Rural America, Vol. 16, Issue 2
Douglas Bowers, editor
Rural America No. (162)
September 2001
About this magazine
All the feature articles in this issue deal with one theme - community colleges. Community colleges have gone through a half-century of significant change, evolving from liberal arts schools preparing students for 4-year colleges to schools more focused on technical and vocational training, often with missions explicitly oriented toward local economic development. Many classes have shifted from the daytime schedule typical of colleges to evening and weekend courses designed for working adults. These changes have been particularly significant for rural areas. Some 40 percent of all community colleges are in rural areas or small towns and, often, they are the only institution of higher learning in the area.
Rural America, a quarterly publication of the Economic Research Service, features articles covering a wide range of topics related to rural development as well as updates of rural social and economic trends.
In this report ...
Articles are in Adobe Acrobat PDF format.
Contents 66kb
Foreword 57kb
Feature Articles
- Rural Community Colleges: Creating Institutional Hybrids for the New Economy (132kb)—Once a stepping stone to higher education, the rural community college has evolved into a multipurpose institution that meets lifelong learning needs and the economy''s demand for information and skills. The best institutions merge an applied higher education with extension-like services for local industry. But rural community colleges are facing new challenges, including new competition from other providers, expanding student diversity, rising credential requirements, and the digital divide. All of this leads to an even greater proliferation of missions and expectations, and possible growing pains for smaller rural community colleges. For more information, contact Stuart A. Rosenfeld.
- College and Community in Partnership: The Furniture College at Letterfrack (105kb)—Ten years ago, a community-owned development center in Ireland partnered with a technical college to create a local institution that could revitalize both a community and a lagging furniture industry cluster. Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology and Connemara West, a community-owned economic development organization in western County Galway, joined forces to build a new college to introduce craft and design principles, entrepreneurship, and new production technologies in an effort to breathe new life into the industry. For more information, contact Stuart A. Rosenfeld.
- Rural Colleges as Catalysts for Community Change: The RCCI Experience (695kb)—The Rural Community College Initiative (RCCI) challenges colleges in economically distressed regions to become catalysts for economic and community development and improved access to education. Led by college/community teams, the 24 sites have experimented with a wide variety of strategic approaches. Through their educational and economic development efforts, RCCI teams are demonstrating how community colleges can help build a foundation for improved prosperity in distressed regions. For more information, contact Sarah Rubin.
- Innovation and Replication: Can Community College Successes Be Repeated? (127kb)—Some rural community colleges have engineered effective partnerships to reverse declining local economies by sponsoring innovative training and other practices. The small scale and isolation of many rural community colleges can be overcome by replicating successful and creative practices from elsewhere, thus adding to a network of innovative and locally rooted colleges. By Cynthia D. Liston and Linda L. Swanson.
Rural Updates
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Updated date: September 2001
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