An Introduction to

Strategies for Rural Development
and Increased Access to Education

A Toolkit for Rural Community Colleges

 

Developed by
MDC, Inc.
P.O. Box 17268
Chapel Hill, NC 27516-7268
Phone (919) 968-4531 •  Fax (919) 929-8557
www.mdcinc.org/rcci.html

and

Video Dialog Inc.
6011 Fayetteville Road
Suite 104-B
Durham, NC 27713
Phone (919) 544-9323  •  Fax (919) 597-0039
www.videodialog.com

 

About the Rural Community College Initiative

            The Rural Community College Initiative (RCCI) is a national demonstration that helps community colleges in economically distressed regions move their people and communities toward prosperity.  It supports aggressive and creative efforts to increase jobs, income, and access to education in rural communities.

            The RCCI aims to strengthen rural community colleges, enhancing their capacity to provide economic leadership for their regions and serve as agents for community development.  The Initiative is helping reduce the isolation of rural colleges by building a national network of diverse colleges with common challenges.  It is also working to increase state and national support for rural community colleges.

            The RCCI is a partnership among the 24 participating community colleges, MDC, the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC), and the Ford Foundation.  Two divisions of the Ford Foundation — “Asset Building and Community Development” and “Education, Media, Arts and Culture” — have made a 10-year commitment to the program.  The Initiative is managed by MDC.  AACC is conducting documentation and assessment of RCCI, and Video Dialog Inc. is providing video documentation and related media services. 

Copyright © 2000 MDC, Inc.

An Introduction to

Strategies for Rural Development
and Increased Access to Education

A Toolkit for Rural Community College

Purpose

            This toolkit is a resource to guide rural community colleges, in partnership with their communities, in creating effective strategies for economic development and educational access.  For colleges participating in the RCCI, it offers both resources for strengthening the process of institutional and community development and new programmatic ideas.  For other rural community colleges and rural development organizations searching for ways to build their economies and work with their communities, the toolkit’s resources and ideas will help meet those needs.

Toolkit Contents

            This toolkit consists of a set of videos and print materials that:  (1) provide an introduction to the RCCI and review the processes used in the RCCI and (2) profile examples of effective strategies for developing the economy and increasing access to education.  Video 1 and its related publications provide the overview, and Videos 2 and 3 and their related publications are the process resources; these resources can be found in the “Introduction and Process Resources” container.  Examples of effective strategies are profiled in videos 4 through 9 and in the Effective Strategies Notebook; these resources can be found in the “Effective Strategies” container.  

            Each container includes a full-color single sheet that describes its contents.  In the “Introduction and Process Resources” container, you will also find publications to aid in your use of this toolkit.  The first is this Introduction.  The second is Video Summaries and Questions for Discussion, which for each video:  suggests audiences and uses; provides a summary; provides a more detailed description; and provides questions for discussion to aid presenters and lecturers.

Introduction to the RCCI

            The Rural Community College Initiative is a national demonstration that helps community colleges in economically distressed regions move their people and communities toward prosperity.  The Initiative is committed to the belief that rural people and places matter, and it supports aggressive and creative efforts to increase jobs, income, and access to education in rural communities.  The introductory resources explain how rural community colleges — whether or not they participate in the RCCI — are uniquely positioned to enhance economic and educational opportunities in their regions.

·        Video 1 — RCCI Philosophy:  Community Colleges as Catalysts for Rural Development.  This video explains how strong, focused, rural community colleges can provide economic and education leadership for their regions and serve as agents for community development.  The video is a concise overview of the RCCI and its twin objectives of building regional economies and increasing access to education. [14 minutes]

·        Rural Community College Initiative:  Transforming Rural Economies and the Prospects of Their People.  This brochure provides a brief overview of the RCCI, maps the participating community colleges, and highlights examples of initiatives at RCCI sites.

·        Expanding Economic and Educational Opportunity in Distressed Rural Areas:  A Conceptual Framework for the Rural Community College Initiative.  This publication presents the vision for RCCI, developed at the outset of the Initiative and revised to reflect experiences at the demonstration sites.

·        AACC Project Briefs:  Rural Access, Rural Economic Development, Rural Team Building, and Rural Development.  These four reports analyze the efforts of the nine initial RCCI sites to expand educational access, catalyze rural economic development, provide leadership through a team representative of the community, and motivate institutional and community development.

