Kathleen Tweeten, former director of the North Dakota State University Extension Service’s Center for Community Vitality, has been elected as president of Epsilon Sigma Phi.

Epsilon Sigma Phi (ESP) is a national organization that provides and facilitates professional development focusing on Extension and Extension professionals.

This is the first time a North Dakotan has been chosen as ESP president in its 89-year history.

“I am honored to be elected president,” Tweeten says. “ESP is a great organization dedicated to professional excellence.”

As president, she will co-chair the 2017 annual ESP conference in Wilmington, N.C., and preside over monthly board calls and the midyear board meeting.

In her role as ESP president, she also is a member of the Joint Council of Extension Professionals (JCEP), serves on the JCEP Leadership Conference Planning Committee and is the JCEP representative at Extension Committee on Organization and Policy meetings.

“My goals for the next year include increasing membership by 2 percent and increasing ESP development funds by 2 percent to improve member scholarships and chapter stipends, as well as to continue the development and delivery of professional development opportunities for all members,” Tweeten says.

Following her one-year term as ESP president, she will serve one year as past president.

She also was elected as president-elect of JCEP and will serve as president for one year starting in October 2017.

Tweeten joined NDSU Extension as an Extension agent in Stutsman County in 1985 and became an area leadership specialist in 1996 and an Extension community economic development specialist in the Agribusiness and Applied Economics Department in 1998. She served as director of the Center for Community Vitality from 2004 until retiring in 2014. Then she was awarded emeritus status in the Agribusiness and Applied Economics Department.

She has been a member of Upsilon Chapter, NDSU Extension’s ESP chapter, since 1987.

NDSU Agriculture Communication - Nov. 30, 2016