101 



altering faculty rewards and incentives or setting priorities to 

 serve multi-state clientele would be two possible examples. 

 These strategies would recognize current resource endowments 

 while anticipating change in the future. The study itself, which 

 will include regional workshops, can catalyze new associations 

 and consensus-building within the college and also between the 

 agricultural and the broader university and research communities. 



The Board does recognize that such innovations will not be 

 imposed by federal fiat; the decentralized nature of the 

 agricultural research, teaching, and extension system obviously 

 precludes that. However, the system has a long history of 

 operating through consensus, and the Board expects to draw on 

 that tradition in promoting "knowledge transfer." By the same 

 token, federal support for the nation's system is predicated on 

 its serving national priorities, and it seems unwise to suppose 

 that a "laissez-faire" system of priority-setting will always 

 produce optimum results. So, the Board believes it is likely 

 that the study's findings will have implications for the conduct 

 of the federal-state partnership. 



The majority of funding to support the study has been 

 pledged, and the Board hopes to convene its committee during 

 Summer 1993. 



