Our mission remains the development of people
“Extension work is an out of school system of education in which young adults learn by doing. It’s a partnership by government, land-grant colleges, and the people which provides services and education to meet the needs of the people.”
“Its fundamental objective is the development of people.”
Cooperative Extension Work, Lincoln David Kelsey and Cannon Chiles Hearne, 1949
© Judy Mae Bingman
The Development of People
Created in 1914, Extension has been and continues to be the development of people. How we do that has adapted over the years to meet the needs of a changing world; still, our core mission remains the development of people — their families, their communities, their businesses, their farms, their children.
The Extension model has stood the test of time. Extension staff live and work in the community they serve in order to best address local needs of local people and local communities. In many locations, local tax dollars expand the capacity extended by state land-grant universities.
Concern for the Common Man
Abraham Lincoln signed the Morrill Land Grant College Act in 1862, setting aside federal lands to create colleges to benefit the agricultural and mechanical arts. Remember at that time, 50% of the world farmed.
In 1890, Smith-Lever federal funding was extended to colleges serving Black Americans. Additional funding was legislated in 1994 to serve Native Peoples.
In 1887, the Hatch Act empowered those Land Grants to create research farms focused on solutions to agricultural problems.
Believing that everyone had a right to learn whether or not they attended college, Congress passed the Smith-Lever Act of 1914, establishing the Cooperative Extension Service. It’s mission was to extend new research in practical, applicable ways to people where they lived in ways they could best understand — the development of people from where they were to who they could become.
You may come to Extension through many doors: 4-H club work, Master Gardeners and Naturalists volunteering, nutrition workshops, community engagement seminars, agricultural certifications, school programs, camps.