EELI helps build Extension leaders for tomorrow at Clemson and S.C. State

Prior to being a member of the Extension Emerging Leadership Initiative’s Cohort 4, Kaliyah Woods thought it was going to be something else eating into her schedule.

The Extension Emerging Leadership Initiative is a professional development training program aimed to give Extension agents at both Clemson University and South Carolina State University leadership skills.

Woods, who works for S.C. State’s 1890 Research and Extension as a family nutrition and health agent for the Upstate region, said she was “somewhat voluntold” by her assistant director that it would be a good opportunity for her to participate.

“I initially was thinking it was going to be an extra thing on my plate,” Woods said. “In Extension, we’re already extremely busy, but during my time there, it was like a time of rejuvenation. I was learning so much. I wish it was longer than a year.”

That’s the sentiment Deon Legette, associate Extension director of Clemson Cooperative Extension Service Leadership Development/Community Engagement and Partnerships, and developer of EELI, has heard so often when cohorts complete the program. Cohort 4 graduated this May.

“They never want to leave, which makes me feel good,” Legette said.

Legette got the idea to start EELI after she was nominated to participate in Clemson’s President’s Leadership Institute, a nine-month leadership development program designed to support and develop professional and personal leadership within a diverse and inclusive community of faculty and staff at Clemson. She was a member of Cohort 2, which graduated in May of 2018.

Upon completion, she approached Clemson President Jim Clements, Max Allen, senior vice president and chief of staff, and Kyra Lobbins, former deputy chief of staff, about starting a similar program for Extension agents. At the time, Legette was a district director for Extension.

“I wanted to share all of the good news and great things that came out of that (PLI) training with Extension,” Legette said. “PLI only accepts 25 people per year from the entire University. Everybody can’t be touched and you are recommended by the dean or the department head. For agents out there in the counties, they won’t get that opportunity. I thought, what about some training similar to this in the county?”

With the help of Allen and Lobbins, Legette put together a program for the first cohort of EELI to begin in November of 2018. She called that group a test group as she spent 18 months trying various things. It consisted entirely of Clemson Extension agents.

Because of COVID-19, Cohort 2 was met virtually for the first six months before meeting in person for the final eight months. That second group was opened to Clemson Extension, faculty and staff members in the University’s College of Agriculture, Forestry and Life Sciences, and staff members from South Carolina State, the state’s other land-grant university. Three members of S.C. State’s 1890 Research and Extension participated.

A steering committee selects cohort members from a group of applicants with the requirement that you work in Extension for at least three years.

The cohort meets monthly in locations across the state, although most sessions occur in Columbia because of its central location. The group also attends overnight sessions at both Clemson and S.C. State.

Trainings include speakers, tours and group activities that involve team building, and conflict management. They also take a DISC assessment to learn about their personality as well as how to cope with other personalities.

“Learning some of the better ways to be able to figure out what type of personality the person you’re working with has and what might be the best way to interact and cooperate with them has been a great thing,” said Samantha Houston, food systems and safety agent for Clemson Extension in Lexington, and part of Cohort 4. “Not a day goes by that I don’t use what I learned in the DISC assessment.”

The group does two service projects a year. One is at S.C. State where they go to the university’s on-campus child development center to read and do activities with the three and four-year-olds. They also donate books to the center.

They also work with Harvest Hope in Columbia, S.C., where this year they donated 2,448 pounds of food which provided more than 2,900 meals for the local community, Legette said.

“That was very impactful,” Legette said. “I would say this cohort really worked hard on that.”

The cohorts are now equipped to apply their leaderships skills in their daily roles.

“I want to be able to help others learn how to be leaders so they can step up,” said Ronnie Rhodes, a regional Extension director in Santee for S.C. State. “I learned that when times are good, leaders take a step back. When times are tough, leaders step up.”

“I feel like every leader needs to go through this class,” Woods said. “You don’t have to be a director or assistant director. There were secretaries and office managers who were in the course. I feel like we learn so much about our personality styles and learning how to work with others who have different personality styles so we can better communicate with our organizations.”

One of the things the members enjoyed most was getting to know people from the two institutions, a component of EELI that Legette plans to keep.

“We have the joint Extension conference that we go to, but a lot of times because there’s so many of us, you don’t get to have those one-on-one interactions,” Houston said. “By doing EELI with South Carolina State Extension agents, we do get to have those one-on-ones. We get to know each other as individuals as well as what they do.”

A 2020 graduate of EELI, Marlyne Walker, passed away in 2022 after 21 years with Clemson Extension. Cohort members wanted to remember her by starting the annual Walker Memorial EELI Leadership Award for an EELI graduate who exemplifies outstanding leadership, mentoring and service to the community.

The 2024 award was presented to Freddricka Pressley, a 2023 EELI graduate and Florence County 4-H agent.

Legette is currently making plans for Cohort 5.