The Oklahoma Cooperative Extension Service

Bringing the University to You!

The Cooperative Extension Service is the largest, most successful informal educational organization in the world. It is a nationwide system funded and guided by a partnership of federal, state, and local governments that delivers information to help people help themselves through the land-grant university system.

Extension carries out programs in the broad categories of agriculture, natural resources and environment; family and consumer sciences; 4-H and other youth; and community resource development. Extension staff members live and work among the people they serve to help stimulate and educate Americans to plan ahead and cope with their problems.

• Some characteristics of the Cooperative Extension system are:
• The federal, state, and local governments cooperatively share in its financial support and program direction.
• It is administered by the land-grant university as designated by the state legislature through an Extension director.
• Extension programs are nonpolitical, objective, and research-based information.
• It provides practical, problem-oriented education for people of all ages. It is designated to take the knowledge of the university to those persons who do not or cannot participate in the formal classroom instruction of the university.
• It utilizes research from university, government, and other sources to help people make their own decisions.
• More than a million volunteers help multiply the impact of the Extension professional staff.
• It dispenses no funds to the public.
• It is not a regulatory agency, but it does inform people of regulations and of their options in meeting them.
• Local programs are developed and carried out in full recognition of national problems and goals.
• The Extension staff educates people through personal contacts, meetings, demonstrations, and the mass media.
• Extension has the built-in flexibility to adjust its programs and subject matter to meet new needs. Activities shift from year to year as citizen groups and Extension workers close to the problems advise changes.