In the words of Wally "Famous Amos," the opening keynote speaker at the 2003 Urban Extension Conference held in Chicago in May of this year, "There's nothing normal in Alabama!"
Amos, who had spoken with Extension Specialist Dr. Dony Gapasin earlier, lightheartedly joked about the place called Normal, Alabama, home of Alabama A&M University (AAMU) and the Alabama Cooperative Extension's System's Urban Affairs & New Nontraditional Programs unit. But what was evident at the conference is that Extension, the outreach arm of AAMU and Auburn Universities, is indeed anything but normal in developing urban Extension programs.
"Conference participants were quite impressed with the programs that are coming out of Alabama," said Extension Assistant Director Dr. Jannie Carter.
Perhaps participants were surprised at the programming efforts because the state of Alabama often ranks at the bottom in national percentages when it comes to education, poverty, or health. But Alabama can be proud of the fact that its Extension System is being recognized as a national leader in developing model programs for Alabama citizens. Several Urban Affairs programming initiatives were featured at the national conference such as the Relatives as Parents Program.
"Relatives face a variety of legal, social, financial, emotional and/or physical health problems in their efforts to parent a grandchild, niece, nephew, or other relative. The magnitude of this problem requires Extension to develop and design programming to address the needs of these diverse families," said Dr. Wilma Ruffin, Extension family development specialist.
Other featured programming efforts included LegalEase, Dogs as Companion Animals, and the Spanish-language website [Programación en Español].
Over 500 Extension administrators, agents, and staff attended the 2003 Urban Extension Conference Meeting the Challenge of a Changing America. Conference events were designed to help participants better understand America's changing urban population, the social issues arising from this change, and the need to create Extension programs that appeal to a diverse urban audience.
Other keynote speakers included Roger Ulrich from Texas A&M University who addressed the interrelations of people and plants in national and international urban settings; Dirk Ficca, Council for a Parliament of the World's Religions, who spoke on Making a World of Difference; and Dr. Gary Weaver, American University who closed the conference with a presentation on The New Face of America: The Challenge That Lies Ahead.
The University of Minnesota Extension will host the next (biannual) Urban Extension Conference in 2005.