Rural Matters

In Part III of this three-part series on Reimagining Rural Policy, produced in collaboration with and underwritten by the Brookings Institution, Michelle talks with Cheryal Hills, Executive Director of Region Five Development Commission, who has developed dozens of relationships that have secured investments to address critical issues in the rural communities of Central Minnesota and Rob Riley, president of the Northern Forest Center, who has guided the Center to become the respected regional innovation and investment partner it is today. Capacity building involve planning, learning, and adjustment and is a mix of practical application and theory, according to Hills. She describes a fascinating example of how Region Five drove a value-added regional food hub with Sprout, including serving as its fiscal host, co-authoring grants, providing business training and one-on-one technical assistance to food co-ops, co-sponsoring health and wellness mental health workshops to decrease suicide rates, helping to develop microloans, constructing a 10,000 square foot process facility, starting a mobile market, launching a winter indoor farmer's market with food and art, and providing community supported agriculture shares (CSAs) to low-income veterans and those in opioid recovery programs. Capacity building is the ability to be nimble in getting things done, says Riley, and one of the challenges is identifying resources for stakeholders and enabling local communities and residents to build their own capacity in the forest economy in four Northern Forest states of New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. Regional collaboration is key in this area, explains Riley, and that involves connecting people who are otherwise working in isolation to expand broadband capabilities and broader markets, for example, that enables local projects to be scaled. Hills discusses how EDA could channel funds to distressed rural areas, which could include not just employment and poverty rates but population decline and health outcome data, and develop creative programs for nonprofits and Native American tribes that reduce match barriers. EDA can support local programs that better position rural areas to access the 25 percent set-aside to build on recreational and tourism opportunities, says Riley. The guests end the episode emphasizing the capabilities of the proposed Rural Partnership Program to be complementary with existing programs and what the future "could be" as opposed to "will be." This episode and the entire three-part series are sponsored by the Brookings Institution, www.brookings.edu.

In Part I of this eight-part series on rural higher education and workforce development, produced in collaboration with and underwritten by Ascendium Education Group, Michelle chats with four rural community college presidents: Lisa Larson, from Eastern Maine Community College; Chad Brown,

from Zane State College; Angel Reyna, from Madera Community College; and Jay Falkner, from Carl Albert State College. Intentional integrative planning among highs schools, community colleges, and four-year colleges, meaningful partnerships, effective dual enrollment programs, and more proactive engagement with other stakeholders are all keys for community colleges success, says Reyna. Community colleges are still learning what it means to be a community college, says Brown, and one of the goals for community colleges should be changing the mindset of local communities, not just in terms of recruiting students, but also to impact their parents, especially students from minority communities. Larson asserts that it's never too early to figure out what students' aspirations are, so summer programs on campus, concurrent educations initiatives and guided pathways are vitally important for getting students connected with employers. Falkner says the community colleges should take a more holistic approach in education, especially as we approach a post-COVID era, including building valuable academic partnerships that include academic preparedness, exam preparation, and professional development for K-12 teachers. All four community college presidents agreed on once critical point: Community colleges play an integral role in rural regional economic success. This episode and the entire series on rural higher education and workforce development is sponsored by Ascendium Education Group, a nonprofit organization committed to helping learners from low-income backgrounds reach their educational and career goals. For more information, visit ascendiumphilanthropy.org

"We plan to invest up to $100 billion in broadband infrastructure." —Heather Boushey, Member, Council of Economic Advisers. Listen to this 15-minute interview right now.

In Part II of this three-part series on Reimagining Rural Policy, produced in collaboration with and underwritten by the Brookings Institution, Michelle talks with Gbenga Ajilore Senior Advisor in the Office of the Under Secretary, USDA-RD; Kennedy O'Dell, a Senior Research and Policy Associate at the Economic Innovation Group (EIG), a bipartisan think tank focused on forging a more dynamic U.S. economy; and Erik Stegman (Carry the Kettle First Nation Nakoda), Executive Director of Native Americans in Philanthropy, a national organization advocating for stronger and more meaningful investments by the philanthropic sector in tribal communities. The guests take a deep dive into the importance of developing rural policy that reflects the diversity of rural America and serving a broader racial equity agenda. Rural myths, such as being predominantly agricultural (today more than 70 percent of the rural economy is service-based) are detrimental to developing successful rural policy, according to Ajilore. It's important, he notes, to increase infrastructure, including broadband, to enable rural sectors not just to survive but to thrive. Native Americans did not "come to rural," but rural came to them, Stegman points out, adding that more than 70 percent of Native Americans live off the reservation, as a result of intention federal incentive programs to relocate them, and today the typical experience of native Americans is going between rural and urban areas. It's difficult to create a system can accurately capture what's "rural," but there's an appetite to find a suitable definition of rural for both policy and research. EIG created a hybrid definition of rural that found that, in 2018, about 2300 counties were classified as rural, which translates into a rural population of about 52.5 million. In terms of indicators of distress, she says, the average poverty rate in rural areas is nearly 3 percentage points higher than non-rural areas, and rural areas lag in terms of population and employment growth. The largest age cohort in rural areas is 55-64, compared to 25-34 in non-rural areas. In addition, O'Dell points out, terms of well-being and distress indicators, more than 50 percent of black residents and 45 percent of Native Americans lived in distressed counties, compared to 18 percent of rural whites, according to EIG statistics. This is evidence of systemic inequality, and Ajilore says that post-pandemic, the American Jobs Plan and America Families Plan will hopefully address these inequities, making sure the recovery is inclusive, targeting specific resources, including assistance to community colleges and HBUCs. Stegman notes that the more than 570 federally recognized tribal nations see new opportunity to strengthen their nation-to-nation relationship with the federal government; while there have been historic underinvestment in federal resource, more than $31 billion was targeted toward tribal nations under the COVID recovery package. O'Dell concludes the conversation by noting that EIG has proposed a Cabinet-level department or National Development Strategy to deal with the fragmented federal approach to rural economic development. This episode and the entire three-part series are sponsored by the Brookings Institution, www.brookings.edu.

