Abstract
Keywords
The missions of land-grant and urban universities, as well as many other institutions of higher learning, have historically included service to the community as a key component (Association of Public & Land-Grant Universities). Although some have observed a decline in this commitment in recent years (McDowell 2003), the need for colleges and universities to engage with their communities and regions through thought leadership and applied research and policy innovation is as great as ever (Boyer 1996; Harkavy 2006; Rothwell 2015).
This article discusses the role of colleges and universities in calling statewide attention to issues of urban–rural disparity and in bringing urban and rural areas together around common challenges and innovative solutions. As discussed elsewhere in this special issue, there exist economic, social, and cultural linkages between urban and rural areas that are often ignored in current debates about rural and urban challenges. Universities and colleges have unique capacities to help communities reimagine “urban” and “rural” in ways that strengthen these linkages to establish robust regions where all areas can prosper.
We describe three nascent partnerships all anchored by universities that have been called upon to play this geographic bridging role with intentionality. The factors that brought the initiatives into being are identified, and so too are the challenges, both internal and external to the university, that they will need to overcome if these efforts and others like them are to become a permanent feature of college and university work.
Three Partnerships
ReCONNECT NC (North Carolina): Public–Private Partnership
Premise and origin
An article in The Charlotte Observer described “Two North Carolinas,” one rural and one urban. While fifteen of the state’s hundred counties experienced population growth greater than 10 percent from 2010 to 2018, 43 counties had a net loss of people (Henderson and Chemtob 2019). The article highlighted a rural county planner who described her greatest challenge as “counteracting the pervasive narrative that here in Rutherford County we don’t have good things, we don’t have assets, there is no opportunity, that if young adults want opportunities they have to go elsewhere in order to find it. And I just don’t think that’s necessarily true” (Henderson and Chemtob 2019).
In 2017, North Carolina State’s Institute for Emerging Issues (IEI) employed a “crowdsourcing” effort to ask residents about the biggest issues facing the state. The findings are summarized in the report: Declining social trust, eroding faith in public institutions, and a rise in out-of-work and isolated North Carolinians all speak to a profound challenge holding our state back.…This disconnection has measurable social, health and economic consequences. Reconnection is vital to our state’s overall prosperity. (IEI 2019) IEI developed the reCONNECT NC initiative and advanced a novel reframing of the urban-rural divide: “the divide that mostly isn’t.” (IEI 2019)
Key actors and partnerships
North Carolina State established the IEI in 2002 as a nonpartisan public policy organization to enhance the state’s long-term prosperity. The Institute sought to find new ways to educate and engage citizens around key statewide issues of common concern. The Institute developed an annual Emerging Issues Forum that became a high-profile, signature event.
The Institute enjoys support for ReCONNECT NC from the governor and state leaders, including the private sector and foundations. The regional forums generate a myriad of state and local partnerships with nonprofits, local governments, foundations, and other educational institutions. By highlighting disparate communities around the state, the project has secured widespread support and buy-in at the community level.
Activities
ReCONNECT NC encompassed a three-year focus on reengaging the state around shared connections and needs. The initiative included six regional “reconnection” forums on community, between rural and urban areas, to job opportunities, to technological opportunity, and to well-being and productivity. Each forum highlighted five communities—spotlighting projects or organizations that are adopting creative approaches to local challenges related to the forum theme. For instance, the “reconnect to job opportunities” forum spotlighted a Mecklenburg County project that provides classroom and field training for unemployed or underemployed veterans to become full-time building code inspector with the County.
The Governor of North Carolina issued a proclamation declaring August 14, 2019, as ReCONNECT NC Day. The project sought to engage people from different backgrounds and perspectives to spend time together discussing a topic of interest to them as well as to their community. Support was provided by national partners and funders as well as those within the state.
IEI also identified a select number of “pioneering communities” with a pilot project aimed at fostering connections. These included the following:
Project Empathy—led by community volunteers, the project focuses civic conversations to increase empathy and understanding between rural and urban residents and address dissatisfaction with levels of service in rural areas.
Growing Outdoors Partnership Western North Carolina (WNC)—works to grow the outdoor/tourism industry across seven counties to benefit both rural and urban/suburban communities.
Carolina Core—unites seventeen counties in a cooperative regional economic development initiative centered on four major job development opportunities to identify joint development strategies.
Project 40—five counties are part of a new regional food system planning project with a clear aspiration: 40 percent of the Triangle’s food will come from urban and rural sources by the year 2040.
STEM SENC (Southeastern NC)—jump-started by twenty-seven organizations, schools, institutions, and businesses across the region who identified a shared goal of providing access to science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) opportunities for all students regardless of geographic isolation, socioeconomic status, culture, or ability.
