Origin of the Competencies

The Core Competencies, sub-competencies and proficiency levels were developed from an effort that began back in the summer 1998. North Carolina Cooperative Extension (NCCE) established the Blue Ribbon Commission on Staff Development and Training in August 1998. Charged with five challenges, the BRC began their work with a study of NCCE's staff development system, which resulted in a Visionary Plan. Some of the key characteristics of the BRC's work were:

• The Study sampled the views of 387 NCCE employees and volunteers (all job groups) on what was working and not working so well in the current staff development system.
• The BRC consulted with experts in corporate training, in distance education, and contemporary staff development systems to determine characteristics of the state-of-the-art of staff development.
• Findings of the study included a Mission, a set of Guiding Principles, and six Recommended Strategic Organizational Changes.
• Included in the study was "The Summit," a retreat where an additional group representing all job groups and BRC Adjunct members came together to examine the study's findings and to define sub-competencies and proficiency levels for each job group.

Following the publishing of the BRC Report, several groups have worked to further refine the Core competencies by job group. This work continues as the Personal & Organizational Development unit works to operationalize the work of the BRC.