Digital Commons Network^™

Concentrated Rural Poverty And The Geography Of Exclusion, Daniel T. Lichter, Domenico Parisi

Carsey Publications

One-half of rural poor are segregated in high-poverty areas, a new policy brief co-published by the Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire and Rural Realities. This brief highlights the challenges faced by America's rural poor, particularly as they are physically and socially isolated from middle-class communities that might offer economic opportunities.

Many New Hampshire Jobs Do Not Pay A Livable Wage, Daphne Kenyon, Allison Churilla

Carsey Publications

As the U.S. economy falters and recession looms, 79 percent of jobs in New Hampshire do not pay a wage sufficient for single-parent families with two children to provide basic needs such as housing, food, transportation, child care, and health care. Carroll County has the lowest percentage of livable wage jobs, with only 13 percent of jobs paying a livable wage for single-parent families with two children.

La Lucha Por Una Comunidad Sustentable Los Campesinos Tonocote De Breayoj: Manejo De Recursos, Desarrollo Y Elecciones, David Flannelly

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

A study about the environment and sustainability has to be soley about topics solely relating directly to nature, right? With this preconception in my mind I went off to study an indigenous subsistence farming community in the northwestern region of Argentina. Initially I solely wanted to focus on the management of resources of the community, the trees, water, and animals. Fate had other plans for my indepent study project. I arrived in the community right in the middle of the last week of historical elections for the province and the community. A new political party of farmers and other poor …

Ten Years Of Community Profiles In New Hampshire, Charlie A. French, Fabienne Lord-Fonesca

Natural Resources & the Environment

Through a program called Community Profiles, the University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension has helped 57 New Hampshire communities develop a vision for their future and mobilize local residents to act on that vision. The Community Profile process is based on the premise that communities must engage members in identifying and documenting common and deeply held values from which to craft a vision for the future if they are to build and sustain community vitality. The process also helps communities find new and creative ways to pursue that vision by leveraging resources within and outside of the community. These resources …

Motivations For Participating In Community-Supported Agriculture And Their Relationship With Community Attachment And Social Capital, Joan M. Brehm, Brian W. Eisenhauer

Journal of Rural Social Sciences

The social fabric of rural communities is continuing to change as we move toward a more globalized society and food economy, and the vitality of rural agricultural communities in particular may be declining (Berry 1999). In response to these changes, efforts are underway in many parts of the United States to counteract this global, industrial food system and by implication, increase the vitality and sustainability of rural communities. One effort that is gaining momentum is the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) movement, which involves local farmers and community members working together as partners to create a sustainable local food system. It …

Sustainable Agriculture And The Social Sciences: Getting Beyond Best Management Practices And Into Food Systems, Jeffrey L. Jordan, Douglas H. Constance

Journal of Rural Social Sciences

This paper introduces the special issue of Southern Rural Sociology and lays the groundwork for the rest of the papers. The genesis of this special issue flows from the efforts of the Southern Region Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (S-SARE) program to bring more social science research into its portfolio of projects. Our concern is that by providing best management practices (Band-Aids) to a fundamentally unsustainable agricultural system, the sustainable agriculture movement (and SARE’s granting program) favors the environmental component at the expense of economic and social “legs” of the sustainable stool. While focusing on the history and work of …

Doing What We Know We Should: Engaged Scholarship And Community Development, Bruce Muirhead, Geoff Woolcock

Partnerships/Community

Community Engagement has become a familiar term in the Australian higher education lexicon in recent years. Professor Sir David Watson (2007, p. 1) from the University of London claims that now 'hardly any university, anywhere in the world, would dare not to have a civic engagement mission. The question is: how real, and how effective are these?'. A vital strategy to building and sustaining democracy lies in the unique constellation of intellectual, social and financial capital existing within the modern university. The key lies in the expertise embodied within the university, the socialisation role of mass higher education and the …

Uncovering The Hidden Dimensions Of Rural Disaster Mitigation: Capacity Building Through Community Emergency Response Teams, M. A. Brennan, Courtney G. Flint

