Extension agents are a valuable source of information within their communities throughout the world. Tasked with sharing research-based information from the universities and serving as the land-grant university within their communities, agents are the face and voice of the university on daily basis. However, this research sought to determine how confident new agents in Georgia were in their ability to effectively communicate within their communities before and after attending a communication workshop. Using a retrospective pre- and post-test survey, the results indicated the agents were most confident in their abilities create high-quality promotional videos and write Public Service Announcements for radio after the training. The results indicated agents were least confident in their abilities to utilize the Extension data base and write effectively. Overall, the results indicated in increase in agents’ perceived ability to effectively communicate in their communities after attending the training. Additionally, the results provide direction for future training and workshops to better prepare agents to effectively communicate information from land-grant universities to their communities and the world. Keywords: communication training; research-based communication; Extension agent workshop; Extension communication

Expo Milano 2015 was an international agricultural event to promote and discuss the issue of food sustainability around the world. Two agricultural communication researchers attended the event in summer 2015 to better understand the world's perspective of the prominent issues facing the agricultural industry and how other countries were addressing the issues. The Expo took place in Milan, Italy, and featured 140 countries and their perception on agriculture and food in their respective country. While the event was impressive, the issues purported to be the focus of the event (agriculture sustainability and food insecurity) were rarely addressed in each country. Rather, the countries focused on culture and how food impacted their culture and customs. Events like these offer agricultural communicators the opportunity to join the discussion of how the issues of food sustainability and insecurity can be positively impacted by agriculture technology and research; however, it may be only through the formation of meaningful and collaborative relationships with groups and organizations outside of the traditional agricultural industry that agricultural communicators will be invited to join the conversation. These relationships may need to be cultivated to show respect and mutual bene t for both the organization and the agricultural industry for long-term impact for the expansion of opportunities for agricultural communicators.

No abstract

Peer editing is a skill journalism students, and most college students, need to be effective and skillful writers. In today’s fast-paced lifestyle, students do not spend enough time refining and reevaluating their writing. This research examined students’ perceptions of grade-accountable assignments, focused on peer editing, and implemented into a journalism writing course. Students found the peer editing to be necessary, but unpleasant; however, the most relevant finding was students did not connect the idea of peer editing to the application of real-world job skills. This article explores thoughts on future implementation of peer-editing assignments to improve students’ evaluation of their writing.

This was a qualitative, exploratory study examining the use of a word cloud activity with Extension agents to promote dialogue around the sensitive topic of farmer/rural stress to understand their community needs. With an increasing amount of health-related issues in rural America and abroad, particularly mental health and rural stress, the use of a word cloud activity helped identify individual regional needs through a visual thematic qualitative analysis. Through a constant comparative analysis, regional and state-wide themes were deduced to begin creating programming opportunities to address community needs in Georgia, the U.S., and the world. The identified themes indicated a need for support, resources and education in rural areas regarding farmer and rural stress. Keywords: rural stress; farmer stress; mental health; Extension; qualitative