Mentoring programs at universities have become common because of the perceived benefit to student persistence and retention. Evaluation of the effectiveness of these programs has not kept pace, primarily due to the following three problematic issues: (1) lack of theoretical guidance, (2) lack of an operational definition of mentoring, and (3) lack…

Land Grant Institutions (LGIs) and Cooperative Extension were founded to bring educational access to the states they serve. In contrast to this mission and the ubiquitous nature of Extension services in US counties, Extension offices can only be found in a small number of indigenous communities. Despite these inequities, there are Extension…

The mission of Land Grant Institutions (LGIs) and Cooperative Extension has always included the concepts of educational access and inclusion, but not all communities have equitable access to Extension programs. Specifically, Extension is currently only serving about 10% of Indigenous communities. Given the complicated history of Indigenous land…

As distance education programs grow at college and universities across the country, libraries must ensure virtual reference services are prepared to meet the needs of patrons in these programs. This article describes the process and results of a 2018 chat analysis conducted at a midsize research university with a large distance education program.…

A small group of midsize land-grant institutions in the western United States responded to a survey on what tools they used for troubleshooting, what activities they accomplished using the tools, and who performed their troubleshooting. Most respondents use subscription-manager administration tools, email programs, electronic resource management…

During the 2010 election campaign, Senator Rand Paul from Kentucky demanded the dismantling of the U.S. Department of Education. "I am against any federal funding or control of education," he said. "Historically, education was funded and controlled locally" (Strauss, 2010). Another new Republican senator, Mike Lee from…

Merrill proposes First Principles of Instruction, including a problem- or task-centered strategy for designing instruction. However, when the tasks or problems are ill-defined or complex, task-centered instruction can be difficult to design. We describe an online task-centered training at a land-grant university designed to train employees to use…

This report describes the distance education program made available to rural Utah residents by Utah State University via the COM-NET telecommunications system. Both the four distinct delivery networks used and the infrastructure support system are detailed, and information is provided on: student performance and satisfaction with the long distance…

Outlines the Wyoming objectives and methods of implementation within the Intermountain Community Learning Information Service Project, a Kellogg Foundation funded project that links the Land Grant Universities of Wyoming, Utah, Montana and Colorado, the University Libraries, the respective State Libraries, and eight rural public libraries to…

This first volume of a two-volume final report contains description and findings of a 3-year research and demonstration project in which a small human resource diagnostic and consulting service was established at a State land-grant institution (Utah State University) to provide a broadly based technical assistance program directed toward improving…

This second volume of a two-volume final report contains appendixes to Volume I, the description and findings of a 3-year research and demonstration project in which the Utah State University Manpower Development Service (MDS) was established to provide technical assistance to private and public agency employers for improving personnel systems,…

These proceedings contain 48 presentations and 15 poster abstracts. Papers include "Computer Tasks Required in Selected Undergraduate Agriculture Courses" (Johnson, Ferguson, Vokinnns, Lester); "College of Agriculture Faculty Perceptions of Electronic Technologies in Teaching" (Dooley, Murphy); "Steering Through Turbulent…