Jan Scholl-Kennedy, associate professor emerita of agricultural and extension education and former 4-H extension specialist in the College of Agricultural Sciences, has been recognized nationally for a project she spearheaded to document the existence of research that undergirds the 4-H youth development program.
Scholl-Kennedy will receive the prestigious Joint Council of Extension Professionals’ Excellence in Extension Engagement Award for her project, titled “Establishing a Research Base to Sustain the 4-H Program.” As part of receiving the award, she will present a keynote speech at the National Extension Leadership Conference in Savannah, Georgia, in February 2026.
Scholl-Kennedy, who began the project more than two decades ago, exhaustively searched the National Agricultural Library and its archives in Beltsville, Maryland, to document and analyze 4-H research. She subsequently found a rich storehouse of studies from 1911 to the present and indexed them in an online database, which can be found on the Penn State University Libraries website.
Source : psu.edu