educational opportunities that they
wouldn't have inside their community. (Agent 13: 15)

All of the definitions were comprehensive: Outreach was any effort to reach outside the
university. However, there appeared to be an association of outreach with formal

education for Agents 3 and 10:

for me outreach has been more formally associated with the university as
opposed to Extension personnel teaching those things. (Agent 10: 12)

This could be a reference to the Continuing Education Service programs, which were
consolidated with the Extension Regional offices in 1991 when the position of Vice
Provost for University Outreach was created. However, this is not a widespread
association among the agents interviewed, so in the interests of brevity we will not go

further with this speculation.

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Extension
Most agents thought extension was very similar, if not identical, to outreach. The
main connection was understood to be the comprehensive pe0ple-focus of extension and

of university outreach:

there's absolutely no difference, because regardless of what I'm doing, I'm
trying to involve people. (Agent 4: 15)

In elaborating on their definition of outreach, several agents emphasized the customer-

driven nature of extension, particularly Agents 1, 2, 3, and 10.

It's adult education and through our contacts with our clientele, either
through advisory boards or through contacts, we draw the conclusion that
something is important and it's an issue...that needs to be addressed. Then
we go ahead and put on some educational type function to address it.
(Agent 10: 12)

Education also crept in to many more definitions, such as those of Agents 3, 6, 10, and 13:

Outreach may have different goals than us, but reaching out to everyone is
what we're all trying to do. Trying to educate everyone. (Agent 13: 16)

One difference in method was the perception that extension was more opportunistic than

outreach, as expressed by Agents 9 and 10.

we're actually relatively organized in doing it (outreach). . . .a purely teaching
faculty, or research faculty person, has plenty of opportunities for outreach
but they are rarely planned into their schedule....Whereas, we are looking at
every opportunity to do it. (Agent 9: 17)

Thus, the general perception was that extension was already what university outreach

wanted to be.

Summary: Extension and Outreach

In the 1992 vision, extension and outreach are portrayed as complementary
processes, a connection that takes on added baggage for agents. Opportunism, one of the
key terms in the ANR mission document, was cited by three Agriculture agents for

outreach, but was even more important when describing extension. One CYF and one

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Agriculture agent saw Extension as a coordinating agency for outreach, and another
Agriculture agent saw the extension process as more focused. This difference suggests

that extension was being interpreted as a model for outreach by the rest of the university:

I think it's basically the same thing except we're trying to get more of this
institution to be involved with it [extension]. And I think that's a plus.
(Agent 16:16)

The problem is that this could lead to agents' opinions of extension being reaflirmed rather
than changed. This would prevent the leadership fi'om achieving what several agents

recognized as the reason for the creation of the new term "outreachz"

There may be people in the field and communities that have a connotation
of extension that's not broad enough to include outreach....In some
counties I think extension is defined as agriculture....calling it outreach is
an attempt to get people to realize that MSU is involved in more than
agriculture off campus. (Agent 7: 12)

Note that success is based in the field, not on campus. Ifthe university is to succeed in
broadening its approach, it will need to convince both field stafl‘ and their clients together,

because field staff will follow clients' wishes more than they will the university.

Mission
The mission of Extension took several overlapping forms. Empowerment was the
goal for five agents (Agents 2, 3, 7, 12 and 15). Agents 2 and 3 stated that the means to

this end was bringing university research to the public:

Our mission is to bring research-based information to the public. And to
help them put that knowledge to work for them. (Agent 3: 12)

This is empowerment, not being empowering. University resources were used in

education to improve clients' quality of life for Agents 1, 8 and 11:

[Extension's mission is] to improve the quality of people's lives in Michigan
through education...using the resources of MSU to accomplish that.
(Agent 1: 13)

Educational opportunities were the goal for Agents 4, 6, 10, and 13:

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my mission is to provide educational opportunities, provide opportunities
of a...program nature, of an activity nature, to the greatest number of
clientele using the least financial resources possible. (Agent 4: 16)

Finally, helping people meet their needs was key to the mission for Agents 9 and 17:

our goal ought to be to work...on a local basis responding to community
needs. I think it ought to be one of our major goals...to assess community
needs and respond to them based on some kind of legitimate process. And
that's gonna vary from county to county. (Agent 17: 21)

Thus, the Extension mission is seen as involving education, taking a comprehensive scope,
and being customer-driven.

The values found in the mission statements of agents were very similar to those
articulated in the historical documents. The basis in research and its practical application
has always been important. Extension's comprehensive mission was recognized, but it did
not go beyond traditional phrasings. Agriculture agents tended to state that they served all
pe0ple with agriculture questions equally, but did not address the rest of the county except

as their quality of life improved through better agricultural practices:

I do my best to allow, to help, individuals achieve their goals, whether they
be agricultural or just not having a fly in the house, by providing them
information, training, or education fi'om reputable sources (university or
otherwise) through a program that looks at local needs to decide what sort
of things should be provided to the people in the area. (Agent 9: 17)

Interestingly, the customer-driven agents were all from Agriculture. However, the
concern is not whether they respond to client needs, but rather how they determine what
those needs are. CYF agents are less vocal in their allegiance to customer needs, perhaps
due to the fact that the educational programs they offer for children and youth depend on
the agents' recognizing what the clients need to learn and then teaching them as required.
Education may be an unquestioned goal, but the real outcomes and their connection to

Extension's sustainability in the counties is quite complex.

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Guiding Principles

Toward the end of each interview, each agent was shown a list of six guiding
principles for the university recently put forward by the President of Michigan State and
asked them to rank them in order of importance. The principles were Access to Quality
Education and Expert Knowledge, Active Learning, New Knowledge and Scholarship
across the Mission, Problem Solving to Meet Society's Needs, Diversity within
Community, and People Matter. While all agents were asked to rank them, some simply
grouped them in categories of important and not important without distinguishing between
them within those categories. Others simply talked about the values, claiming they were
all equally important. This makes rank-order correlation impossible, but it does provide
some insight into how agents make sense of formal value statements when they are
confronted with them.

The principle that elicited the most consistent agreement across the agents was
People Matter. The most common argument was that without people, there would be no
purpose to Extension. Agents were fi'equently surprised that this value even had to be
mentioned, because it is the whole purpose of Extension's existence. Access to Quality
Education and Expert Knowledge was second in importance. Education is what
Extension does, and bringing knowledge to the people wherever they are is the whole idea
behind the Extension service. Two agents thought that New Knowledge and Scholarship
across the Mission was identical to Access to Quality Education and Expert Knowledge,
which suggests that Extension's mission of providing research knowledge was particularly
salient for them. These first two values were considered to be important by nearly every
agent; the worst any agent could say was, "How do people not matter?" (Agent 2: 14).

The remaining principles were all questioned by some of the agents, and so must
be considered less important than the first two. Third in importance is Active Learning;
Extension education is characterized by being informal adult education, and so the active

involvement of clients is essential to its success. Active Learning was seen as an

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instrumental value that followed fi'om the previous two, and so it was not ranked as high.
Problem Solving to meet Society's Needs came fourth. While many agents agreed that
problem solving was what Extension was for, several questioned whether Extension could

meet all of society's needs:

My only concern with that is we cannot solve every problem in society. No
matter how big or diverse and organization we are. We're not going to be
able to solve every problem. (Agent 11: 18)

Another concern with society's needs was identifying what they are. Agent 13 stated

I think society has enough trouble trying to decide what the problem is that
needs to be addressed. (Agent 13: 17)

Thus, the emphasis that several agents read into Society's Needs determined their response
more than the actual approach of Problem Solving, which was taken for granted.

The final two principles were never considered absolutely crucial to the success of
Extension. Diversity was often recognized as important, but mainly because it was
politically beneficial to do so. Several Agriculture and a few CYF agents pointed out that
while serving everyone was key to the mission of Extension, increasing diversity in the
people who chose to come to Extension programs was often pointless for their major
audiences. Ifthe swine producers in the county were all white males, there wasn't much

the agent could do regarding diversity. Agent 15 put it this way:

I think of diversity more in terms of producer size and economic base
versus simple cut and dried things like racial background. (Agent 15: 6)

These agents recognized that barriers existed to increasing diversity in such fields, but they
did not see it as an educational problem, and so it was placed outside the mission of
Extension.

