Putting the `community' back in community colleges: community colleges in distressed rural America are mobilizing local leaders and supporting business development--revitalizing region and college. (Community Partnering).

Since Hocking College opened in 1968, it has been known in its community of rural Nelsonville, OH, as "the little college that could." Nelsonville--identified not long ago by the Appalachian Regional Commission as severely depressed due to high poverty rates--is now developing a tourism economy. Much of that economic development can be traced to the driving force behind HC's community-partnering initiatives: John Light, the college's current (and only) president. Today, his school owns and operates a variety of business which are open to the public, supervised by faculty, and operated by students enrolled in business, natural resources, hospitality and eco-tourism programs. Among the attractions: Robbins Crossing (a historical re-enactment village recreating the daily lives of southeastern Ohio villagers in the 1850s), Hocking Woods Nature Center, and Lake Snowden Education & Recreation Park. The school also co-sponsors several major community events, including the Paul Bunyan Show (a forestry exhibition hosted in conjunction with the Ohio Forestry Association), and the last leg of the International Bow Hunting Triple Crown.

Hocking has also been involved in downtown Nelsonville's physical revitalization. In the 1990s, the college, along with local business leaders, formed Towne Centre Inc., a non-profit group created to preserve buildings in the downtown business district. As a result, Nelsonville Public Square has been added to the National Register of Historic Places, and six new businesses have located there. Funding (in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, over a 10-year period) came from the school's operating budget, private donations, and a $5,000 grant From the Ohio Arts Council. Light sees this kind of partnering as core to his school's raison d'etre.

"Right from the beginning, we felt it was our mission to be a part of the economic development and the growth of the area," he says. But the school has been beneficiary as well as benefactor, and has grown as a result of the community development efforts. By building programs that offer students real-life experiences in the community rather than textbook-only experiences, Hocking has created a niche for itself offering hands-on learning. The hands-on learning/community-partnership philosophy has had a positive impact on the college's enrollment, which has blossomed from little more than 220 students in '68, to the 5,400 full-time students from all over the world that the college educates today.

Making More Colleges That Can

Hocking College's ability to go beyond the image of what many see as the role of a community college--that of an entity to train a local workforce--has made it a role model for other rural colleges. In 1994, the Ford Foundation and NC-based MDC, Inc. (a non-profit organization specializing in the identification of challenges that impede workforce and economic development) launched the Rural Community College Initiative. The objective: to help community colleges become catalysts for economic development by helping their communities overcome challenges such as geographic distances, poorly prepared students, poverty, and unemployment. Nine pilot colleges were chosen from regions in the country suffering from the highest levels of persistent poverty. Another 15 expansion sites were added in 1997. The nine RCCI pilot colleges each received a $30,000 planning grant, a $150,000 implementation grant, a $100,000 continuation grant, and a $75,000 completion grant. The 15 RCCI expansion sites each received a $20,000 planning grant, a $150,000 implementation grant, and a $100,000 completion grant.

Hocking was highlighted along with the pilot sites and other non-RCCI sites in a Toolkit of Effective Strategies, which MDC put together to speed the learning process at the 15 expansion sites. For instance, instead of traveling to view model programs firsthand, one toolkit strategy suggests that site administrators save time and dollars by viewing a video or reading about a model program. (The Toolkit, which continues to evolve, is available for $100 at www.mdcinc.org.)

The RCCI initiative was designed to demonstrate to the rural community colleges the benefits of creating partnerships with business leaders, leaders in K-12, and local government leaders--individuals they may not have reached out to in the past. The program and toolkit were also crafted to illustrate the dangers of relying on a single industry to solve regional problems. In addition, schools in the RCCI were given the tools to encourage entrepreneurs to launch businesses. The school administrators learned to seek out business that offered products which could be exported outside the region--bringing new dollars into the mix, instead of recirculating the limited dollars already within the region.

Going for the Win-Win

After working through the program, the RCCI schools suddenly found themselves in a new role--that of mobilizing regional leaders and supporting entrepreneurship and small business development. An assessment by the American Association of Community Colleges revealed that 23 of the colleges in the program reported they won 495 new grants valued at nearly $129 million since joining RCCI; the same number of colleges reported the development of 193 new economic partnerships; 13 of the colleges assisted in 716 small business start-ups; and 14 of them helped raise capital to support local entrepreneurship programs valued at $18.4 million.