Funding sources and means
The Institute has a full-time staff person devoted to development and has a detailed sponsorship packet with varying levels of support ranging from legacy sponsor at $250,000 to builder, connector, cultivator, and sustainer at US$5,000– US$10,000. Legacy sponsors include UNC-TV and the North Carolina Channel. Builder sponsors include the Local Government Federal Credit Union, and connector sponsors include Duke Energy Foundation, EducationNC, and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of NC. In addition, IEI solicits sponsors for smaller events and forums.
Early indicators of impact and staying power
While well established, the ReCONNECT theme may have run its natural course as the initial project period was designated for three years. Still, the infrastructure and networks continue to offer connection and policy advocacy opportunities.
The issue of digital inclusion is but one example of the initiative’s impact and staying power. Through its very visible role as a connector and thought leader, IEI formed a new initiative in February of 2020, Building a New Digital Economy in NC. The program aims to make the state “first in digital inclusion.” Support partners include the Roanoke Electric Cooperative, North Carolina Electric Cooperatives, and the NC Broadband Infrastructure Office. The program will offer grants to counties for digital inclusion plans with strategies to increase the percent of residents able to affordably access and use broadband services.
In February 2020, IEI kicked off the project with a state forum on connecting to technology to share stories and tools for enhancing broadband access for all North Carolinians. A core audience was state and local policy makers, and the forum offered data, information, and policy possibilities. The forum highlighted a recent Chamber of Commerce study estimating that rural businesses in North Carolina could add an additional US$1.9 billion to their local economies if they could better access and utilize broadband. The event offered both stories and data. Phil Drake now owns twenty companies in Western North Carolina but began with a small tax software company in Macon County. He needed to reach customers beyond the region but found the existing high-speed Internet to be unreliable and costly. He worked with the Eastern Band of Cherokees to build their own high-speed fiber network across the region. The event highlighted issues of digital equity and inclusion and brought national thought leaders together to offer examples and insights. (For other digital inclusion initiatives, see the papers by Feld and Gallardo in this special issue.)
Implications for policy
The university-based institute, IEI, has focused on developing the statewide needs survey and the annual issues forum. Both forms of engagement, information gathering, and analysis provide critical information for policy makers in fostering connections across urban and rural North Carolina. The governor has championed the effort, and the legislature has formalized official support of the engagement efforts through a statewide proclamation of ReCONNECT NC Day.
Schmidt Futures—Alliance for the American Dream: Foundation Initiative
Premise and origin
Schmidt Futures, cofounded by the former CEO of Google, Eric Schmidt, and his wife Wendy Schmidt, developed the Alliance for the American Dream (Alliance) to advance shared prosperity. For Schmidt Futures, shared prosperity means “Strengthening and expanding the American middle class in order to increase competitiveness and improve quality of life.” The focus on a rural–urban division is subtle. As the Web site states, “Too many Americans today are excluded from the tech-driven economic growth of the past three decades,” and “ Imagine if every American could participate in and benefit from the technological progress of the digital age. We aim to make this dream a reality.” Income disparity is nested within deep divides associated with technology, education, and the decline in manufacturing. These differences, which have a geographic component, are the target of the Alliance.
Key actors and partnerships
The Alliance is “a network of communities, each anchored by a public research university that will provide access to capital and access to market for new ideas to support distressed communities locally” (Schmidt Futures 2019a, 2019b). Schmidt Futures invited four universities to participate: Arizona State University, The Ohio State University, The University of Utah, and the University of Wisconsin.
Activities
Each university led competitions to develop collaborative pilots that, when implemented, would increase the net income of 10,000 families by 10 percent or decrease their cost of living by 10 percent. The goal is to provide families an opportunity to join the middle class or to prevent families from falling out of the middle class. Each university hosted competitive processes that resulted in a first-round selection of ten pilots (at each university), an infusion of funds for the ten pilots to develop their ideas further, and the selection of three pilots (twelve altogether) by a select panel. Five projects were ultimately funded with an additional US$3 million investment by Schmidt Futures and are now being implemented.
In all four universities, the focus was on building interdisciplinary teams including faculty, business leaders and entrepreneurs, nonprofit organizations, and local government leaders. Ideas for the pilots were generated within the university and among multiple university partners.
Funding sources and means
Schmidt Futures provided each institution an initial US$1.5 million grant and also funded the winning pilots (to varying degrees). The four universities contributed funds to the competitive effort and to the winning pilots as well. Expectations are that additional outside funding sources will step up to fund the pilots and eventual programs longer term.