Journal of Rural Social Sciences

The increasing magnitude of hurricane damage in the southern United States in recent years, capped off by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, highlights the reality that local people and communities are often the first responders to crisis or disaster. Driven by policy and necessity, rural communities find themselves taking on more responsibility in preparing for and resolving local crises and emergencies. Locally-based Community Emergency Response Teams (CERTs) are teams of local volunteers, trained to aid in disaster preparation, provide first aid, and contribute other assistance during emergency situations. Focusing on the southern United States, this article explores the rural/urban distribution of …

Shaping The Future Of Southern Nevada Conference Key Points, Ron Smith

Shaping the Future of Southern Nevada: Economic, Environmental, and Social Sustainability

General summary of key points raised at the conference

Concurrent Panel Session 2: Service Learning: Linking Students And Community, Daniel Mclean, Jane Pike, Seth Pollack, Fran Smith, Jean Whitney, Cheri Young

Shaping the Future of Southern Nevada: Economic, Environmental, and Social Sustainability

Moderator: Peg Rees, UNLV Public Lands Institute Scribe: Melanie Taylor, UNLV Department of Criminal Justice Conference white paper & Full summary of panel session, 4 pages

“How To Change The World”: Writing An Online Sustainability Leadership Manual For Young Australians, Nina Sherburne

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Under the direction of the Centre for Sustainability Leadership (CSL) in downtown Melbourne, VIC, three articles were written for the CSL online manual entitled “How to Change the World”. These articles contain straightforward, easy-to-read answers to questions young people have regarding sustainability and leadership in their community. The three questions include: “Should I register my not-for-profit? If so, how do I?”, “How do I fundraise for my organization? And do I need to register as a Fundraiser?”, and “How to I sell the idea of sustainability (or change in general) to my boss?”.

This online manual will remove the barriers …

Service-Learning Models As Pedagogy For The Schools Social Action In Asia-Pacific Region, Maria Agnes Cerina

Asia-Pacific Regional Conference on Service-Learning 亞太地區服務研習會議

No abstract provided.

The Building Of A Harmonious Society And The Nature Of Partnership Between Community And Institution Of Higher Learning, Lizandro Ferrer

Asia-Pacific Regional Conference on Service-Learning 亞太地區服務研習會議

No abstract provided.

Sectarianism And Social Capital: Community Development In Northern Ireland, Becky Alhadeff

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

There is a prevailing belief within the majority of the community sector and indeed, amongst many politicians and policy makers that there is a gap between Catholic and Protestant community development. However it is also argued that the Catholic community has more calculated social need than the Protestant community. It was not my desire, nor within my ability with my limited time frame to measure the capacities of the two communities and determine if there is presently a gap, but simply to look at the reasons put forth by community developers, politicians, and academics for the reason this gap exists. …

Cross-Training Christians For Rural Servant-Leadership : An Exploration Of The Role Of A Congregation In Nurturing Leadership In The Community Of Wessington Springs, South Dakota, John H. Paulson

Doctor of Ministry Theses

This study explores the relationship between what is learned and experienced in the Christian faith community and people’s involvement in collaborative leadership within the rural community of Wessington Springs, South Dakota. The author makes use of Martin Luther’s theology of the cross and his teachings regarding Christian vocation, including the calling of parents as family leaders. This approach to leadership development employs a missional ecclesiology, with attention to the Triune God’s transformative, sending work in the world, and examines contributions from knowledge about civil society and human and social capital. Asset mapping is examined as a tool for leadership development.

Multifunctional Rural Landscapes: Economic, Environmental, Policy, And Social Impacts Of Land Use Changes In Nebraska, Twyla M. Hansen, Charles A. Francis, J. Dixon Esseks, J. Allen Williams Jr.

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The conversion of farmland near cities to other human uses is a global trend that challenges our long-term capacity to provide food, fiber, and ecosystem services to a growing world population. If current trends continue in the United States, the population will reach 450 million by the year 2050. At the same time, an accelerating change in land use will reduce today’s two acres per person of farmland to less than one acre per person. This is scarcely enough to produce food for our domestic population, without any food available for export – even assuming advances in technology. We need …

The Perfect Storm: Catastrophic Collapse In The 21st Century, Glen Kuecker

History Faculty publications

This paper utilizes complex systems theory to argue that we are currently living in catastrophic collapse of the global system. It focuses on topics like climate chance, ecological destruction, pandemics, fuel shortages, warfare, and global hunger to illustrate the interconnections between multiple points of failure within the global system. The argument maintains that sustainability perspectives miss the fundamental reality of the global crisis.