"The schools became far more sensitive to the needs and desires of the community than they had been in the past," says Carol Lincoln, senior associate at MDC. "They actually helped change the belief systems of their communities. In some of these areas, people had given up hope that anything could be different. The community colleges made them see that there were ways they could work collaboratively and bring about necessary improvements."

As with Hocking, the collaborations benefited the RCCI colleges as well as their communities. Some of the benefits the colleges say they have realized:

* New clients (entrepreneurs and students) of the small business centers established by some campuses eventually became so comfortable with their campus environment, they signed up for courses.

* Additional enrollments came from high school students taking dual enrollment credit courses--then they became interested in attending the community college to pursue an AA degree (enrollments at some of the colleges increased via distance learning courses).

* Many of the colleges increased their visibility and gained recognition as players in local economic development.

* The AACC assessment reported that RCCI helped to nurture an environment of creativity and change on participating campuses that contributed to growth and institutional expansion.

* RCCI changed the way community colleges think about theft mission; it built capacity (stronger strategic planning capability, more development and/or grant-writing staff, new college services/programs, additional staff training, etc.) at the colleges, which enabled the colleges to change their institutional culture, to leverage resources, to develop new leaders, and to increase professional development

* Many of the RCCI projects included K-12 systems. Those community-partnering initiatives helped to produce a more college-ready student for the community college, and also forged stronger links between faculty at the different educational levels.

The Future of RCCI

This summer, RCCI entered into a new four-year phase in which it will transition from a demonstration project to an ongoing initiative. But there's one hitch: RCCI schools will no Longer receive direct grants from the Ford Foundation.

"The centers and MDC have been challenged by Ford to find ways to preserve the most essential and effective pieces of RCCI in the next phase of the initiative's evolution." Lincoln says. "RCCI newcomers will have to identify other resources in their communities or from public and private philanthropy to cover their implementation costs." But with $20 million invested in RCCI to date, the foundation will add another $2 million to create permanent homes for RCCI. Two regional Rural Development Centers--one at Iowa State University and the other at Mississippi State University--have been selected by the foundation. The centers will spearhead two new cycles of RCCI colleges (eight new colleges in 2003, 12 additional sites in 2005), host training institutes, and as sign coaches to work with the sites as they engage in strategic planning with their communities and implement their RCCI plans. According to Lincoln, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is funding the regional Rural Development Centers; part of the agency's mission is to work with [and grant universities to promote community development. In fact, says Lincoln, the USDA could provide grants to the centers to help them secure funds beyond 2006. Beyond that, RCCI schools may look to their host land-grant institutions (Iowa State and Mississippi State) to provide resources to the centers to continue the work; other grants might be secured from public or private resources.

The Rural Community College Alliance (www.ruralcommunitycolleges.org), created by RCCI college presidents in June of 2000, will work closely with the centers to recruit new corteges into RCCI. At the first annual RCCA conference (October 7-9 in Memphis, TN), members of RCCA will encourage new RCCI sites to visit theft campuses to learn more about the work they have done under the program. The hope: that more and more community colleges across rural America will work with their communities to elevate the level of life and work in those areas, and make "distressed rural America" a catchphrase of the past.

RCCI Focus: Mountain Empire Community College 

People in Big Stone Gap, VA thought coal was always going to be a booming industry; it was the cornerstone of the area's economy. But since the 1980s, industry hiring declined as mining process efficiency increased. Then the area's textile companies began to move offshore, taking jobs with them. The region needed to diversify its economy, but it needed community leadership to do it.

To tackle this challenge, in 1999 administrators at MECC organized the "Moving Mountains Economic Summit." They invited national experts on community development to introduce local citizens to new ideas and strategies, and to better inform them about how a successful economy works. MECC also initiated off-site training activities, sending regional leaders to other communities to view, firsthand, the elements that had contributed to economic turnaround there. One 72-member group (including three state legislators, directors of the Planning District Commission, business leaders. K-12 education leaders, hospital administrators, college personnel, other elected officials, and individuals who were serving on economic development boards) traveled to Tupelo MS, formerly one of the poorest areas in the United States. Tupelo is now seeking a larger local workforce to satisfy all of the employment opportunities that abound there. The more MECC became involved in leadership development, the more campus officials recognized the structural weaknesses in their communities.

