ACE Quarterly Makes Changes

This issue of ACE Quarterly marks a significant change for our professional Communicators\u27 organization

Getting Serious About Diversity: Reaching Out to Historically Black Colleges and Universities

In 2002, surveys were sent to heads of agricultural communications offices at land-grant universities (LGUs) and to journalism placement officers at historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs). Research questions focused on the hiring practices at the LGUs and the placement activities at the HBCUs. Although the LGU offices professed a desire for a diverse workforce, respondents indicated that about 88 percent of their employees and 65 percent of their student workers were Caucasian. Three quarters said they posted job notices on their university’s personnel lists and in their local newspapers. Only nine of 40 said they sent notices to journalism schools at 1890 (historically black) LGUs, and only seven sent them to journalism schools at HBCUs. Thirty-five respondents said they used interns, although 30 of those only hired students at their respective universities. Nine of 12 HBCU placement officers said they had never seen a job or internship notice from a LGU. They preferred receiving job or internship notices by surface mail or email. Two thirds of the internships held by their students were unpaid. Although most internships were near campus, respondents said students often seek summer internships near their homes. For LGU communications offices to increase the number of minorities on staff, these offices need to send notices for jobs and internships (especially for summer) directly to minority-serving institutions. Agricultural communications offices at LGUs and minority-serving institutions should work together to develop a system for increasing the number of minority applicants in the LGU pipeline

Organizational Satisfaction and Participation: ACE Members Speak Out

Any professional organization, such as Agricultural Communicators in Education (ACE), needs to stay relevant to the needs of its members. This article reports the results of a 1998 membership survey that examined such questions as why people belong to ACE, how well ACE is meeting member needs, what would make ACE more relevant, and whether ACE should change its name. Fifty-four percent of active members responded to an on-line survey. The top reasons given for belonging to ACE included professional development and networking with peers. However, only 47 percent of respondents felt ACE was doing well or very well in meeting members\u27 professional development needs. The longer a person belonged to ACE, the higher he or she rated ACE overall. The challenge for ACE leadership is to provide appropriate professional development opportunities to match the high ranking given to networking, job announcements, publishing, leadership opportunities, and award recognition. ACE also needs to address the changing culture within communications offices that has resulted in changing expectations and participation

Writing and the Productive Agricultural Scientist

At a Northeastern land-grant university, 87% of Experiment Station scientists thought that writing was part of their responsibility as scientists

Rethinking Extension Communications: Is Issues Programming the Key?

Extension\u27s internal and external publics are increasing their demands for greater program accountability. At the same time, researchers have documented that many Extension communicators have been unhappy with being left out of the program-development process. This article examines the evolution of the role of communicators and shows how it is relevant to the current discussions of issues programming. The authors recommend administrators and communications units adopt a public relations model to better meet Extension\u27s objectives

Defining Research Productivity: It Depends Upon Who You Are

Definitions of research productivity vary, depending upon a person\u27s position with in a university

Why Haven\u27t You Published That Research (and Your Other Ideas)?

Various disincentives and barriers keep communicators from pursuing scholarly publication opportunities