Early indicators of impact and staying power
While too soon to assess the impact of the pilots (the winning ideas were funded in July 2019), the processes, communication strategies, and funding efforts across four anchor institutions produced successful competitions. Each university tailored the call for proposals to challenges in the state. For example, The University of Utah Web site noted a broader consideration of disparity including a geographic element: Although Utah’s median household income (∼$68,000) is relatively high and our unemployment rate is low, significant geographic, racial and ethnic disparities abound…The 2019 challenge will give special consideration to proposals that focus on these disparities in our state. (American Dream Ideas Challenge 2019)
Implications for policy
Alliance models partnerships for competitive, innovative pilots. The universities provided platforms to convene, foster partnerships through their extensive networks, and bring substantive and procedural expertise to the effort. Schmidt Futures brought the clear criteria for assessment (10,000 families and 10 percent impact), the framework for a network of anchor institutions, and funding to the table. Local governments, nonprofits, businesses, and communities brought lived experience and problem definition to the partnership. From a public policy perspective, the model suggests criteria and roles to advance innovation in complex public policy challenges such as disparities across the urban–rural divide. As the pilots unfold and impact is assessed, we will have a better idea of the long-term impact and the implications of universities as anchoring institutions.
Rural Virginia Initiative (RVI): Urban–Rural Continuum
Premise and origin
In 2019, in an ongoing effort to address rural Virginia’s multifaceted socioeconomic challenges (Schneider 2018), state policy makers passed legislation 1 establishing, “a collaborative evaluation between the University of Virginia, Virginia Tech, and Virginia State University, with assistance from other institutions of higher education and organizations with expertise in this area, to analyze the problems facing rural Virginia and develop strategic recommendations for improvement.” 2
Key actors and partnerships
University of Virginia, Virginia State University, and Virginia Tech were identified as the principal stakeholders in the legislative mandate. The schools responded by assembling faculty to participate in a series of exploratory conversations with thought leaders from across Virginia. The research team studied broad challenges facing Virginia’s rural areas, reviewed initiatives currently underway, and considered actionable ideas and policy suggestions. The work was conducted under a working title: “Rural Virginia Initiative (RVI)” and the consequent report, Moving Rural Virginia Forward: Ideas for Action and Investment, was submitted to the legislature in 2018 and serves as a foundation for next steps.
Presidents in each of the three universities are direct reports to the legislature for the work to follow, and the Virginia Tech Office of Economic Development (OED) has been tasked with a coordinating role. Building on the report, OED’s director regularly convenes an RVI leadership team that includes his counterparts at the University of Virginia and Virginia State University. The universities engaged in RVI sought to build a big tent reaching out to higher education entities across the State. Beyond the leadership team, five work groups were established in priority areas with representation from university and community college partners; federal, state, regional, and local government agencies; business; nonprofit organizations; and civil society.
Activities
The RVI team produced a report for the Virginia General Assembly on October 1, 2018, emphasizing the interrelated nature of rural and urban challenges. The report called for, “…broad-based, holistic, long-term, unconventional, and innovative approaches from the public and private sectors.” The paper referenced an urban–rural continuum and encouraged university-led partnerships to see the connections across geographies that could better foster economic and community growth.
The report recognized the possibilities and limits of higher education in this work: “Higher education alone cannot solve our Commonwealth’s rural challenges, but Virginia’s colleges and universities stand ready to serve as partners and advocates in working together to build a stronger, more vibrant Virginia.”
The OED coordinated the work of the leadership team that formed five work groups focused on (1) innovation and job creation; (2) education and talent; (3) civic innovation and leadership development; (4) community economic development and placemaking; and (5) health care, early childhood, and community well-being. The work groups, supported by OED, conducted a statewide program inventory and are now exploring model programs and developing plans for new or expanded initiatives.
Funding sources and means
RVI is a nascent endeavor. Much of the work has been unfunded or supported by internal university resources. This is an interesting point of emphasis. Legislative action spurred a collaboration for one year with no new dedicated public (or private) allocation of funding. As the initiative matures and the work groups turn from inventorying and planning to new actions, new resources will be required. However, each work group also includes members who represent funding entities ranging from foundations to state agency officials. This structure should lead to a number of broadly supported actions with funding partners partly preidentified.
Early indicators of impact and staying power
Initial steps highlight the need for longer-term capacity building to address rural challenges through a more holistic urban–rural lens. RVI has convened hundreds of leaders from across sectors and institutions in the state, established five working groups that are actively reviewing and planning for engagement across the commonwealth, and has completed an extensive inventory of the current work of the state’s education entities in rural initiatives and projects. The inventory is filling in knowledge gaps about the nature of rural-related work in Virginia, while also offering individual institutions a platform to highlight exemplary programs and to locate more partners and funding for expansion and growth. A statewide convening event is planned for latter half of 2020. Of particular note is the extent of interuniversity collaboration that is being both created and heightened by the initiative. Research universities, four-year colleges, and community colleges are all engaged at a common table and sharing data and ideas around a shared concern.