New Knowledge and Scholarship across the Mission was widely regarded as the
province of the university, not Extension. When asked if the university would order the
principles differently than Extension, New Knowledge and Scholarship rose in relative

importance for a majority of agents; no other principles were thought to be different by

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more than one agent. New Knowledge and Scholarship was ranked first by three agents,
but two of them did so because they saw it as identical to Access to Quality Education and
Expert Knowledge. New Knowledge and Scholarship also earned skeptical evaluations
from several agents. Agent I commented, "sounds kind of flighty to me. Put that in real
words" (Agent 1: 16). Agents 16 and 17 ignored it in their discussions. One agent began
her discussion of the principles by picking New Knowledge and Scholarship as the least

relevant principle for Extension:

We quite often are busy just making sure that good old information gets to
the right place and quite often we are able to answer things fine as long as
the person just had a question and they didn't know the answer to it. It
doesn't have to be new research to answer it.

Interestingly, this agent was the best educated of all the interviewed agents, holding a
Ph.D. While this might mean that the agent simply knows enough in her area of expertise
to not require constant updating, the agent's Agriculture responsibilities went well beyond
that area. If the best educated agent is strongly against placing a high value on new
knowledge in Extension, it seems likely that formal education is not important when
evaluating this principle. Program area also appears to be relatively unimportant: Of the
agents who ranked New Knowledge and Scholarship as important (regardless of ordinal
ranking), four are CYF and five are Agriculture. Thus, no consistent pattern appears to

exist in the data.

Summary

Agents appear to perceive outreach as a more comprehensive version of extension.
This comprehensiveness comes from one of two sources. First, outreach is an attempt to
involve more of the university in extension-type work, as noted in the quote from Agent
16. Second, outreach is seen as involving more formal methods of teaching, as quoted
above from Agent 10. However, agents do not universally favor formal education; Agents

3, 9 and 17 state that they would enjoy the opportunity to teach formal classes, but most

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of the other agents claim they are already too busy. Apart from being more
comprehensive, agents interpret outreach as attempting to be what extension already is:
Bringing university knowledge into communities to help people improve their lives
through education. Extension, however, is seen as better focused and more opportunistic,
and thus superior to outreach.

When discussing the guiding principles, agents often had questions about their
usefulness and meaning. Agent 16 commented that they were all very broad, and so
difiicult to discuss in a meaningfirl way. The quoted opinions of several other agents fiom
both program areas support this perception. What we can draw out of these principles is a
reaffirmation of the firndamentals identified earlier. Pe0ple are once again the focus of
agents' concerns, and their access to education and knowledge is the traditional mission of
Extension. Active learning, which was generally interpreted as hands-on, participative
learning, was widely recognized as the method of choice, supporting the distinction
between the university's formal educational system and the informal one of Extension.
Diversity was seen as something to be counted and used for political reasons on campus,
and so was outside the range of most agents' concerns. Finally, the concern of several
agents over the lack of selectivity implied in Problem Solving emphasizes the agents'
concerns with being practical and rooted in a county context. Society is too broad and
complex to have definite paramount needs that can be addressed by Extension alone.
These results provide evidence for the claim that agents actively apply their fundamental
biases consistently across program areas to make sense of messages concerning the
abstract elements of their work. The next step is to investigate how they interpret

messages relating to specific aspects of their work as agents.

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Agent Sense Making

The following observations are grouped into three subheadings: Perceptions of
constituent relationships, perceptions of quality, and issues identification. Once again,
quotes will be used to illustrate agent responses. The summary paragraph for each
subheading will address the values at play for the agents. The use of these values in the
ongoing process of sense-making begun by the presentation of the 1992 vision is of
greatest importance here. However, while these values are not universally accepted, the
extent of particular values' sway in the field culture of MSUE can be estimated based on

value clusters across agents.

Client Relationships
Many agents initially defined their constituents as all the people in their county or
counties (several had appointments in two counties); however, long time ANR agents

stated that their constituents were the members of the county's agricultural community.

You look at the whole Extension and the land grant philosophy [and it's to]
disseminate information from universities to [agricultural] producers. And
to me, those are the most important people. (Agent 16: 4).

Agents in rural counties usually went no further without prompting, as they were often
either the only agent or one of a small number (particularly in the Upper Peninsula).
Agents in urban counties defined their constituents in line with their oflicial
responsibilities, which were either by geography (e. g. CYF agents in Detroit and Ann
Arbor) or program area (e. g., consumer agriculture or horticulture for ANR agents in
Detroit). However, one urban CYF agent, Agent 5, described his efforts as focused on

whatever the greatest need was at a given time:

I spend the most time where the greatest need is at a given time. . .wherever
the gravest need is at a given time in a community, that's where I am.

(Agent 5: 5-6)

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This suggests that agents need to be attuned to the specific needs of their clients in order
to be successful. Thus, being customer-driven is one value active in this arena.

In describing their relationships with constituents, the first response was always
" good, " meaning that the agent felt she got along well with constituents. Volunteers were
often included as constituents. Leadership was frequently mentioned, but it was usually
qualified as being initially necessary, but ultimately being turned over to clients to achieve

the goal of self-learning:

I really try to help my clients become the leaders rather than myself. There
are a lot of times when I'm the only resources person and in that case I
would probably be the leader. But I think our main focus is to help them
become leaders. (Agent 12: 5)

In some cases, the agent led when he had expertise no one else had, and collaborated

when the agent did not know more than his clients:

I take the leadership role as far as addressing how we handle this problem.
What can we do to address that issue. Then, as far as collaborations, I
collaborate with producers whether it's in test plots, having them come in
to speak on areas where they're very comfortable or very proficient. I can't
claim to be the most knowledgeable Ag person in the county because I
have to know so many different areas. So I count on them. (Agent 11: 5)

The above examples are both fiom Agriculture agents. CYF agents are more
likely to describe their relationships as essentially collaborative:

If you develop your 4-H program using a developmental-type system
where a lot of your volunteers are involved and you have a variety of
committees and councils, and so on, that can really help determine some of
the directions you want to go in. (Agent 4: 5)

However, the difference is one of degree, not kind. CYF agents are leaders when
necessary and collaborators when they can be. Agriculture agents are more likely to
describe the process as one of making their clients into leaders, a common value in
Extension history, and speak more of cooperation than collaboration. Yet they do not see
themselves as doing different things. In fact, some Agriculture agents argue that it is CYF

that is inherently less collaborative:

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Adult education demands a different strategy than education of youth.
Because adults...analyze, and they talk back and forth, and they question
the tightness or wrongness of things. Whereas, youth and children tend to
be more of a school-type learning where we have a knowledgeable person
telling them exactly how it is. And adults are WAY different than that.

(Agent 15:5)

It is interesting to see the argument that agriculture is only dissemination, one of the
underlying reasons behind the new vision, turned on its head. This argument suggests that
Agriculture agents recognize the criticisms leveled against them and are not willing to
submit to labelling without counterattacking the new perspective on its own terms.

To summarize, the agents recognized the values of the MSUE vision as important
and reflective of the work they actually do. Being customer-driven was suggested, and
empowerment of people to be self-learners and leaders was advocated as the goal of all
programs. Collaboration was one route to success, but it was not appropriate or possible

in all situations, including one that could have been taken directly from the MSUE vision.

Quality Extension Work

Agents were fairly consistent when asked what made someone a successful agent.
Flexibility in the face of diverse problems and people was the most common element,
mentioned by 10 of the 17 agents interviewed. However, there were two types of
flexibility mentioned. The first was the agent's flexibility in dealing with radically different

situations fiom day to day:

I handle a wide diversity of personalities. From old, crusty guys to really
young, aggressive guys, to mellow laid back producers that don't let
anything bother them. And you have to be adaptable to all those types of
personalities. (Agent 11: 7)

The second concerned the flexibility of the organization. A lack of interference and

oversight was considered very important to agent success by several agents:

What helps me to be successful...I would say the ability to have the
flexibility to do the job that I need to do without interference fi'om a lot of
supervisory people or administrative people. (Agent 7: 4)

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It is important to recognize that these forms are complementary: An agent cannot be truly
flexible in her personal manner unless the agent knows that her decision will not be

second-guessed by others in Extension. Agent 4 states that

Many times you do things because politically, locally, you better do it.
Well, a lot of times you just don't make a lot of noise while you're doing it
to bring anybody to take too close a look at what you're doing. And you
do it because that's an expectation. And every county has those. And
basically I learned that sometimes you keep your mouth shut. (Agent 4: 7)

In this case, by maintaining silence an agent can succeed in meeting his county obligations
as required by the local expectations. As mentioned previously, agents afliliate themselves
with their county more than the university on campus. When they must choose between
university-based demands and those of the county, agents choose the county.

