The Vantage Point

Glenda Humiston 
Vice President
UC Agriculture and Natural Resources 

Before I get to this month’s news, I want to first acknowledge the difficulties many of you have had in accessing our website and online materials during the past week. Under relentless attack by bots, we had to shut down our servers as a protective measure. We are currently working to upgrade our defenses, but have been met with supply-chain issues.

We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience and frustration this outage has caused, and I personally pledge to devote all necessary resources to prevent this from happening again. Many thanks to our IT team, led by Chief Information Officer Sree Mada, who have been working days, nights and weekends to bring our websites back in a safe and secure manner. And thank you, our ANR community, for your continued patience and understanding.

After a challenging summer, it’s been great to see schools getting back into full swing, and the hint of autumn in the cooler evening air has been wonderful. But at the same time, we are still in the midst of California’s fire season. We were invited this week to present an overview of UC ANR’s work on fire resiliency to the UC Regents Public Engagement and Development Committee, and we were proud to showcase our engagement in the areas of forest and community resiliency, watershed impacts, prescribed burning, wood product innovation, fire policy and more. 

I highly recommend watching this informative Facebook Live session offering practical advice on protecting your home from wildfire. Recorded on Aug. 31, it features some of UC ANR’s foremost fire and forestry experts: Susie Kocher, Steve Quarles and Yana Valachovic. And a special shout-out to Susie, who participated in the discussion even while evacuated from her home due to the Caldor Fire. Our thoughts go out to all those affected by the fires still burning across the state.

More than ever, UC ANR’s programs and expertise are crucial to the resiliency of California’s communities in the face of wildfire, drought, climate change, food insecurity and a host of other challenges. That’s why we recently announced the release of 10 more UC Cooperative Extension academic positions for recruitment, covering critical areas such as fire, nutrition, water policy and agricultural issues. We are grateful to Gov. Newsom and the state Legislature for recognizing – in the form of a historic 2021-22 budget increase – UC ANR’s work to better the lives of all Californians.

I’d like to close with a tribute of gratitude as our UC ANR family mourns the loss of one of our longtime friends, Jean-Mari Peltier, chair of our UC President’s Advisory Commission on Agriculture & Natural Resources. Jean-Mari was a passionate visionary and staunch advocate of the university, agriculture, farmers and farm organizations. She was a member of the Council for Agricultural Research, Extension and Teaching for many years, and also served as the CARET National Vice President.

Jean-Mari’s passion, support and vision for UC ANR, its programs, research, extension and people have helped to propel us forward through many challenges. There are no words to express our collective sense of loss. On behalf of all of UC ANR, I’d like to extend our deepest sympathies to her husband, Jason; her children, Joseph and Claire; and to all of those who knew and loved her.