We don't have the network of services that exists in urban areas," says Donna Stanley, MECC's director of Institutional Advancement. "There aren't 15 agencies working to solve the same problems. We have to create a situation in rural areas where everyone is willing to bring his expertise to the table to generate the dollars we need to get things done." To develop projects such as the creation of a new business incubator and infrastructure development, MECC administrators soon learned to partner with their own community experts.

Results. Since personnel from the area's Planning District Commission provide planning and grant-writing services for local governments, it made sense for them to write the grant proposal for the incubator. But the commission did not have the expertise in entrepreneurship and working with small businesses, so it organized a board of directors for the incubator, adding a representative from MECC (the college has hosted the Small Business Development Center, a partnership program with the U.S. Small Business Administration, since 1991).

The Planning District Commission obtained grants for construction and operations form the Federal Economic Development Administration ($300,000), USDA Rural Development ($400,000), the Tennessee Valley Authority ($250,000), the Duffield Development Authority ($300,00), and the Applachian Regional Commission's Entrepreneurship Initiative ($35,000), among others. (Duffiled is in Scott Country, one of the counties in the school's service region.) Yet, even with these partners in tow, the operating money was not sufficient. So, MECC supplemented the operating resources by providing a part-time incubator director (on loan from his post as MECC's Small Business Development Center director), and by providing $13,000 from its RCCI grant to fund a portion of the salary of a clerical staff member.

The incubator, the 46,000-square-foot Pioneer Center, opened its doors three years ago, complete with office space and manufacturing bays. "It supports local people to create local employment, which is less likely to move form the region," says Stanley. And indeed, one incubator success story is a software company that is drawing dollars from all over the world. The company's product, created for schools, screens inappropriate material from the Internet. Since its inception, the firm has partnered with Microsoft, patented some of its processes, and attracted venture capital funding--just your average rural business.

MECC also partnered with the Planning District Commission to deal to the issue of unpotable drinking water in the region. The college brought its endowment expertise to the PDC, to create a gap-financing endowment that would ensure water system development. The result--the Coalfield Water Development Fund--provides grant assistance for water system construction in seven counties and one city in southwestern Virginia, to meet water project construction costs that are only partially covered by federal and state funding. Grants awarded by the CWDF come from earnings on the endowment and from private contributions, which MECC helps to secure. The endowment was initially funded with a $294,000 grant from the EPA. It was further capitalizes with $10 million in loan funding, provided at 0% interest for 30 years, from Virginia's Drinking Water Revolving Loan Fund. As of March, the fund has provided improved water conditions for 3,783 residential water users, many of whom had no safe drinking water.

Says Stanley: "The college acts as administering agent for the fund and helps raise money, but the board is comprised of planning district, health department, and coal company people, as well as fund donors and others who understand the water needs. The partnerships new emerging in rural areas are different from those of the past," she adds. "Today, MECC invites community members to serve on planning teams to design new programs, rather than serve in advisory roles after programs are created by college personnel."

RCCI Focus: Salish Kootenai College 

SKC President Joe McDonald admits them are a lot of challenges in rural America, but his greatest is that of delivering business development education to the Native Americans on the Flathead Reservation, which the Pablo, MT college serves. They are simply not used to operating businesses, McDonald maintains.

"They'll do a great job of selling beadwork and crafts one-on-one, but their mindset is not about opening stores," he says. That's why small business development is the centerpiece of SKCs economic expansion strategy, At the root of that strategy, says McDonald; is a need to change the Native American mindset about business. In 1994, the college moved toward that objective when it established the Tribal Business Assistance Center. The center's mission: "To provide technical assistance to individuals pursuing a small business by way of individual consultation with business advisors, small business workshops, and business administration courses which have been created especially for the small business owner."

Results. Since its creation, TBAC (which received a generous boost from RCCI) has helped students as well as Native American and non-Native American entrepreneurs launch more than 200 businesses. Among the success stories: an Indian entrepreneur who approached the center for the funds to make teepees. "No one buys teepees" was the response he had received from many banks. But employees at the center helped him secure several revolving loans, and he found clients across the country. Later, the center introduced him to a firm that connects minorities with Fortune 500 companies. He now employs around 30 people, and his company's teepee-making equipment also turns our employee aprons for restaurants such as Olive Garden and Red Lobster. The TBAC Was also behind the creation of the Flathead Nations Agriculture Cooperative, which has helped Flathead entrepreneurs develop a line of beef jerky that will be marketed nationwide this fall under the brand name Crooked Bow. And a New Business Entrepreneur degree has grown out of classes originally offered at the center. The curriculum helps aspiring business owners deal with the conflict they feel between their communal tribal values and individualistic, entrepreneurial values.