People skills was another common response, with many agents emphasizing the

need to be able to make and maintain contacts in the community:

you have to be able to go into any setting like that and not be afraid of...not
knowing what's going on and certainly having no fear of not being able to
answer, because you might not be able to. But make yourself the
connection between those people and the university or whatever other
organization you can help them get connected with that solves the problem.
(Agent 9: 9)

Knowing how to deal with people is more important than technical knowledge; being
competent is also necessary, but if you cannot deal with people your knowledge will never

come into play.

you have to be knowledgeable without being a know-it-all....You have to
be familiar with the topic you're discussing with a producer, but you better
not act like you know everything about the topic. They tend to resent that
a great deal and they'll pin your ears back in a hurry if you come in and
you're too talky....If you know it, say it. If you don't know it just say "I
don't know" flat out and "I'll get back to you with the answer." They'll
have a whole lot more respect for you. (Agent 11: 7)

Part of being able to deal with clients is being honest about the limits of your own

knowledge. As just described, the agent who knows everything will be resented, and the

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agent who is caught pretending to know when she doesn't will not be successful in
working with the people of the county, and that will lead to Extension's efforts failing.

Other important factors in being a good agent included being a self-starter and
committed. As Agent 6 said, "you just have to have the heart for it." (Agent 6: 6).
Agents working in small offices and those serving the particular needs of a large county's
entire population stressed time management and office organization as essential to getting
their jobs done. Finally, developing a reputation as someone who was trustworthy,
honest, and reliable was very important to continued success in a community. There were
no differences in emphasis across program area, nor did agents believe that the necessary
skills had changed over time.

Quality Extension programs were often described as excellent because they
mobilized constituent volunteers to help their communities themselves, as in the Master
Gardener program. Interestingly, while agents recognized this, in at least one case campus

staff did not understand the benefit:

unless we train other people to actually teach the programs for us, we're
not going to get the word out. So that is one of the things that is spoken
of, but the interesting thing is that when I called campus to suggest that this
program be videotaped, the resistance was because I wasn't actually
teaching the class. And it took a lot of talking on my part to get her to
realize that this was even better because it was enabling - or empowering
actually - experience where you get somebody else to do the class for you.
(Agent 7: 5)

Collaboration and cooperation were other attributes of successful programs. CYF
stressed collaboration, while cooperation and leadership development were cited more
often by ANR agents. An example of an accessible, cooperative, customer-driven
program is described by Agent 14:

that was a good extension work effort because of the fact that this is an
area where there wasn't a great deal of expertise. . . .They all needed very
similar types of education, they all needed similar types of marketing skills
developed, and things like this. We were able to do this through the
association that 1 established. (Agent 14: 4)

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By setting up an organization to deal with specific needs through cooperative efl‘orts, the
agent was successful in delivering education to those in need. Thus, being customer-
driven and accessible to audiences are important; this applies for both program areas.

When it came to evaluating Extension programs, there were several opinions put
forth. Several agents discussed how programs used to be evaluated based on sheer
numbers, then commented on the various reasons why that was not valid. Agent 11
described a program with ten participants who represented huge amounts of land in the
agent's county.

There, you went from. . 40% of your group utilizing the practice to 90%,
and soon to be 100%. That's a successfirl program. I don't care that there
were only ten people there. Those ten people represented about 40,000
acres of ground. (Agent 11: 8)

Agent 17 argued that small numbers had a large impact on a small community:

those 25 farmers...that voice of 25 businesses, they're significant businesses
given our local economy. Any businesses where hundreds of thousands of
dollars of money goes through it every year is significant. (Agent 17: 7)

Thus, numbers of pe0ple doesn't necessarily make a difference in evaluating the
effectiveness of programs, at least for Agriculture agents. The need to do what the
community expects of you has been mentioned previously; it is also important for
evaluation of effectiveness. Note also the implication that econorrrics are the important
factor; in CYF, demographics play the major role.

Tradition plays a big role in determining program effectiveness: Not only do you
have to recognize new and coming needs, you also must continue to meet your traditional
obligations. Several CYF agents stressed the need to continue serving traditional
audiences. One rural county CED with a programming history in CYF states:

We are really viewed and seen by the agricultural community as their
agency to assist and to help the rural families. And I totally don't want us
to lose that.

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Evaluation of programming impact goes beyond numbers. It deals with the perceptions of
one's clients that the agent is committed to them and will deliver the programs they believe
they need. Several Agriculture agents see that as fading when the administration moves to
issues identified for communities across the state, and warn that it will make the sacred

trust between their clients and Extension wither away:

It used to be farmers turned to the university for that neutral information.
Now they've [industry] got their salesman out there and they're just pushing
these guys saying "look, this is the result of our trial" and they [farmers]
don't think to look to Extension as much any more - it's just go to the
chemical companies. (Agent 11:16)

Essentially, Extension is seen as risking its unique status as an objective research-driven
vehicle for agricultural education by following regional and state level issues rather than
county needs and/or expectations (not necessarily the same thing). Extension success will
have no foundation if it violates the expectations of its clients.

On a different tack, Agent 4 notes that the sure way to know your program is

successfirl is to see who comes to it:

School systems here are allowed one field trip per year and when they
select yours, I guess that's telling you something, that you're offering a
quality program. (Agent 4: 9)

Other CYF and ANR agents agreed that this type of customer-driven demand was a sure

sign that a program was successfirl. The cost of one failure could be quite high:

Ifyou piss them ofi‘ in the first program, they'll never be back. Never. And
if you run a shitty program, they'll never be back. That's just the way it is.

(Agent 11: 9)

Agriculture agents are more concerned about losing one client because they have fewer
and they do not turn over as quickly as (for example) youth do. What they will not agree
with is that their farm producers are any less important as an Extension audience.

The value of being customer-driven is more complex for Agriculture than CYF
agents. They see it as a simple choice: Either continue to serve agricultural clients as in

the past through providing objective research knowledge without the potential bias of

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using grant money from industry to fund research and programs, or give up Extension's
unique status and provide the same services that other organizations do. The latter option
is seen as ultimately leading to failure because agents who do not do what their clients
expect damage the relationships in the county that they need to remain effective. CYF
agents recognize the importance of Agriculture to their counties, but they do not see the
change in policy as nearly as threatening as Agriculture agents do. This difference will be
further discussed in the next section, dealing with perceptions of the process used to

identify issues for future Extension programs.

Issues Identification

Agent responses to the question about how the issues identification process did or
didn't change agents' behavior aroused strong feelings among agents. The one constant
was that no agent felt that he or she personally had changed in response to the process, for
the same reason that they had always been doing the same thing before it was named
issues identification. This was common for all agents, regardless of tenure in the
organization, program area, or region. There was a minority of agents (four CYF) who

believed that the process improved identification of needs:

this was a major, major effort to bring together people and have them
identify what their real issues and concerns were. Where before, maybe we
had sort of a feeling as agents with a small number of advisory board
people. But now we went to the people and asked them and that probably
has been one of the major changes. (Agent 3: 3)

This was the most positive statement about the process fiom all the interviews. While
several applauded the sentiment, and Agents 1 and 6 stated that the process helped
identify needs better, the attitudes towards the process ranged fiom ambivalence through
fi'ustration to hostility.

The single most common complaint raised against the issues identification process

was that it had no useful application. One CYF agent participated in the process in two

166

counties, one region, and statewide. The process was admitted to be interesting, but the

results of the process were negligible:

it was an interesting process but nothing has materialized....We have gone
back to our advisory councils. We have nothing to report. Nothing has
happened with that. Yea, they set up firnds. I'm not sure I agree with the
way the funds have been allotted....where's the money for us to do
parenting education in the county? That was identified as an issue. How
many years has it been? We have no money.

Another major complaint was that the final results at the state and even regional levels
were completely meaningless. The three state issues identified were thought too broad to

have any practical meaning:

we took all these issues that came out of these counties and we kept
distilling them down and distilling them down, and distilling them down
until they actually had no meaning. (Agent 8: 8)

A couple of agents showed me their detailed county issues that they sent along to the
regional meeting, and pointed out that they could not see how their issues became part of
the three identified for the state.

The preceding quotes demonstrated the dissatisfaction of CYF agents with the
process. Agriculture agents were less ambivalent and more frustrated and angry. Agent
17 had hoped that specific "canned" programs would come out of the process. Agent 10
stated that it was poorly executed because it was scheduled for a time of the year when the
farm population was too busy to attend. Agents 11 and 16 expressed grave concern over
whether the shift in focus would lead to cuts in support for Agriculture; Agent 16 was
particularly concerned over the perceptions of agricultural community, expressing his fears
that the emphasis on social programs would lead to a drop in the commitment of
agricultural producers to Extension. This echoes the argument presented in the previous
subsection, that Agriculture agents feared for the tradition of Extension that they could

identify with and which kept them motivated in their jobs.

