2004 Walter Barnard Hill Awards for Distinguished Achievement in Public Service & Outreach

F. Richard Rohs

In 1982, F. Richard Rohs began his work at the University of Georgia as an assistant professor, extension staff development specialist, and graduate coordinator in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. Since then, Rohs has become a full professor and continues to train extension professionals from both in-service and graduate education perspectives. More than 1,300 extension educators have attended Rohs’s workshops, while an additional 600 agents have participates in his comprehensive program development and evaluation techniques. In the past 10 years, Rohs has also worked with 30 master’s students.

In 1994, Rohs helped develop the Southern Extension Leadership Development Program (SELD), and in 1995, he implemented the Leadership Development Program in Georgia. This program utilizes a Managerial Assessment of Proficiency (MAP), a three-day workshop that helps participants develop plans to increase their leadership and managerial knowledge and skills. These plans then provide the foundation for follow-up seminars, known as EXCEL, at which participants learn skills and techniques to increase their competency in leadership and management. To date, more than 1,300 extension faculty have participated in this program, and an estimated $15 million has been saved in training, development, and employee-replacement costs by reducing turnover of faculty and staff.

To improve knowledge in the areas of program development and evaluation for professional practitioners among public servants who work in extension services, Rohs provides training, publications, and consultation to extension educators in Georgia and other states. He has also addressed these issues through the development of a popular Master of Extension Education degree that has become the number-one advanced degree for Cooperative Extension Service professionals. Out of the more than 65 students Rohs has advised to completion of h te program, almost 70 percent have become public service professionals at UGA in the Cooperative Extension Service.

Rohs has also received numerous grants and contracts for various projects, including a $3,000 grant to design an academic and outreach post-harvest program for King Mongkutt’s University of Technology Thonburi, Bangkok, Thailand, and a $3.2 million grant for three years from the Kellog Foundation to serve as coprincipal investigator and external evaluator for the Visions For Youth Program in South Carolina and the Cooperative Extension Service.