Implications for policy
Of interest for policy makers is university responsiveness to a legislative mandate. The presidents were engaged with legislators, and they committed staff resources to the effort without any clear commitment of new funding. The project is helping state officials, legislators, and university leaders better answer the question of how universities are contributing to leadership development, public health, innovation, and other areas in rural Virginia and beyond. Virginia Tech inserted language into its strategic plan to support RVI and has committed to funding twenty new RVI-focused projects by 2020. This has import for state policy. Researchers and faculty at major research universities now work and partner globally, but by lifting up a focus on rural–urban issues and incentivizing faculty activities on those issues through strategic planning and the promise of additional funding, Virginia Tech is making a shift that should be worth following as it unfolds.
Discussion and Conclusion
Land-grant universities and urban-anchored universities have strong histories of rural and urban engagement, yet each example here highlights nascent university efforts to partner in bridging urban and rural areas in nuanced and innovative ways. Here, we highlight several aspects of the university-anchored partnerships with import for both universities and policy makers and encourage university engagement in this effort.
Reframing the Problem
Each example illustrates the potential of university-anchored partnerships to generate new activities and approaches to problem-solving and policy-making. In the context of the urban–rural divide, we are intrigued by the early efforts to “reframe” the problem or the premise as a foundational aspect of the partnership and the initiatives to follow. The statewide survey data that identified major disconnects across North Carolina led to the engagement forums as well as the community pilots. The Alliance focuses on shared prosperity and rebuilding the middle class as a means to tackle the disparities that are often geographic. RVI tackles rural challenges through a holistic statewide lens with work groups that are broadly representative of the state.
Ownership
Universities convene, gather, disseminate, and analyze information and align university expertise and legitimacy with the goals of the partnership. Universities can initiate partnerships to respond to an opportunity or need, or external partners can spur the activity. In either case, who ultimately “owns” or has responsibility for the partnership? IEI remains the visible leader and champion of ReCONNECT, while also growing a sense of shared responsibility with state government, communities, sponsors, and other partners. For RVI, Virginia Tech’s OED is the lead entity, but RVI remains a fairly small focus of their work portfolio. Despite multiple collaborators across the state (including other universities), the challenge may be too many partners without a clear champion for the emerging initiative.
Schmidt Futures provided funding for identifying winning pilots in the Alliance, seed-funded those ideas, and determined the 10 percent impact goals and the focus on the fragile middle class. The four university partners, on the other hand, led the pilot project competitions in their respective states and are the lead institutions in implementing the pilots. While Schmidt Futures is committed to a design thinking, action-oriented, investment-focused, and results-oriented approach, universities often have a different set of criteria and motivations that can drive longer-term efforts and limit the partnerships.
Funding
While some efforts (such as the RVI inventory and cross-sector collaborative work groups in Virginia) may go forward without new sources of external money, funding partners help legitimize initiatives (such as in NC and with Schmidt Futures) and create a base for sustaining the activities over time.
Clarity of Purpose
Thoughtful efforts to clearly state and measure goals seem to be a vital component of the success of the Alliance for the American Dream. Participants self-select and compete, and funding comes to those with the strongest partnerships and the most potential for impact. Participation has a time frame and allows universities and other partners to plan accordingly. In contrast, the emphasis on reconnecting urban and rural communities and rebuilding the civic capacity of communities has fostered extensive participation and collaboration around a longer term effort but with less clarity about impact and indicators of success. The stability of the lead center within a university context is essential to this longer-term effort.
Stakeholder Engagement
Finally, with university participation, each initiative offers multiple avenues for stakeholder and participant engagement that is potentially generative in nature. In NC, the most mature case example, they have engaged a myriad of stakeholders and offered communities and individuals opportunities to engage by hosting civil conversations and applying for project awards. The four universities in the Alliance have created mechanisms for groups and organizations to apply for participation through proposals or pitches. Those processes have garnered regional and state attention on the issue and challenges of shared prosperity. In Virginia, the legislature tasked three universities with studying the rural challenge and those initial three broadened the base of ownership to include every higher education entity as well as state, regional, and some local organizations with a rural or regional development mission. Policy makers in each of these examples are key stakeholders, and each initiative is providing forums and opportunities for conversation and information sharing around policy-related challenges and opportunities.
Rural–Urban Divide
The divides with which these efforts are concerned include those of wealth, place, understanding, equity, race, class, and geography. In NC and in the Alliance, higher education is helping to bring these divides to prominence on the policy agenda. In Virginia, the impetus for action is from policy makers and not vice versa. However, the direction taken by higher education principals in response to the state mandate for action has been focused on assessing higher education’s existing role and challenging institutions on what is not being done, could be done, or could be expanded. The “grand challenge” of rural–urban difference needs to include a significant and substantive new set of responses from higher education. The three programs here provide a glimpse of what that could look like. While these examples are notable, they are undoubtedly insufficient to the scale of the challenges but may help inform or even motivate responses and active and inclusive engagement.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