Process Resources

            The Rural Community College Initiative uses college/community teams to develop and initiate strategic plans for moving their regions forward.  The college brings together leaders from the public, private, and nonprofit sectors who analyze the region, craft a vision for the future, and set in motion strategies to achieve their goals.  The process of team-building and strategic planning used in RCCI is equally applicable to other rural colleges and community development initiatives.

Moving from Vision to Action — Strategic Planning

·        Video 2 — Moving from Vision to Action.  Moving from Vision to Action is the RCCI’s strategic planning process, an effective method for community analysis, visioning, goal-setting, and strategy implementation.  When used with the Moving from Vision to Action workbook, this instructional video guides community colleges and their partners through a step-by-step process to develop strategies to build their regional economies and increase access to education.  [1 hour, 15 minutes]

·        Moving from Vision to Action:  A Planning Guide for the Rural Community College Initiative.  This workbook details the step-by-step process outlined in the video and provides worksheets with examples for the planning process.

·        Guiding Questions for Data Collection and Analysis.  This guidebook explains the process of gathering and analyzing data on current community conditions, an integral part of the strategic planning process.

Building Effective Teams

·        Videos 3A, 3B, 3C — Building Effective Teams.  The RCCI operates through community-wide collaboration:  The community college forms the hub of the team, and leaders from local communities, businesses, and schools all work together.  This guide, Building Effective Teams, outlines techniques for identifying, recruiting, and developing a dynamic, motivated team.  The video draws on the experiences of presidents, team leaders, and team members from several of the 24 RCCI colleges.  This resource is divided onto three videotapes:
      — Video 3A:  Introduction, Why Teams?, and Who’s on the Team?  [20 minutes]
      — Video 3B:  What the Team Does and How the Team Works  [20 minutes]
      — Video 3C:  Challenges and Dealing with Them and Closing Comments 
           [20 minutes]

Profiles of Effective Strategies

            The Rural Community College Initiative stresses economic development and access to education as concurrent goals because both are needed to have an impact on poverty in distressed rural regions.  Instead of requiring colleges to use a standard set of strategies to address regional challenges, the Initiative motivates college/community teams to be innovative in developing local solutions.  While strategies that have proved effective in one community may not be exactly replicable in another, those strategies may provide food for thought and bring about new ideas.

            The toolkit’s Effective Strategies component is divided into six subjects — fundamental components of rural development:

·        Developing the Regional Economy;

·        Supporting Small Business and Entrepreneurship;

·        Developing the Workforce;

·        Developing Telecommunications and Distance Learning;

·        Improving Access to Education; and

·        Harnessing the Power of Culture.

A video and a chapter in the Effective Strategies Notebook are dedicated to each of the six subjects.  The videos feature interviews both with people participating in the profiled programs and with nationally recognized experts in the subject areas.  The notebook profiles feature the history of each program and include contact information.  For a list of the programs profiled, see Appendix A at the end of this introduction.

·        Video 4 and Notebook Section A — Developing the Regional Economy.  Rural people deserve opportunities to participate in America’s prosperity, but their communities face tough challenges, from limited employment opportunities to rapid growth that threatens to overwhelm traditional culture.  Developing the Regional Economy illustrates how college/community initiatives can overcome those challenges by working regionally instead of just locally and by building upon an area’s strengths.  [Video — 30 minutes]

·        Video 5 and Notebook Section B — Supporting Small Business and Entrepreneurship.  Small and locally grown businesses are an important component of developing a region’s economy, especially in rural areas where big industries are sparse or nonexistent.  Community colleges can play a major role both in nurturing entrepreneurs and in assisting small business owners.  Supporting Small Business and Entrepreneurship shows that, whether it’s re-creating an entrepreneurship curriculum to reflect local culture and values or building a business loan fund from scratch, creativity is key.  [Video — 29 minutes]

·        Video 6 and Notebook Section C — Developing the Workforce.  Most community colleges engage in some level of workforce education — a great challenge in rural areas where industry, job opportunities, and resources are scarce.  Developing the Workforce shows how colleges — from those just expanding their missions to include workforce training to those with award-winning programs — are collaborating with businesses and support services to improve opportunities for people in their regions. [Video — 34 minutes]

