Ferguson College of Agriculture

Leadership and Extension might not be always thought of in the same breath. However, this is not the case for Lauren Lewis Cline, Oklahoma State University agricultural leadership assistant professor.

 

Cline has been working with the OSU College of Veterinary Medicine for the past few years with a mission of equipping veterinary students with necessary leadership skills, which she refers to as “people skills.” When Cline received a call from Dr. Rosslyn Biggs at the OSU College of Veterinary Medicine, she jumped at the opportunity to help develop the career skills of veterinary students.

 

Biggs is one of the faculty members who helps facilitate the Integrated Beef Cattle Program, or the IBCP. This program offers current veterinarians and students the opportunity to learn more about the needs of food animal veterinary procedures, which can often be associated with rural veterinarians. This program lasts about nine months and has had two cohorts. Throughout their time, Cline meets with the IBCP participants to teach them different leadership techniques they can use in their day-to-day occupations. This group works through a SWOT analysis of rural veterinary medicine, which is an assessment of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. They learn about adaptive and technical leadership as well as different conflict resolution techniques.

 

“There has been more conversation about how … we integrate leadership development in their educational experience as well,” Cline said.

 

Along with her work with the IBCP, Cline also speaks to first-year and fourth-year veterinary students each year. She helps develop inclusive leadership skills with the first-year students and works through a problem-solving training with the fourth-year students.

 

Throughout her relationship with the IBCP, Cline was asked to work with the Oklahoma Veterinary Medicine Association. She presented multiple times at different conferences to share the work she conducted with the IBCP and provide leadership training. Through this, the Veterinarian Management Groups heard of Cline’s work and were eager to learn about her expertise.

 

“The beauty of what we do in Extension is that we’re providing resources for everyone, so to me, this is making that leadership development more accessible,” Cline said.

 

In September, Cline, along with Jodie Spivey, agricultural leadership graduate student, traveled to Maine to spend time with this group consisting of 18 veterinarians from around the nation who all own private practices. This day-long workshop consisted of leadership training aimed at helping these business owners better understand the leadership side of owning a business. After this workshop, Cline said the business owners understood how different aspects of their practices could benefit from the leadership skills they picked up.

 

“There just seems to be this desire to learn more, which is also rewarding to know that they value what you’re doing,” Cline said. “This isn’t just another professional development or continuing education thing that they feel like they have to do. They are choosing to do it, and they are finding value in it. And so to me, that’s super rewarding.”

 

The Extension work being done through the agricultural leadership program at OSU does not stop here with Cline.

 

“This is just a little piece of some of the work Dr. Courtney Brown and I are doing through ag leadership Extension,” Cline said.

 

To learn more about Cline’s work and the Extension programs offered through the OSU Department of Agricultural Education, Communications and Leadership, visit our website.