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Agriculture agents were less than happy with the issues that were finally identified
because they were not connected to Agriculture and were too broad to have any practical
use. Agent 13 cynically noted that the only Agriculture issues brought up in her county
was the one she put forward during the process, and noted that it had been added to the
list of programs she was responsible for as much because it looked good as because it was
needed in the county. Agent 17 did not have a problem with the process per se, but noted
that the issues identified were actually more relevant to his county than traditional
Agriculture was. Agent 12 argued that the process was a waste of time once it left the
county:

I don't think an issues identification process should have to take as long as
that took. I don't think that they needed to have a state issues identification
group after the counties already did it. I think it was a big waste of their
time....because the people that were recommended for the issues had
already gone through the issues identification process once. Now why
would they go to the state level and do it again? (Agent 12: 7)

This echoes some of the concerns found among CYF agents. But where CYF agents were
merely fiustrated, the Agriculture agents were very concerned.

There are considerable differences between the two program areas in evaluating
the issues identification process. CYF agents thought that it helped improve need
identification and increased participation in program planning, but were fi‘ustrated at the
lack of tangible outcomes. Agriculture agents had problems with the timing of the
process, the deemphasis on Agriculture among the issues identified, the consequences of
the process in the perceptions and expectations of their agricultural clients, and the final
product of the lengthy process. The program areas agree on the lack of tangible outcomes
and the relative uselessness of the state based issues for county programming, but disagree
on the import of the formal process. CYF agents see it as a formalization of what has
always been done, and while they begrudge the additional effort it requires of them, they

do not see it as threatening their effectiveness. Agriculture agents believe that the process

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will be seen by their clients as a dramatic shift in Extension priorities, violating both the
sacred trust that Extension has shared with the agricultural community since its founding
in 1914 and the mission of the land-grant university as formulated in 1862. They will not
be as effective if the process turns their clients away from them; as several agents pointed
out, the success of one's programs can be measured by who chooses to use them. The
Agriculture agents wonder if they will have anyone willing to use their programs if the
organization devalues Agriculture to the status of just another topical area and Extension

to just another agency.

Conclusion

Overall, the differences between CYF and ANR agents appear to be centered in
the shifting foci of Extension. The apparent problem is that ANR agents perceive the
presence of a focus as a requirement for selectivity. They warn against "robbing Peter to
pay Paul" and "throwing the baby out with the bathwater." They point to the tradition of
Extension agriculture and demand to be told why they are no longer valued as highly as
before. They are not opposed to the CYF agents; several CYF agents state that
agriculture is and should remain an important part of Extension. Neither does Agriculture
claim CYF is less important; one of the strongest advocates of Agriculture, Agent 11,
points out that the return on CYF programs in the future may be ten times greater than the
return on Agriculture programs. The point made by the agents is that there exists a
balance in Extension, and the attempts of administration to shift it are not taken well. On
this, the agents stand together: The Extension administrators do not know the field, and

they are not doing all they could do to help Extension fulfill its nrission.

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Syllogisms and Strategic Ambiguity

From the values described above, we can identify the areas where the MSUE
vision has been accepted and where it is not. For clarity, the areas of incommensurability
will be segregated across program areas. Incommensurability refers to the inability to
compare cultures directly because their criteria for evaluation are too different to be
comparable. CYF and Agriculture are very similar on some points, but their differences

need space to be developed sufiiciently.

Children, Youth and Families

The MSUE vision is firndamentally difi'erent from agent values on four points.
First, the vision advocates increased coordination of programs and more contact with
campus by field agents. CYF agents accept the need for more coordination in the county
office, but go no firrther than that. Because they are located in the county and identify
with their clients more than their administrative superiors, agents do not see the benefit to
increased coordination by on-campus administrators. Moreover, agent resentment at
being undervalued by staff on campus leads them to close ranks and point to specialists in
the field as proof of their worth From their perspective, there is no reason why agents
should accept campus coordination given that they know more about what is really
important in the counties.

Second, the MSUE vision requires formal participation of community members in
issue identification in order to achieve the goal of being customer-driven. But informal
participation is the tradition. The attitude is, "Ifit ain't broke, don't fix it." The existing
system is faster, more comfortable for the clients and agents, and equally effective. The
proposed vision yields no practical benefit beyond an official sanction for the issues
identified. One factor that must also be addressed is the attitude of agents towards

campus telling them what to do. Agents identify with the county and do not think the

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university and campus stafi' have a good idea about what happens outside of East Lansing.
For the campus administration to require a process that only adds additional work without
providing practical benefits to agents, there must be a serious misunderstanding of agent
values.

Third, the concept of statewide issues appears illcconceived from the agents'
perspective. What matters are the issues identified in the county; if there is a connection
between state and county issues, that is fine. But the lack of any such connection, the
absence of a practical purpose for the state level issues identification, means that agents
have nothing to say to their constituents. Abstractions do not matter in counties; they
want programs, new knowledge, concrete items that they can see in action. Without a
practical application, which many agents hoped for from the issues identification process,
agents see the process as a waste of time. The state level issues are a rhetorical device
that carries little weight in the practical atmosphere of the county Extension office.

Fourth, the concept of change as a necessary ingredient for Extension's continued
efficacy does not carry the meaning that Extension's leaders intend. Tradition is a
powerful force in determining what county agents believe their clients want and how it
should be delivered. While new methods are welcome, changing the priorities is not.
Agents believe that Extension must continue to serve its traditional clients or fail to be
customer-driven. The dilemma is this: Extension wants to serve its clients better.
However, the clients do not recognize the nature of the change. Part of the change is
moving away from the agents' deciding what is best for the clients towards joint
programming efforts. Yet this spirit of collaboration is violated if Extension undergoes
the change in priorities in contrast to the expectations and desires of its clients. Some of
the strongest supporters of the vision are careful to say that they do not want to lose the
special connection that Extension has with its clients around the state; but the change

suggested is seen by many as leading to exactly that outcome.

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While the vision has failed in several areas, it has succeeded in some of its most
important goals for CYF agents. In particular, the elevation of self—learning and
collaboration appear to be widely accepted. The harshest critics of other parts of the
vision, particularly the issues identification process, advocate collaborative efforts and
empoweri_r_rg individuals and communities to do for themselves what Extension has taught
them to do. This theme in Extension history is firrther supported by CYF methods that
encourage active involvement and interaction with clients, which are essential activities for
empowering clients. Thus, it is not surprising that the vision is readily adopted by CYF,
because their own traditions encourage the behaviors and attitudes advocated in the
vision. Helping people solve their own problems, working to educate as opposed to serve,
and the goal of human development are all historical themes that the vision elevates. The
problem is that the vision does not capitalize on this tradition to encourage the adoption of

other parts of the vision.

Agriculture

Where the CYF agents were unconvinced, the Agriculture agents were cynical or
highly concerned. First, the vision describes Extension as an organization "Centered in the
Present, Connected to the Past, Focused on the Future. " Agriculture agents quarrel with
this description by attacking it on its own terms. IfExtension is centered in the present,
then look at where it is. In a time of shrinking budgets and a changing environment,
Extension must be selective in its programming. Therefore, the question should be, what
does Extension do well? The answer, unsurprisingly, is Agriculture. Agents point to the
sacred trust Extension enjoys with the agricultural community, with whom they have
greater and more enjoyable contact with than the campus administration, and ask why it
should be devalued. They look at the CYF programs and point out that other
organizations are addressing the same problems in ways very similar to what the vision

and other messages propose for Extension in the future. The logical question that the

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Agriculture agents ask is what kind of firture Extension is looking for by turning away
from their traditional clients. How can agents be effective in their counties if they do not
have something different to offer from everyone else? Agriculture agents see the vision
moving away from the past tradition of Extension and refuse to believe that the future will
be one they will be able to be a part of if current trends are allowed to change what makes
Extension unique.

Second, the Agriculture agents are even more leery of the issues identification
process than the CYF agents were. The dilemma noted there is even more pronounced in
the Agriculture context: If people do not understand what is at stake or how agriculture
works, then they cannot be effective participants in the process. Furthermore, the
Agriculture agents believe they are customer-driven; if they are not, they will not have
anyone showing up and will get no support from the county. Informal issues identification
is part of their job, they know and accept it. Thus, they take offense when they are told
that a process whose effects they see all the time is not working by administrators on
campus who have little or no contact with the county. The benefits they see arising out of
the issues identification process are in advertising the range of Extension resources for
audiences that may not realize them. In effect, the issues identification is worthwhile if it
makes informal issues identification easier by increasing agent contacts within the
community.