Last year, however, McDonald and TBAC director Nancy Warneke concluded they were setting up businesses to fail because they were sending them out into a community infrastructure that couldn't support them. They realized that there simply weren't enough storefront spaces for rent on the reservation. Their solution, created with the help of the TBAC, is the Ktunaxa Community Development Corporation, a non-profit self-help agency that brings jobs, housing, and healthcare to the local communities of Elmo, Big Ann, and Dayton. (Communities located within the reservation are Ronan, Poison, St. Ignatius, Arlee, Hot Springs, Pablo, Elmo, and Carlo,) Next spring, the KCDC will break ground on a 12,000-sguare-foot "village center" complete with commercial space and a new healthcare facility anchor that will serve Elmo, This past year, the KCDC completed a housing project in Elmo that created jobs and resulted in 10 new homes for low-income tribal members. Each purchasing family provided 900 hours of sweat equity (worth about $30,000) as pert of the deal Construction was financed by a grant of $330,340 hem the U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development.

"There's no steady source of income for these projects," says Warneke, "so we have to hustle for the grants to survive. But we're making a difference, so we just hang in there."

RCCI Focus: Southeastern Community College

With the arrival of a new president in 1988, Whiteville, NC's Southeastern Community College adopted a more proactive role in economic development, focusing its efforts on attracting and retaining new businesses. "We serve as part of the economic development recruitment team for business and industry wishing to locate in our area," says Beverlee Nance, VP of Continuing Education and Economic Development. "We make presentations about training and services we can provide for those who want to locate in our area. We've actually become part of the incentive package." To that end, in 1998 the school opened the Business and Industry Skills Center to research the needs of relocating firms, Administrators at the center contact relocating firms early in the decision-making process with a customized package of relocation support services that not only includes workforce training, but assistance to the firm's management staff, and technical support during construction.

In its new role, SCC has also lead efforts to come up with a Columbus County Strategic Plan for 1998-2007, The 10-year strategic plan that the college helped to devise addresses a range of objectives related to public school funding, standardized test scores, infrastructure improvements, agricultural production, wages, poverty, unemployment, and opportunities for minorities.

With through-the-ranks commitment from SCCs president to the dean of Continuing Education, the school has become an integral partner of the regional public and private sectors, the county government and state agencies such as the Columbus County Economic Development Commission.

Administrators made sure all parties who had something to offer to the strategic plan were involved in the planning efforts. That included educators, government officials, service agencies, plant managers, entrepreneurs, healthcare agencies, the general public, financial institutions, and the media. Key to the planning success was the implementation of a "gentleman's agreement" stipulating that any turf issues between the factions involved would not come into play. SCC administrators invited in-the-trenches individuals to make presentations that would help the planning team determine the current economic state of the county.

Says Nance, "We heard 25 presentations from all walks of life: service agency heads, farmers, educational institutions, and large and small business owners. Even our own vice president of Curriculum Instruction and Institutional Effectiveness presented data so that everyone could review the college's report card."

Results, Since 1998, SCC has been instrumental in bringing four international firms to Columbus County; three in the last four years. The relocated companies have, to date, made a combined investment in the community of $31.5 million: they have also created morn than 300 jobs.

In addition, the partnerships forged during the strategic planning process have resulted in new programs that further highlight the schools commitment to economic development After SCC representatives met with relocating firms to determine training needs the college (which has always offered continuing education classes) launched new programs as well: new training programs; a computer literacy program; remedial courses for aspiring healthcare professionals: basic skills enhancement for individuals heading to, or back to, college; and a manufacturing certification program.

Opportunities for the Hispanic population (the fastest-growing segment of the local population), as well as those for low-functioning adults, were also expanded, SCC added more class locations, hired additional staff, and tailored basic-skills classes to meet the needs of the students, The college also hired an outreach specialist for basic skills, and a Latino ESL recruiter. In addition, faculty members were provided with professional development opportunities so that they could better relate to the Hispanic population.

To help curtail turnover rates, SEE incorporated work ethics into the curriculum. And the college started a Youth Entrepreneurship Program in the public schools to expose middle- and high school students to a business atmosphere before they enter the college environment.

"You have to have top-down commitment to make sure it is the mission of the college to be involved in economic development," Nance maintains. "If you have that commitment, then there's no telling where you can go; the sky's the limit."