U.S. Rural Soldiers Account For A Disproportionately High Share Of Casualties In Iraq And Afghanistan, William P. O'Hare, Bill Bishop

Carsey Publications

A study by the Carsey Institute found that among U.S. soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, those who are from rural America are dying at a higher rate than those soldiers who are from cities and suburbs. According to U.S. Department of Defense records, rural youth enlist in the military at a higher rate than urban and suburban youth and in all but eight states, soldiers from rural areas make up a disproportionately high share of the casualties.

Resident Ownership In New Hampshire's "Mobile Home Parks": A Report On Economic Outcomes (Revised 2010), Sally Ward, Charles A. French, Kelly Giraud

Carsey Publications

Since 1984, the New Hampshire Community Loan Fund has been helping residents of manufactured home communities purchase the land underneath their homes. Since then, homeowners have purchased 80 manufactured home communities and converted them into “Resident Owned Communities” (ROCs) in New Hampshire. These communities now include 4,200 homeowners. The premise of the loan fund program is that resident ownership provides both an important vehicle for preserving affordable housing and economic benefits to homeowners in ROCs. Until now, no systematic data have been available to confirm the benefits. To fill that gap, the fund contracted researchers from the Carsey Institute at …

The Spatial Dynamics Of High School Dropout: The Case Of Rural Louisiana, Mark J. Shafer, Makiko Hori

Journal of Rural Social Sciences

This study uses data from the Louisiana Department of Education to conduct a spatial analysis of high school dropout. The paper suggests school-level factors influence dropout rates not only within their schools, but also more widely across schools in close proximity. These claims are tested in two distinct ways: (1) by comparing spatial cluster maps of dropout to measures of school processes, effectiveness, and structure and (2) by conducting spatial regression analysis to test whether spatial influences remain after considering school-level predictors of dropout. The findings show school processes, effectiveness, and structure all influence dropout rates. Moreover, findings demonstrate spatial …

Sex-Education And Preventative And Contraceptive Services: Educação-Sexual E Serviços Contraceptivos E Preventativos, Elizabeth M. Ortiz

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Maternal morbidity is one of the leading causes of death amongst women in Latina America. Lack of access to Reproductive Health services has incited a continental epidemic amongst adolescent women - and should be considered a public health crisis. Yet, there is little being done by the governing male bodies to secure access and the Right to Reproductive Health services. This is not only a means of re-enforcing gendered inequalities- but also class, and racial disparities. Reproductive Health in Brazil and Northeastern Brazil in particular, serves as an allegory for socio-economic, gender, ethnic, and racial inequality in the region. The …

Corporation For National And Community Service: Strategic Plan 2006-2010, Corporation For National And Community Service

Service Learning, General

Through the programs of the Corporation for National and Community Service (the Corporation), Americans are investing their time, energy, and talent to improve the lives of others and strengthen their communities. In the process, they are building a more engaged society and becoming leaders in civic life.

Science-Based Organic Farming 2006: Toward Local And Secure Food Systems, Charles A. Francis, Katja Koehler-Cole, Twyla Hansen, Peter Skelton

Publications from the Center for Applied Rural Innovation (CARI)

Organic farming includes growing food and fiber—animals, agronomic crops, horticultural fruits and vegetables, related products—as one dynamic and rapidly evolving component of our complex U.S. food system. Even as more farmers are moving toward organic certification and participation in an environmentally sound and economically lucrative market, questions arise about the long-term social impacts and sustainability of a set of practices that has gone from a movement to an industry. Consolidations in the organic trade have brought multinational corporations to the table, as they have observed a grassroots activity that has grown by 20% per year for the past two decades, …

Smart Growth: A Buffer Zone Between Decentrist And Centrist Theory?, Dorothy Stewart, Lorcan Sirr, Ruth Kelly