·        Video 7 and Notebook Section D — Developing Telecommunications and Distance Learning.  Because rural community colleges often serve large geographic areas with sparse population, distance learning can be an effective tool.  Community colleges can be catalysts to bring telecommunications to rural areas, serving their own students and the people, schools, and businesses of the region.  The video provides an introduction to the opportunities and challenges facing rural community colleges in taking advantage of today’s technology, while the notebook section offers a range of examples.  [Video — 35 minutes]

·        Video 8 and Notebook Section E — Improving Access to Education.  For the RCCI, educational access is about more than an open-door policy for community colleges.  Improving Access to Education discusses how aggressive outreach to and support for everyone needing education is key, as is developing partnerships with K-12 schools, universities, businesses, and support services.  Innovative programs — from highly individualized instruction to family-based literacy — can help people overcome barriers to success.  [Video — 30 minutes]

·        Video 9 and Notebook Section F — Harnessing the Power of Culture.  Culture affects how we learn, how we do business, and how we relate to each other, our communities, and the rest of the world.  Harnessing the Power of Culture shows how culture can be a powerful resource for developing regional economies, increasing access to education, and stimulating interest and involvement in those efforts by a broad range of community members.  [Video — 27 minutes]

Suggestions for Using the Toolkit

RCCI Colleges

            Resources in the Introduction to the RCCI category can be used to orient or reorient any group or individual to the RCCI — new team members, new college administrators or trustees, faculty members, community groups, new partners such as K-12 schools or businesses, and the media.

            The strategic planning resources found in the Moving from Vision to Action series can assist colleges in the continuous revision and updating of their strategic plans and programs.  Economies, communities, and colleges are all dynamic, changing entities.  Strategies and goals made six months ago may need adjusting, and ideas that weren’t applicable then may be so now.  The Moving from Vision to Action video and workbook can refresh a team’s memory on using strategic planning to revise and update its plan.

            RCCI teams can use the Building Effective Teams videos to get recharged, to assess their own performance, and to evaluate how well they are working together.

            RCCI team members also might consider sharing both the strategic planning and team-building resources with others in their college and community.  These materials can be relevant to departmental or campus-wide planning efforts, as well as community development efforts.

            The profiles of effective strategies — on video and in the notebook — can give teams new and different ideas or spark more ideas applicable to their own situations.  These resources can also be useful in helping to change a culture of thinking “That’s not how we do things” to “Now, there’s a good idea.”

Other Colleges and Rural Development Organizations

            The toolkit as a whole is a useful primer on the interconnectedness of increasing access to education and developing the economy.  It provides guidance for a community college or development organization not affiliated with the Initiative to engage in its own strategic planning and community revitalization process.  The toolkit also provides a useful framework to help a college rethink its mission and the way it goes about serving its students and its community.

            The strategic planning resources and team-building resources are highly instructive, step-by-step teaching tools that can be followed by any college.  They are applicable to community-led initiatives as well. 

            The effective strategies resources provide both a framework of the types of initiatives important to rural development and a wealth of profiles of initiatives that other colleges and communities have implemented with successful results.  While every strategy profiled may not fit a particular community’s situation, the profiles can be informative springboards for individuals or groups to digest, process, and then use for brainstorming ideas that would fit their situation. 

            The strategies resources also provide another benefit for rural colleges in economically distressed areas:  the opportunity to network with colleges all over the country working in similar circumstances.  Every effective strategy profile includes a contact name and phone number, and several include e-mail addresses and World Wide Web site addresses.  These contacts have agreed to serve as resources and discuss their programs further and perhaps even to host visits from other colleges and community groups.

Conclusion

            We hope that this toolkit will assist rural community colleges, in partnership with their communities, to create effective strategies for economic development and educational access — a process that will put their regions and their people on the road to economic renewal.

            The RCCI challenges colleges to think broadly about their potential as catalysts for regional development.  It does not impose a particular set of programs or strategies to solve regional problems; rather, it fosters a climate of innovation that will spark local solutions.  Our hope is that these resources and this sample of programs will be useful in the planning process and as models for replication and that they will also generate new thinking and lead to new and better programs that can be shared.  Please share with us your successes, and we will distribute them in upcoming revisions.

            MDC thanks the institutions that provided information on the programs and systems described in the toolkit and for agreeing to respond to toolkit users’ requests for additional information.

 

Appendix A

Profiles of Effective Strategies