Third, the idea that "Dollars follow Vision" is widely criticized by Agriculture
agents. The unique attribute of Extension is its commitment to its clients and their needs,
and in particular the educational needs of agricultural producers. To place firnding
sources before client needs, as this statement appears to do, is to violate clients'
expectation that Extension will provide objective research-based information to help
educate them to meet future challenges without assistance. Instead, money drives
services. This suborning of attention to clients to the need for soft money is another

example of campus politics having a negative effect on field work in the counties. Since

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campus doesn't know the counties, it is not expected to be able to set an agenda for them.
Once programs are based on non-community factors such as which grant it is politic to
pursue instead of county need, clients will lose their trust in Extension. It has already been
noted that most agents could tell a tale of an agent who burned bridges in his or her
county; the Agriculture agents fear that the bridge will be burned for all of them.

Fourth, the need for a change in focus to follow society's development runs afoul
of the agents' interpretation of focus. Knowing that Extension is in a time of financial
trouble, and experiencing the issues identification process where no issue related to
traditional agriculture was identified at the state level, Agriculture agents interpret the talk
of a new focus as meaning that Extension will be selective in its use of resources. That is,
Agriculture is out, Children, Youth and Families and Community and Economic
Development are in. Agriculture agents respond that this shift in emphasis will have dire
consequences, because agriculture has effects on the quality of life of everyone in the state
through food prices, availability, and the economic health of a major state industry. If
Extension pulls out, then the effects would be felt far beyond the relatively small number
of Extension's agricultural clients. This is because Extension is unique in having the
resources of a class one research university that also has a land—grant mission to draw
upon in dealing with issues other agricultural service organizations rarely if ever address.
This author is not competent to assess the validity of this claim; the very fact that
Agriculture agents believe it is extremely important for understanding their rejection of the
proposed change in focus.

Even with all these differences between the MSUE vision and Agriculture agents'
cultural values, there are still some areas where the vision has been effective. In particular,
the move to decentralize authority for evaluating agent performance and increase support
for agent specialization in the field has met with a positive reception. Decentralization
plays into the county focus of agents, and recognizing them as having expertise is a change

long desired by agents in general. Agents agree that their County Extension Director

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knows them best and is the best person to evaluate them because they are in the county
and know what is going on. There were no complaints about County Extension Directors
from Agriculture agents; this could be a reflection of the fact that the majority of County
Extension Directors are still from an Agriculture background. The areas of expertise were
seen as valuable because they increased the agents' flexibility and improved their technical
knowledge in a field context. However, the acceptance of these changes did not affect the
basic opinion that on-campus administrators did not know what Extension was really
about in practice; they merely were a sign that the administration was beginning to

recognize its own ignorance.

Summary

CYF and Agriculture agents had similar outlooks on many parts of the vision; they
differed when it came to those parts that elevated the status of CYF. The key values of a
county focus, the traditional sense of Extension, and the importance of field experience led
the agents to reject those parts of the vision that competed with them. Agents did accept
those elements of the vision that took a traditional value and connected it to other values
in order to improve the firnctioning of the organization. However, as the strife over the
extent to which the issues identification process was customer-driven attests, agents were
quick to find fault with elements that violated their perceptions of what was practical and
usefirl. In short, agents were quite happy to accept those elements of a first order change
that agreed with their existing values, but tenaciously resisted arguments that advocated a
deeper change by attacking the way in which the leaders of the change initiative tried to
justify them.

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The Values of the CES, Co-Learning, and the Agents of MSUE

To conclude this chapter, the value clusters from the historical documents will be
compared with those of the proposed vision of MSUE and those observed in the field
culture described in the interviews. The first value cluster concerns the level of focus and
emphasis on centralization found across the three chapters of this rhetorical analysis. The
historical documents have a national focus, with the sole exception of the 1973 Lifelpng
Universig report. They also recommend centralization at the level of the state university.
In the MSUE vision, the regions and counties of Michigan are emphasized, and the
decentralization of agent evaluation and knowledge resources into counties is advocated.
The field culture embraced this decentralization and county focus, primarily because it
increased the flexibility of the organization and the agents.

Second, access to education and the goal of clients' self-learning were recurring
themes in the historical documents. The vision rephrased this, taking up the 1973 report's
emphasis on lifelong education (or continual learning) and joining it to opportunistic
education. In the field, access to education and self-learning in communities were cited as
key elements of agents' jobs, drawing on their allegiance to the county population and the
tradition of Extension procedures and rhetoric. While opportunism was mentioned, it was
as an instrumental value to the terminal ones expressed above.

Third, the historical documents focused on national priorities and how the
diffusion and translation of research fiom the land-grant universities could be used to
improve the quality of life in the United States. The MSUE vision focused on county,
region, and state priorities by identifying them in a formal issues identification process
whose purpose was to improve Extension's relevance to society. The field culture of
MSUE accepted the tradition of informal issues identification at the county level to
improve the quality of life of all the people in the county, and, taken as an aggregate, the

state. State level issues were thought worthless because they were too broad to have any

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meaning for the practical work needed in the county. The formal process was only
worthwhile to the extent it improved contacts and helped agents do their informal issues
identification better.

Fourth, the historical documents based the success of Extension in its educational
mission to the participation of people and communities in programs that created leaders
and self-leamers. The MSUE vision advocated collaboration with people and
communities for mutual learning as the route to success. The field culture of MSUE rated
the participation of volunteer leaders in the community and cooperation with community
groups and organizations as the keys to educational success. Collaboration was accepted
as a goal, but it was also recognized as requiring a certain base of knowledge before it
could be truly effective with groups and individuals. Mutual learning was accepted more
by CYF agents, who deal with people on subjective issues where their personal knowledge
is essential to program success. Agriculture agents did not mention mutual learning, with
the exception of client feedback on what worked and what did not in their educational
experiences.

Fifth, the historical documents place high value on formal staff learning and
specialization, in terms of what agents have already achieved and in the development of
greater agent knowledge while an agent. The MSUE vision recognizes the value of agent
knowledge and the importance of their continued learning to stay up to date, and provides
a means by which agents' field knowledge can be oficially certified and their
responsibilities changed to reflect their expertise. The field culture of MSUE values their
own field knowledge and their informal knowledge; they accept the recognition given
them by the vision as their due. However, the field wants more: Agents should be
rewarded for being better agents in one location as much as for taking on administrative
responsibilities or developing areas of expertise.

Sixth, both coordination of activities at the university level and cooperation with

other organizations are cited as cnrcial to achieving the Extension mission in the historical

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documents. Cooperation and collaboration are cited as the key in the MSUE vision, while
coordination of activities between counties and cooperation with other organizations are
the important elements for the field culture of MSUE. Collaboration is seen more as an
outcome than a process for Agriculture, made possible by educating clients on particular
subjects. CYF leans towards accepting collaboration, with some agents recognizing that
clients are empowered through the opportunity for learning rather than the material they
learn. However, it should be noted that both views could be highly effective, even
necessary, given the particular nature of their programming.

Seventh, the history of Extension identifies both focus and selectivity as relevant to
Extension success at different times. The MSUE vision speaks of focus, but the field
culture sees selectivity. In dealing with the realities of budget and staff cuts, agents see
focus as selectivity. Ifan area is identified as important, more resources will be devoted to
it. In a situation where resources are limited, this means that some other, less important
areas will have to go without. This is the central problem that Agriculture agents have
with the vision: It claims that it proposes a shift in focus, but it really means that they are
about to lose much of what is valuable to them, not least among those values being
tradition and efi'ective education of clients when and where they need it.

Eighth, Extension has a tradition of opportunism in education; selectivity occurs
whenever the issue lacks an educational component. The MSUE vision points to the
tradition of change and opportunism in Extension, and calls for a focus on issues identified
by clients through a formal process. The MSUE field culture suggests that MSUE has a
tradition of change cycles; nothing really changes, but it is necessary for the organization
to struggle with its nrission and program responsibilities to keep itself focused on the right
issues. As expressed in the historical documents, the mission of Extension is opportunistic
education, being selective wherever the need for education is absent. In fact, Michigan

State is encouraged by several agents to specialize in what it does best, then cooperate

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with other land-grants with different specializations to offer higher quality educational

programming.

Summary
Over time, Extension has remained remarkably stable in its firndamental values.

