Each year, Colorado State University (CSU) selects faculty from each college to be representatives for the Provost’s Council for Engagement. The Council for Engagement is a land grant objective that strives for promotional outreach and engagement to benefit faculty, students, and the community surrounding CSU.
Being a land-grant institution has allowed CSU to participate in a mission that strives to change teaching, engagement, research, and outreach practices to expand the possibilities of education. These practices are what the Council for Engagement considers when promoting growth to educational courses and community participation.
This semester, AgNext Agricultural Economist, John Ritten, was nominated as the representative for the College of Agricultural Sciences. He was selected for this designation by the Dean of the College of Agricultural Sciences, Dr. James Pritchett, highlighting his contributions to the University and AgNext as a university extension agent.
John Ritten is new to the council, yet his understanding of the Council for Engagement after attending a meeting is that it is an expansion on the land grant mission.
He stated, “It is a new vision on the land grant mission. Instead of us bringing information out to the people, it’s engaging the community to help us ask better questions, do better research, and co-create knowledge.”
For the new vision of the land-grant mission to transpire, CSU selects representatives from the eight colleges so that different perspectives are present on the council. New opportunities can be provided by the school and community to reach engagement goals if differing viewpoints are addressed.
“I think diversity in thought is important because we are all going to have a different perspective as well as values and biases,” said Ritten. “But as a collective, more people at the table from different backgrounds will provide two different solutions.”
The colleges at CSU are incredibly diverse, but the collaboration between transdisciplinary minds can provide more solutions for the community and university to incorporate.
Dr. Ritten’s expertise in agricultural science, coupled with his experience as a faculty member and extension agent has provided him the opportunity to collaborate across departments. With this interdisciplinary focus and collaboration, he found that there were some striking similarities between AgNext’s mission and that of the Council for Engagement.
“At AgNext we have that perspective of solving stakeholder identified problems, working with industry to do research that addresses real world needs, so we have that insight into how to work around certain challenges in collaboration with other departments and partners,” said Ritten.
Want to learn more about the Provost’s Council for Engagement? Check out their website here.
Julia Giesenhagen
Multimedia Intern