In Part II of a four-part series on rural hospitals, produced in collaboration with and underwritten by the Center for Optimizing Rural Health (CORH), Michelle chats with Dr. Nancy Dickey, CORH's executive director and Adam Willmann, CEO & President of the Goodall-Witcher Healthcare System in Clifton, Texas. Each year, Dickey notes, CORH selects 30 hospitals for the HRSA-funded Vulnerable Rural Hospital Assistance Program. Those chosen for the free program, whose application periods this year begins June 1, will have access to CORH's team of rural health experts and receive technical support. Willmann's hospital participated in the third year of the program, and he noted that the ability to connect with and learn from other hospitals was a major benefit to his institution. (To learn more and apply to the program, visit optimizing-rural-health-dot-org and click application portal.) Willmann has been instrumental in establishing the Rural Texas Health Cooperative with nine other rural hospitals, expanding surgical and psychiatry services and increasing net patient revenue by 164% since 2013. Formerly a 501(c) (3) institution, Goodall-Witcher is now a critical care hospital with nine physicians serving about 24,000 local residents, and is the largest employer in the county, according to Willmann. His hospital and wellness center have been built by finding local health care providers and securing the latest medical equipment, such as scopes for colonoscopies, which, in turn, can attract top surgeons. One of the challenges facing rural hospitals, Dickey says, is that very successful leaders such as Willmann can be sought after by other hospitals, and CORH is working hard to establish depth in hospital leadership. In addition, Willmann says there has been a significant expansion of telehealth services during the pandemic, in part because of the lessening of restrictions, but the pandemic accentuated the lack of broadband capability in rural areas. This episode and the entire four-part series is sponsored by CORH, https://optimizingruralhealth.org

"If we can get our country at a high level of immunization, we can send this virus packing, but it's going to take all of us."— Francis Collins, M.D., Ph. D, Director, National Institutes of Health. .Listen to this 15-minute interview right now.

"The President's Jobs Package provides enough money to make sure that every American, including everyone living in rural America, will have access to high-speed, affordable broadband." — Gina Raimondo. Listen to our 10-minjute interview with the new Secretary of Commerce right now.

This is the first of our four-part series showcasing rural hospitals, produced in collaboration with and underwritten by the Center for Optimizing Rural Health (CORH). Michelle talks with Dr. Nancy Dickey, CORH's executive director and David Walker, CEO of George E. Weems Memorial Hospital in Apalachicola, Florida. They discuss how CORH's technical assistance program has helped Weems Memorial Hospital go from almost closing to thriving. The three also detail how to diagnose and overcome the challenges facing rural hospitals, the importance of connecting hospital leadership to training sessions, and how hospitals can identify the best next steps to deal with their particular situations. Walker details how the COVID-19 pandemic has made his hospital even more crucial to the local community. Dr. Dickey notes that overfilled urban hospitals have transferred patients to rural hospitals, which has allowed those hospitals to truly shine. For more information on CORH, visit, www.optimizingruralhealth.org.

"The American Jobs Plan is not about one particular area of the country. This plan is truly an all-American investment in our workers." — Martin Walsh. Listen to our 10-minute interview with the new Secretary of Labor right now.

In this first of a three-part series, Michelle talks with Tony Pipa of the Brookings Institution and Janet Topolsky of the Aspen Institute about the opportunity for the Biden-Harris administration to modernize and improve U.S. policy to support equitable rural development. Drawing upon the landmark report recently published by Brookings, Reimagining rural policy: Organizing federal assistance to maximize rural prosperity, Pipa describes the lack of a coherent federal vision regarding community and economic development in rural areas, with over 400 federal rural programs spanning 13 departments and more than 50 offices and sub-agencies. Topolsky describes the challenges that any rural community faces trying to navigate the myriad of programs by themselves; rather, she says strengthening "rural development hub" intermediaries can catalyze regional efforts that help communities grow and thrive – as outlined in Rural Development Hubs: Strengthening America's Rural Innovation Infrastructure. Pipa suggests that the U.S. needs to create a national rural strategy to help rural communities develop and thrive. He emphasizes the importance of locally led development that takes advantage of real-world, on-the-ground knowledge, builds on local assets, and improves equitable outcomes. Topolsky urges lawmakers to make rural a priority and keep in mind the diverse racial and economic contexts that exist in rural. She also reiterates the importance of flexible funding, so local organizations can decide how best to deploy that funding. This episode and the three-part series are sponsored by the Brookings Institution, www.brookings.edu.