“We provide every community in Michigan with the resources and knowledge that the university has and tailor it to their own community,” McKendry said. “We provide youth programming, health and nutrition courses, community development programs, and so much more.”

With a physical presence in all 83 Michigan counties, their efforts and impact MSU Extension has on the wellbeing of the state is evident to all, McKendry said. However, just because efforts are evident doesn’t mean community needs are met.

 To address this, MSU Extension plans to conduct eight separate listening sessions across the state.

“We want to uncover areas where MSU Extension could have a greater impact on the community,” Heather Triezenburg, an extension specialist and program leader at MSU Extension who acted as the main speaker for the East Lansing session, said. 

 On Nov. 28, these sessions started in Detroit and Troy and asked for community input on improvements and current concerns with the organization.

The East Lansing session, held at the Hannah Community Center on Nov. 29, consisted of four different segments targeting external, internal, and prospective aspects of MSU Extension. 

The first segment focused on external factors that affected the organization, such as sociopolitical trends and technological advancements.

Community members, like Jan Bunting, a long-time Gratiot County commissioner, highlighted social issues such as youth homelessness and child welfare as critical concerns requiring attention.

“Children are living in cars, tents, somebody else’s home, sleeping off floors,” Bunting said. “These are intelligent kids … and they may not ever go to college because they can’t even focus on going to school.”

Bunting said the children of today are the leaders of tomorrow and with rising youth homelessness, there will be no one to lead as long as organizations such as MSU Extension fail to take action in providing resources towards this issue.

The second segment of the event sought input on internal factors within the organization that were being handled well or needed improvement. While many community members praised the organization, others, such as Dave Girton, believed that there was room to improve within MSU Extension.

Girton focused on the importance of the physical presence of MSU Extension in each county and questioned whether the money could be put towards better use. 

“As we look forward, how do we … address the need for a physical presence in each county with the advancements we have in technology and the remote access we have to programs,” Girton said.

A commonly raised complaint regarded ongoing staffing issues within MSU Extensions. Girton mentioned the difficulty MSU Extension seemed to have with replacing staff members in a timely manner and said that exploring the potential of remote-based operations might alleviate some of these issues and allocate resources more effectively.

In the final segment of the session, community members privately contemplated upcoming crossroads the organization might come across based on earlier discussions.

Triezenburg explained that all the public comments would be taken into consideration and added towards an improvement and action plan for MSU Extension. She said the community discussion would help to improve and provide more to East Lansing and the state of Michigan.

“We want to build a roadmap to provide direction and guide our activity for the years to come to ensure our future success,” Triezenburg said. “We want to better serve our stakeholders, our partners, our communities, and our employees that work for us.”