About UAF Cooperative Extension Service

Welcome to the University of Alaska Fairbanks Cooperative Extension Service. As the state's gateway to its university system, Extension serves some 50,000 Alaskans annually, providing a link between Alaska's diverse people and communities by interpreting and extending relevant university, research-based knowledge in an understandable and usable form to the public.

Extension was created in 1930 as a department within the Alaska Agricultural College and School of Mines. Our relationship with the university continues today within the Office of the Provost. UAF's public service and community engagement role is filled in part by Extension educators, faculty and staff located in Anchorage, Bethel, Delta Junction, Dillingham, Fairbanks, Juneau, Kodiak, Nome, Palmer, Sitka, Soldotna and affiliate offices with the Tanana Chiefs Conference and Eielson Air Force Base.


UAF's Extension is part of the largest informal education system in the world, connecting Extension programs at land-grant colleges and universities in every U.S. territory and state. Extension offers hundreds of publications, written and produced by university specialists, which contain practical information of interest to Alaska residents. Many publications are free and available online.

Major program areas include: agriculture and horticulture; health, home and family development; natural resources and community development; 4-H and youth development.

While we may not have an Extension office located in every Alaska community, Extension educators are as close as your computer or phone. To find out how we can help you, browse our site or contact the local Extension office nearest you. We know you will find the people friendly and the information useful. 

Eugenia Hartsook
Cooperative Extension Director

erhartsook@alaska.edu
907-474-1909

Extension agent with her boat

This is the current Extension Professional’s Creed.

This creed was written by W. A Lloyd (the founder of Epsilon Sigma Phi, an Extension Honorary) in 1922 as a New Year’s greeting to county agricultural agents. It was adopted by Epsilon Sigma Phi in 1927. The original creed was titled “The Extension Worker’s Creed” and has been revised from time to time to reflect changes in societal values, educational trends and federal law.

I believe in people and their hopes, their aspirations, and their faith; in their right to make their own plans and arrive at their own decisions; in their ability and power to enlarge their lives and plan for the happiness of those they love.

I believe that education, of which Extension is an essential part, is basic in stimulating individual initiative, self-determination, and leadership; that these are the keys to democracy and that people when given facts they understand, will act not only in their self-interest, but also in the interest of society.

I believe that education is a lifelong process and the greatest university is the home; that my success as a teacher is proportional to those qualities of mind and spirit that give me welcome entrance to the homes of the families I serve.

I believe in intellectual freedom to search for and present the truth without bias and with courteous tolerance toward the views of others.

I believe that Extension is a link between the people and the ever-changing discoveries in the laboratories.

I believe in the public institutions of which I am a part.

I believe in my own work and in the opportunity I have to make my life useful to humanity.

Because I believe these things, I am an Extension professional.