The historical allusions to building an agency for change are as applicable to the
organization itselfas to its mission. Agents see Extension as sufficiently capable of
adjusting to the needs of society as required to remain relevant and effective. They fail to
acknowledge the need for change except in areas where the organizational structure
blocks them fi'om being flexible and opportunistic in their attempts to meet client needs
through education. The historical values of Extension are alive and well. To the extent
that the vision for MSUE overlaps with them, it is successfirl. To the extent that it

contradicts them, it has failed to convert agents.

CHAPTER SEVEN
CHANGING THE EXTENSION PARADIGM

In Chapter Two I set forth four research questions concerning Extension values.
The first dealt with the change in value clusters over time, and led to the discussion of
historical value clusters in Chapter Four. The second focused on difl'erences between the
values put forward in official program area documents, as described in Chapter Five. The
third asked about the differences between agents' values across program areas, and was
addressed in Chapter Six. The fourth and final research question was concerned with the
difference between the values set forth in the MSUE vision and the values cited by agents.
This question was answered in Chapters Five and Six. Two primary value systems lie at
the root of the existing culture: The traditional Extension model derived fi'om Agriculture
and the more recent collaborative model derived fi'om Home Economics, 4-H, and
Expanded F arrrily Nutrition - which are new components of CYF. In this chapter, I will
first review the findings for each of the research questions and demonstrate the relevance
of the two value systems, then return to the theorists described in Chapter Two and
attempt to pull together the many strands of this analysis into a final conclusion regarding
the effectiveness of the change effort and suggest recommendations for the Extension

leadership.

RQ1. How do the value clusters of the CES/MSUE differ across historical eras?

The value clusters across the history of Extension are consistent on their key
terms, with education and cooperation consistently being cited. There are three major
areas of difference: (1) The increasing importance of being comprehensive, particularly
since 1968; (2) The rise of opportunism to highest importance in 1968 and its subsequent
decline to lesser significance; and (3) The increasing importance of community fi'om 1968

onward. It appears that 1968 marked a key transition in Extension's values, with
1 7 9

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opportunism reaching its peak as community issues were recognized as important and the
need to be comprehensive in programming was emphasized. The combination of these
factors suggests that Extension 's value context diversified in 1968. 1968 was also a time
when human development and community issues were being recognized as important in
their own right, garnering increased funding and staff. Thus, we can identify 1968 as the
point where the CYF subculture got its first recognition as a part of the Extension value
system. The difi‘erences between the values of the overall Agriculture culture and those of

the new subculture will be detailed under Research Question 3.

RQ2. How do the value clusters of MSUE differ across the formal mission statements of
the program areas?

The 1993 mission statements for the three program areas of MSUE differ greatly
in their value clusters. While education remained the most important value for CYF and
ANR, it took very different forms. For CYF, education was advocated across the lifecycle
in order to bring about the self-efficacy of as many clients as possible, whatever their age
or condition. For ANR, education had a more practical aim, that of sustaining a
competitive economy and preserving a high quality of life for the people of Michigan, but
especially agricultural producers. CED connected education to community leadership and
participation, which in turn led to more opportunities for collaboration in the community.
Futuring and diversity were clustered with opportunism for CYF, while ANR connected
opportunism to economic competitiveness. CED stressed community above everything
else, but was very close to CYF in the importance it placed on collaboration and
participation. If CED had more staff and clout, it would have been another interesting
subculture to investigate. However, given its small size and relative youth, it cannot be
said to be a major alternative in the choice between the cultures modeled after the

traditional Agriculture view of Extension and the subculture that became CYF.

1 8 1
RQ3. How do the value clusters of MSUE agents differ across the program areas?

This research question addresses the first of the two major barriers to the vision's
success: The different value systems in place within Extension. Research question four
addresses the second barrier, that between campus administration and field staff. As
described in Chapter Six, CYF agents linked collaboration with high quality Extension
work, while Agriculture agents emphasized cooperation and leadership development.
Being customer-driven involved a much closer relationship with clients for Agriculture
than for CYF agents. Knowing they have to continue interacting with the same small
group of clients for the foreseeable firture makes it critical for Agriculture agents to serve
them well, which means doing both what is needed and what is expected, even when the
expected is beyond the call of duty. The new focus on CYF issues is interpreted by
Agriculture agents as selective against their clients; those clients are described as major
supporters of Extension efforts, without whose support Extension cannot be effective.
Perhaps most importantly, CYF agents advocate an empowering approach, while
Agriculture agents focus more on empowerment. The distinction is based on where the
power comes from: In empowerment, the agent gives clients power. When an agent is
empowering, the power is recognized as part of clients' potential, not a gift from outside.
I argue that this distinction is rooted in necessity: Agricultural science must be learned
from the beginning, and so agents must give their clients power. In contrast, human
development involves everyday life, and so every client has rich resources that they can
access with proper guidance and support. Thus, CYF and Agriculture agents do not differ
as much as might be expected. In fact, the most important difference within Extension is

between campus and field staff.

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RQ4. Are the value clusters promoted by MSUE leaders similar to those found in the
discourse of MSUE field agents?

The simple answer is no. While there are areas of value agreement, particularly
regarding the need for organizational flexibility and decentralization, the value clusters are
different. As noted in Chapter Six, one of the key terms of agents is their county focus, as
opposed to the campus offices where the Extension leaders dwell. Every agent, both CYF
and Agriculture, had something to say about the differences between campus and the field,
and few were complementary towards campus. Even when the vision strikes a chord, as it
did with decentralization, it is thought appropriate because the campus-based
administration does not know the field, and so does not deserve the authority it previously
held. The values of being customer-driven and flexible are elevated, while research and
comprehensiveness drop in rank. Opportunism is important for each agent, but the overall
efforts of the organization are seen as needing a defined scope instead of an open-to-all-
comers vision. Collaboration is still a goal rather than a frequently used method. In the
final analysis, the values expressed by agents have more in common with each other than
with any one formal document. This is fitting, as formalization is one of the least
appreciated values by agents.

Having recapped the basic findings of this thesis, we will now move on to the
theories of organizational culture change and equilibrium. There are many factors that
must be accounted for in evaluating a cultural change effort. Mthin the organization, the
processes of socialization and sense-making are central to both preserving cultural
equilibrium and encouraging change. External to the organization, the social, political,
and economic environment establishes the conditions under which the organization can
successfully achieve its mission. This external reality takes first priority, as we cannot
hope to understand the reasons behind an organization's success without first

comprehending the opportunities present in the environment.

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Extension in the 19905 is facing a very different society than the one it was
originally intended to serve. Within Extension, the two program areas of CYF and
Agriculture perceive their respective environments differently. That is, the perceived
difference in the Extension environment between the two program areas is based in a real
difference in their respective worlds. The program areas serve different clients through
different programs and receive support fi'om different sources; these parallel lines of
service within Extension date back to the inception of the organization. Thus, there is not
one Extension culture, there are two: The traditional Agriculture-based dissemination
model, and the collaborative model suitable to CYF programming efforts. For either
program area to improve, it must be flee to apply its own model. The problem is the
assumption that both program areas can be served best by the same model.

Gordon (1991) sets forth three dimensions relevant to an organization's
environment: The competitive environment, customer requirements, and societal
expectations. The current competitive environment is seen as complex and of low
munificence, i.e., there are many firms out there doing what Extension does and the
environment cannot sustain more growth. Agriculture agents interpret this as meaning
that Extension must close ranks and focus on its areas of expertise rather than attempting
to diversify into other program areas where the same job is already being done. CYF
agents are less pessimistic, recognizing the other organizations as potential clients and
collaborators, which makes the environment rich in opportunities for more relationships.

Customer requirements are either concerned with reliability or novelty. Reliability
means that promised services will be performed as promised without fail. Agriculture's
long tradition of serving its clients in a particular way makes this requirement paramount
in their minds. CYF agents favor novelty, or the diversification of service delivery
options, because their program area is much more flexible in effective programming
methods and more diverse in both needs and necessary solutions. Without novelty, CYF

agents could not be effective in meeting their clients' ever-changing needs. While

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Agriculture agents recognize the need to stay up to date, the more formalized university
knowledge of e. g. effective farm and marketing procedures make novelty less important
than reliability. CYF agents in turn recognize the importance of reliability in their
programs, but it will make no difl‘erence if they do not keep pace with their clients'
changing needs.

Societal expectations of land-grant colleges are changing. It is no longer enough
to help only farmers and their families; the vast majority of the population that pays taxes
to support publicly-firnded agencies such as MSU and its Extension service also wants
some direct return. Agriculture has little to offer them in its traditional programming;
home horticulture and composting have broader applicability, but relatively small amounts
of Agriculture's efforts are focused on these issues. The major issues identified in the
formal issues identification process were CYF and CED issues, and so the emphasis of
Extension rhetoric is shifting. Unfortunately, there is no carrot to go with the stick when
encouraging change in Agricultural programming and methods, and so Agriculture agents
refirse to accept the results of a process they do not respect as valid.

