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SARE's mission is to advance—to the whole of American agriculture—innovations that improve profitability, stewardship and quality of life by investing in groundbreaking research and education. SARE's vision is...

NCR-SARE Committees

Each Administrative Council (AC) member is encouraged to be actively involved with at least one NCR-SARE Committee. “Official” committees are self-organized, but committees – especially ones that receive NCR-SARE financial resources – are expected to get approval for their membership rotation and officer selection process from the AC, and they are expected to report to the AC at least once per year. Most NCR-SARE committees have at least 50% of their members on the AC; non-AC members can be staff, NCR-SARE alumni, or others who can contribute to the committee’s work.

This document lists the current makeup of each committee.

Current NCR-SARE committees:

Alumni Committee: This recently formed committee will help form an NCR-SARE Alumni Organization. The current plan is that the Alumni Organization would be somewhat independent of the NCR-SARE Administrative Council, but would report to and could request funds (used for purposes that meet NIFA and host guidelines) each year from the NCR-SARE Administrative Council.
Bioenergy Committee: This ad hoc committee, which consisted of NCR-SARE AC members and Diana Friedman from the national SARE office, wrote an NCR-SARE position paper on bioenergy. This committee encouraged PDP to focus on bioenergy in its competitive grant program in 2007.
Circle of Sustainability (CoS):Circle of Sustainability is responsible for “listening sessions” to be held throughout the NCR. The AC has a desire to work with underserved groups and has charged that the CoS or another committee will develop a process to do so.
Communications Advisory Group:This committee advises the NCR-SARE Communication Specialist on communications issues.
Compass Committee: This committee plans exercises for the AC, where the AC considers and discusses issues that the AC has been wrestling with. This sometimes leads to strategic planning.
Diversity Committee: This committee oversees NCR-SARE’s effort to reach limited resource and socially disadvantaged audiences. The committee recommended funding of a proposal (two years, $100,000) to identify NCR-SARE’s barriers to reaching limited resource and socially disadvantaged audiences.
Evaluation Committee: This committee is responsible for making sure that each NCR-SARE grant program is evaluated on a regular schedule. The Regional Coordinator, Associate Regional Coordinator and PDP Coordinator are ex officio members of the committee.
Executive Committee (EC): This committee acts on behalf of the AC between AC meetings. It consists of the AC Chair, AC vice chair, AC past chair, TC co-chair an at-large member of the AC, Regional Coordinator (to serve as non-voting, ex-officio member), and the PDP Coordinator (to serve as non-voting, ex-officio member). The vice-chair and at-large member are elected each year by the AC atthe March AC meeting; a slate of candidates is presented by an ad hoc nominating committee appointed by the AC chair. Once a vice-chair is elected, he or she rotates to chair and then past-chair of the AC. Members are elected from AC membership. It is the intention to seek to reflect the diversity of the AC by including representation from Extension, experiment station, farmer-rancher, and at large members. The Regional Coordinator and the Regional PDP coordinator will also serve on the EC as ex-officio non-voting members. The EC will inform the AC before it meets and share information with the AC after it meets.
Farmer Rancher Grant Review Committee:This committee reviews Farmer Rancher grant proposals (currently about 140) and prepares a list of recommended proposals for the AC to consider funding (currently about 50). Membership consists of the farmers and ranchers on the AC, interested AC members and a number of farmers and ranchers from throughout the NCR. Part of the committee rotates off each year and new members are recruited by the FRG Coordinator.
Graduate Student Proposal Review Committee: This committee, which currently consists of AC volunteers, reviews proposals submitted in response to NCR-SARE’s call forgraduate student proposals (currently about 48) and prepares a list of proposals for the AC to consider funding (NCR-SARE currently funds about 15 Graduate Student projects per year).
Nominating Committee: This committee’s purpose is to help identify and recruit members for the AC and Executive Committee with special attention being given to underserved audiences.
Professional Development Program (PDP) Review Committee: This committee,which consists of AC volunteers and one or two non-AC members recruited by the PDP Coordinator and Associate Coordinator. The committee reviews the PDP competitive grant preproposals and selects a list of preproposals to invite to develop into proposals. The committee then reviews the full proposals and recommends a list of proposals for funding to the AC (NCR-SARE funds about 6 PDP competitive grant projects per year). The committee also reviews annual reports and proposed Plans of Work submitted by the NCR State Coordinators and recommends funding to the AC. The PDP Committee meets twice a year.
SARE Operations Committee: This is the committee that makes overall policy and budget decisions for SARE. Membership consists of the Chapter 1 Coordinator for each SARE Region, one Regional PDP Coordinator (elected by the other Regional PDP Coordinators), representatives of several Federal agencies that SARE works with, representatives from the national SARE office and NIFA, and members of each SARE Region’s AC. In the NCR, the AC Chair is the AC representative.
Technical Committee: This committee isspecified in the legislation establishing SARE. In the NCR, this approximately 20-person committee reviews Research & Education grant proposals (currentlyabout 30) and prepares a recommended list of technically acceptable proposalsfor the AC to consider funding. Terms are three years. NCR-SARE currently allocates about $1.5 million annually for the R&E grant program and funds about nine projects per year. The Technical Committee has co-chairs, who have seats on the AC, and the AC sends its vice-chair to TC meetings, but the TC isone exception to the majority AC membership rule. TC members are not on the AC; they are suggested by the TC co-chairs and are approved by the AC. Some TC members are AC alumni and some AC members are TC alumni. The regional PDP coordinator asks two SARE state coordinators to serve on the TC each year.
Youth Committee: This committee proposed issuing calls for proposals and then reviewed proposals for youth projects and for youth educator projects. They recommend proposals to the AC for funding.