Articles

The context for planning at the turn of the 19th century, in a newly industrialized world, was based on the need to find solutions to overcrowding and dire urban conditions. Planning decisions made in the post-World War II period were primarily motivated by the desire to reconstruct war torn cities. The forces of influence for planning and development in modern advanced capitalist societies are arguably set within the context of sustainable development. Many developed countries have witnessed a dramatic change in their territorial structures. Urban centres are extending into rural areas and surrounding hinterland, where large tracts of land are …

Disciplining Service Learning: Institutionalization And The Case For Community Studies, Dan W. Butin

Education Faculty Publications

This article argues that the service-learning field has been pursuing the wrong revolution. Namely, service learning has been envisioned as a transformative pedagogical practice and philosophical orientation that would change the fundamental policies and practices of the academy. However, its attempted institutionalization faces substantial barriers and positions service learning in an uncomfortable double-bind that ultimately co-opts and neutralizes its agenda. This article argues that a truly transformative agenda may be to create a parallel movement to develop an “academic home” for service learning within academic “community studies” programs. This “disciplining” of service learning is the truly revolutionary potential of institutionalizing …

Conclusion: Social Capital And The Quality Of Life In Nevada, Craig Walton

Social Health of Nevada Reports

Our contributors have presented data and analyses which bring up questions Nevadans need to raise when they talk about the kind of home we want Nevada to be. We must take seriously their findings, their recommendations, and their pleas for help. These social indicators must be re-visited periodically. We make a beginning today, but we need to sustain public discussion of these problems of poor social capital in our home town and home state. Aristotle mentioned that a large number of people in one place does not make a community – practices, customs, institutions, and a shared moral culture change …

Introduction: The Leading Indicators Project, Dmitri N. Shalin

Social Health of Nevada Reports

Policy makers of all ages have sought to ground their decisions in sound knowledge. As early as 1790, President George Washington told Congress that “Knowledge is in every country the surest basis of public happiness. In one in which the measures of government receive their impressions so immediately from the sense of the community as in ours it is proportionably essential.” In our time, generating and disseminating reliable information has become a passion. This modern attitude is captured in buzzwords like “knowledge-based interference,” “data-informed decision making,” “information-driven needs assessment,” and it finds a powerful expression in the Leading Indicators (LI) …

Disciplining Service Learning: Institutionalization And The Case For Community Studies, Dan W. Butin

Service Learning, General

This article argues that the service-learning field has been pursuing the wrong revolution. Namely, service learning has been envisioned as a transformative pedagogical practice and philosophical orientation that would change the fundamental policies and practices of the academy. However, its attempted institutionalization faces substantial barriers and positions service learning in an uncomfortable double-bind that ultimately co-opts and neutralizes its agenda. This article argues that a truly transformative agenda may be to create a parallel movement to develop an "academic home" for service learning within academic "community studies" programs. This "disciplining" of service learning is the truly revolutionary potential of institutionalizing …

Service-Learning In Watershed-Based Initiatives: Keys To Education For Sustainability In Geography?, James Eflin, Amy L. Sheaffer

Service Learning, General

A call for combining the strengths of geographic education with environmental education to produce an 'education for sustainability' addresses local problems for sustainable development. A place-based approach encourages civic responsibility among students. Using service-learning to extend education beyond the classroom in this case study connected students with local clients in a watershed-based initiative. Theoretical underpinnings of service-learning for geographic education are discussed, and the case study is viewed from instructor, student, and client perspectives to identify successful outcomes and provide suggestions for those who might adopt service-learning for the first time.

“Peace Is More Than The End Of Bombing”: The Second Stage Of The Vieques Struggle, Sherrie Baver

Publications and Research

The nature of colonialism in Puerto Rico has caused most political issues to be viewed within the framework of status politics. In the first stage of the struggle to expel the U.S. Navy from the island (1999–2003), civil society in Puerto Rico united when the issues were reframed with links not to status politics but to human rights and social justice. Viequenses symbolized for Puerto Ricans in Puerto Rico, on the mainland, and in the world at large the costs of military colonialism. In the second stage of the struggle, since the military’s departure, Viequenses have struggled to control the …