Gordon (1991) notes that there is no one best structure for a particular
environment, although there are those that will fail and others that will succeed. The
problem for Extension is in trying to serve two masters: Either the Agriculture or the
CYF model may be viable, but the two cannot be combined successfully. The MSUE
vision, based on the needs of CYF and CED programming, is significantly different from
the existing culture based on Agriculture. It is a second-order change, an attempt to move
fi'om one value system to another. The problem of all such change efforts is that they
must overcome the barrier of incommensurable paradigms, i.e. two world-views that have
non-identical standards of evaluation, such that neither can be adequately understood in
terms of the other. Kuhn (1970) states that the decision to shift one's cultural paradigm
across the chasm of incommensurability cannot be made solely on the basis of rationality,

because the rational response is to forgo the unknown in favor of the known status quo.

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Thus, the status quo must be called into question on its fundamentals for agents to
consider converting to the new cultural paradigm.

People identify with organizations that share their existing values and beliefs
(Schneider 1987), and suffer both cognitive dissonance and emotional strain when that
identity is threatened. The Extension agents interviewed in this thesis identified with the
traditional Extension service focused on Agriculture. Schein (1992) states that the values
of an organization are initially created by the actions of leaders at the formative stage of
organizational development, when the culture is still developing and procedures are not
yet ingrained. The early leaders of Extension were Agriculture agents and administrators
with Agriculture and farming backgrounds. They found the dissemination model to be
usefirl and effective in achieving their goals of empowerment for farmers and rural
families. The actions they took and the successes that resulted strengthened the traditional
Extension values associated with Agriculture, shaping them into the basic assumptions that
the MSUE vision is intended to change. What I call the CYF subculture probably began
around 1968, when the amount of funding and staff for non-Agricultural programnring
increased dramatically. Because the different program areas have separate lines of
authority, they can develop different approaches without realizing the extent of the
difference within the overall organization. Thus, the CYF subculture developed as distinct
from the Agriculture-dominated culture due to the different audiences served and methods
employed. Thus, the vision is really directed at two audiences, not one: The traditional
Agriculture agents and the CYF subculture.

An audience's sense-making is based on their values and basic assumptions, which
are both responsible for their current membership in the organization (as described in
Schneider's (1987) Attraction - Selection - Attrition model) and are continually influenced
by the socialization systems of the organization. The consequences of this relationship are
significant. First, the values under which most agents joined Extension were those of

Agriculture; the older the agent, the more likely he or she was to have experienced

186

traditional Extension programs such as 4-H fairs, Home Economist classes, or have dealt
with Agriculture agents while working on a farm. For these agents, the new values are a
threat to their identification with the organization, and so they have great incentive to
resist. Second, agent socialization is a continuing process throughout one's career.
Agents learn the most about Extension and its values fiom two sources: Their fellow
agents and their clients. Extension is defined as the university in communities. This
message is powerfirlly supported by the everyday contact agents have with each other and
their clients. The county's needs are the primary concern, and county problems have a
face for agents. Politically and financially, agents depend on county support for their jobs
and for their opportunities. All of these factors combine to create a powerful barrier to
change messages that do not match up with agents' experiences and values. Thus, there
are two obstacles to the vision: The division between program areas, and the division
between campus and the field.

At this point, the nature of the vision's success and failure should be set within the
context of Bartunek's (1988) model for sense-making. The four stages are unfreezing the
existing culture, preparing the members for a shift, the generation of a new flame, and
testing that new frame in practice. Of these, the first two are the most important for
understanding agent sense-making of the MSUE vision, as the latter two are not engaged
for the majority of agents interviewed. Together, the requirements for unfi'eezing and

preparing agents for the shift explain how and where the vision was unsuccessfirl.

Unfieezing

Agents' perceived need for change is key to unfreezing the existing culture, and
encompasses three factors: Messages sent from leaders, messages sent from coworkers,
and perceptions of the environment. The first two factors are modified by the agents'
perceptions of the sender, the third by agents' current values. First, agents do not perceive

the leaders of the organization as understanding the field in which they work. Thus, they

187

assign little credibility to recommendations from campus that tell them how to operate in
their counties. The only messages they do accept are those that reaffirm existing values,
such as decentralization, cooperation, and education for self-learning. Because agents are
unanimous in this perception, their discussions with each other reflect and intensify this
perception. Thus, the second factor supports the first: Messages from coworkers are
generally supportive of the status quo, and those coworkers are generally perceived as
competent by virtue of their being in the field. While not all agents have the same level of
respect fiom others, most are far more credible to their coworkers than the Extension
administration.

It is not enough to include coworkers, however; clients are also a source of
persuasive messages, and they are even more important than coworkers in determining
what agents believe to be important. This ties into the existing values of Extension: Being
customer-driven means that clients must be attended to or the special relationship they
have with Extension will be lost. Clients are an important lens for both messages about
what Extension ought to be doing and perceptions of the environment. Here the
difference between CYF and Agriculture becomes clear. CYF agents hear messages fiom
clients that are supportive of a shift in focus to social needs and human development
programs. Agriculture agents are told by clients that Extension is becoming irrelevant to
their needs, and that these clients will soon be looking elsewhere for research knowledge
and assistance. Thus, CYF agents are more likely to accept the change initiative because
they perceive an environment where clients need more of the education CYF provides,
while Agriculture agents are more likely to reject the change initiative because their clients

are beginning to use other organizations to meet their needs.

Preparation
When we look at the preparation for the cultural change, the strategic ambiguity of

leaders' messages and members' perceptions of the environment are key factors, both

188

mediated by the existing values of Extension culture. The existing values of greatest
importance are self-learning, selectivity, flexibility, and a county focus. The self-learning
of its clients is the traditional mission of Extension; however, there are two interpretations
of it. It appears possible that the requirements for Agriculture and CYF are firndamentally
different. The distinction between self-learning as empoweripg and as empowemt
focuses on whether the empowering agent bestows power on the client or works with the
client to bring about a realization of the power the client already had. In some cases, the
client will have to receive something fi'om the agent before being able to recognize any
power potential within herself. This is the tradition of Agricultural Extension, where the
client must have a base of knowledge connected to formal education in order to be
capable of telling the agent something that the agent did not know about the practical and
abstract issue. Agriculture is a physical science concerned with living things; it requires a
foundation to build a self-learning structure. Thus, Agriculture programs are based on the
assumption that the agents know more than their clients about science. Most importantly,
until the clients have learned that science, their field knowledge is of no use to their
learning or to the Extension agent.

CYF programs do not face the same obstacles that Agriculture programs do. The
issues concerning social and human development make community knowledge an explicit
part of the process. Clients' social knowledge and behavior are the academic material
required for making a contribution in a collaborative educational process. Everyday acts
and experiences are the foundation needed by both client and agent to create an
environment where clients are empowered and agents learn something new from the
process. This is very different from the Agriculture program area, where everyday
experiences do not prepare one to plant or harvest or eliminate pests. Dressel (1987)

describes the primacy of the Agricultural extension model:

Extension could be viewed as a mediating role between those having
knowledge - professors and researchers - and those needing to use it -

189

farmers, homemakers, engineers, and such. Such a mediating role is clearly
one of instruction oriented to what to do and how to do it rather than to
why or how something works. (Dressel, 1987: 214)

The MSUE vision, and CYF, attempt to change this to recognize the benefits of
incorporating client knowledge. Unfortunately, the directive style of learning suggested
by Dressel makes such a change a fundamental shift, and raises the possibility that the
vision and CYF share a culture that is incommensurable with that of Agriculture. If this is
true, then Extension must find another basis for professing the unity of its mission.

This firndamental difference in the subject matter of Extension's educational
programs means that one vision may not fit both program areas. Knowing the importance
of practical application to agents, different messages must be sent to both groups.
Strategic ambiguity is not enough; agents can see through it by attempting to apply the
lessons in the field, where the differences will be manifest. While the author is not an
expert in either agricultural engineering or human development, there is a chance that it
will be impossible to successfully promote a single vision to the two program areas.

Selectivity is an important value for agents, as it is historically relevant and is
related to the MSUE key term focus. This connection creates problems for leaders
attempting to use strategic ambiguity: While focus is a term used to highlight important
issues, selectivity carries the connotation of prioritizing in the service of necessary choices.
This is especially important to Agriculture agents, who do not see the concerns that they
believe their clients have being reflected in the foci for firture Extension work, and so
believe that Agriculture will lose the resources currently devoted to it. CYF agents do not
see their reason for existence being threatened, but they do recognize that focus entails
some form of selectivity in an environment with limited resources. The credibility of
Extension's leadership is lessened when they imply that Extension can apply itself to all the
foci it names as serious concerns, as agents know the pressure for selectivity exists and

must be answered if Extension is to remain effective.

190

Flexibility is essential to good Extension work in the minds of agents. Agents
value their autonomy and the expertise they develop in the field to meet their clients'
needs. Thus, the area of greatest success in the vision concerns changes in organizational
structure to increase agents' autonomy and flexibility in doing their jobs. Both the
flexibility of the organization in allowing agents to do as they believe best and the agents'
own personal flexibility in responding to specific situations are very important to agents'
perceptions of quality work and their commitment to their job. What is surprising is that
other values are not paired with flexibility to encourage (e.g.) more collaboration.
However, it is possible that the different needs of CYF and Agriculture (described above)
make this use of strategic ambiguity impossible.

The key term of county focus is perhaps the most important value for
understanding how agents evaluate leadership messages. From a socialization perspective,
it is easy to see where agents learn about their organizational roles. They learn it from
every client they (led with, from every cooperative effort that succeeds or fails, and from
their daily interactions with coworkers in the county office. The university campus is not
important to them. They spend only a few days a year there for the Extension School and
begrudge even that time. Once they arrive in the field, they are left on their own, without
formal guidance to learn any particular procedure for doing their job. Thus, they learn
fiom watching and talking with other agents, fi'om the advice of older mentors, and from
trail and error as they venture forth into the county to learn clients' expectations. In this
situation, leadership messages have little credibility: The source is distant, does not
understand the particular county situation, and has too many additional concerns not
connected to the practice of the Extension mission. If the goal of a leadership message is
to change agent behavior, the source will be as important as the content in determining
how agents interpret it.

Consider the example of the annual Extension School on campus. Agents do not

care for Extension School as a formal event: It forces them to drive as long as eight hours

191

to get there, they do not believe that it provides them any in-service training, and it brings
them face to face with Extension administrators. This confrontation is a problem based in
the organization's structure: Administrators are distant beings whose main purpose
appears to be telling agents how to do their jobs without ever conring out to see what
extension means in practice. A presentation on campus on how agents must change,
conring fi'om administrators who agents rarely see elsewhere, has extremely low credibility
for agents. This is not the fault of the administrators themselves. They have their own
work to do, and it leads to a different world-view than that of agents. But no matter how
well-crafted the presentation, no matter how potent the arguments, the setting and the
people who deliver the message are the first obstacle to getting the message across, and it

is apparent that it has not been effective for the agents interviewed.

Frame Generation

The issues identification process is a crucial component of the attempt to generate
a new fi'amework based on the vision, as it is intended to define the scope of Extension
programming. Thus, it is a significant indicator of the viability of the new vision. The
widespread condemnation of the process suggests that the vision is not seen as a viable
alternative by many agents, particularly those in Agriculture. Agents' arguments that the
process was not scheduled at a good time for farmers to participate, failed to suggest any
issues that were not already known, and provided no real help to agents in their counties
return us to the prior stages of Bartunek's model. Agents applied existing values to the
vision, and so the vision was doomed to failure because of the incommensurability of the
two cultures. The formal empowering structure set forth in the MSUE vision is different
enough from the existing culture that any evaluation of the vision will be poor. Without
systematically calling into question the values of the traditional Agriculture focused,

informal education for empowerment culture, the leaders of the change effort cannot

192

justify the need for change, and so the cycle of sense-making is strongly biased in favor of

the status quo.

Recommendations for Extension Leaders

The following recommendations are derived fi'om the information presented in this
thesis for the purpose of devising a more effective change initiative for the Extension
service in Michigan. First, the message must be brought home within the county context.
That means that processes like issues identification must be focused on providing practical
assistance in meeting specific county needs. This will lead to problems in the allocation of
resources, and will not result in state-wide issues; so be it. Agents do not care about the
state wide issues unless they can be shown to be relevant to their county and its problems.
Therefore, the change initiative must involve three elements:

1. The administrators must present it within the county context, and regularly

reinforce their message through visits and involvement in programming.

2. The emphasis on decentralization and flexibility should be increased. This
is one of the few areas where the vision met with highly positive
agreement. This agreement should be cultivated and connected to other
parts of the vision as an additional argument for the vision's worth.

3. Create a formal channel for agents to provide feedback about specialists
and connect good evaluations to organizational rewards. This will validate
the importance of the field and make it in the specialists' best interest to be
effective providers of university knowledge. The good ones will be

rewarded, and the bad ones identifiedl

 

1 The Report of The Proviet'e Committee on University
Outreaeh (1993) has proposed changing the evaluation of

faculty on campus to include outreach work among the
critieria for tenure and other rewards. Advertising this to

193

Without changing the perception that they are distant, uncaring and unknowledgeable
about the field, campus administrators cannot be successful in changing agent values.

Second, the change initiative should be brought directly to clients in the counties.
The problems associated with being customer-driven can be met by bringing clients to
understand the vision. The people focus emphasized by agents should be a fundamental
part of the change efi‘ort. If agents hear similar things fi'om both their clients and the
administration, they will be more likely to consider the administration in touch with the
field and the vision as having some worth. But the effort must practice what it preaches:
When dealing with Extension clients, Extension personnel should recognize the validity of
their perceptions and be prepared to reject preconceptions if they prove invalid. Ifthe
vision is truly intended to promote collaboration as both a means and an end, it must begin
here.

Third, Extension leaders must address the difl‘erences between program areas if
they truly wish to enact change. The empowerment of Extension clients, i.e. encouraging
self-learning, has been a tradition in Extension, growing more salient in recent times.
However, the requirements may be very different for CYF as opposed to Agriculture.
Attempting to promote a single vision and approach that does not fit all parts of Extension
only serves to further undermine the credibility of the Extension leaders by demonstrating
their ignorance (Willfill or otherwise) of field practice. The only way to escape this is to
admit difference at the practical level while maintaining the unity of Extension's mission.
Agents are willing to accept abstract unity so long as the practical realities are accurate;
this leaves the door open for future efforts at strategic ambiguity.

Fourth, if Extension is truly committed to shifting its emphasis towards issues
relevant to CYF and CED, socialization will have to play an important role. Kuhn (1970)

states that the most effective way of achieving a paradigm shift is simply to wait until the

 

agents will send the message that campus is beginning to
recognize the importance of extension and outreach.

194

adherents of the old paradigm retire or die, leaving the field fiee for the holders of the new
paradigm. Time and the gradual retirement of agents who are deeply invested in the
traditional model of Extension will bring about change. It appears that this strategy has
already been partially implemented as part of the downsizing effort from 1991 through
early 1994. However, the new members who have been socialized by these long-time
agents will likely pass it on to future members, thus preserving continuity. In order to
minimize the transmission of the traditional Extension model in the new environment,
Extension must intervene in the socialization process in the counties. The suggestions
regarding involvement of clients in the negotiation of the vision and a greater involvement
of Extension leaders at the county level are crucial here.

The implications for instigating cultural change come down to recognizing the
values at work within the existing culture, carefully designing a message campaign that
uses high credibility sources and targets key audiences, and executing it consistent to the
values being espoused. The differences between the program areas in their subject matter
and where relevant knowledge is found may be the cause of the different perceptions of
CYF and Agriculture agents. There is no guarantee that the change initiative can succeed
without sundering Agriculture fi'om the rest of the organization if this difference is as
fundamental as it appears to be. Better means are available for delivering the vision to
agents and encouraging more agreeable sense-making, but the outcome is unpredictable

across the program areas.

Limitations

There are several important limitations to this study. First, the Extension service is
a unique organization with a long and rich history. The amount of historical work done
and the value analysis itself may be neither appropriate or necessary for other

organizations. Second, the data have been represented as static points rather than parts of

195

a continuing process. This makes it easier to identify relationships between values, but
sacrifices a sense of how the whole functions as a system. Future research should attempt
to locate values in interactions and observe how they are actively used in the sense-making
process between leaders and members. Third, as in all interpretive studies, the final
conclusions are more insinuations than bold claims. In order to preserve the richness of
the data, researcher-constructed categories were avoided, despite the greater certainty that
such organization might have brought to the analysis. It is hoped that the other methods

used in the larger evaluation of Extension will compensate.

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