Source: PURDUE UNIVERSITY submitted to NRP
NCRCRD-FACILITATING RESILIENT RURAL COMMUNITIES THROUGH EXTENSION, RESEARCH, AND TEACHING
Sponsoring Institution
National Institute of Food and Agriculture
Project Status
ACTIVE
Funding Source
OTHER GRANTS
Reporting Frequency
Annual
Accession No.
1031499
Grant No.
2023-51150-41114
Cumulative Award Amt.
$704,232.00
Proposal No.
2023-07645
Multistate No.
(N/A)
Project Start Date
Sep 1, 2023
Project End Date
Aug 31, 2026
Grant Year
2023
Program Code
[UU.R]- Rural Development Centers
Recipient Organization
PURDUE UNIVERSITY
(N/A)
WEST LAFAYETTE,IN 47907
Performing Department
(N/A)
Non Technical Summary
Purdue University serves as the host institution for the North Central Regional Center for Rural Development (NCRCRD). The NCRCRD facilitates relationships and extension, research, and teaching capacity among the 34 land grant institutions from 12 states in the North Central Region (NCR). The NCRCRD's work is focused on three themes: creating resilient communities and economies, developing leadership and civic engagement, and promoting community health and wellness. The NCRCRD also uses a systems approach at the intersection of: communities, businesses, and households. This proposal enhances five of USDA's current (2022-2026) strategic goals: 1) combat climate change to support America's working lands, natural resources, and communities; 2) ensure America's agricultural system is equitable, resilient, and prosperous; 3) foster an equitable and competitive marketplace for all agricultural producers; 4) provide all Americans safe, nutritious food; and 5) expand opportunities for economic development and improve quality of life in rural and Tribal communities.The Center maintains an open access dataset based on a household sample for the North Central Region titled NCR-Stat and publishes data snapshots relevanat to rural stakeholders. The purpose of the dataset is to decrease the barriers for institutions to study regional changes and conduct comparative research. The Center faciliates research and extension throughout the NCR will small grants, multistate working groups, fellowships, and conference development. The NCRCRD increases the visibility of research and Extension from the NCR through webinars and newsletters and by promoting the impact of Extension through the collection and dissemination of regionwide impact indicators.
Animal Health Component
100%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
(N/A)
Applied
100%
Developmental
(N/A)
Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)Subject of Investigation (SOI)Field of Science (FOS)Percent
6086050301030%
8076099301015%
8056099301020%
6106099301020%
8016099301015%
Knowledge Area
807 - Disaster Preparedness, Mitigation, Response, and Recovery; 805 - Community Institutions, Health, and Social Services; 608 - Community Resource Planning and Development; 801 - Individual and Family Resource Management; 610 - Domestic Policy Analysis;

Subject Of Investigation
6099 - People and communities, general/other; 6050 - Communities, areas, and regions;

Field Of Science
3010 - Economics;
Goals / Objectives
Our systems approach will foster direct, intentional engagement by the NCRCRD withall land grant institutions in the NCR through existing and nascent research and extension networks. The NCRCRD's active engagement will promote the requisite collaboration and coordinationneeded for the developmentof integrated systems-thinking networks that will enhance the collective productivity of the NCR.In the Fall 2021, the Regional Rural Development Centers (RRDCs) conducted a stakeholder survey focused on rural recovery and prosperity. The NCRCRD conducted a follow-up listening session with stakeholders from the NCR in Spring 2022 in order to better understand the context of the survey results. Out of that listening session, three topics (caregiving, housing, and health) were elevated at the intersection of workforce and economic development. These topics served as the foundation for data collection, fellowships, small grants, and working groups. In May 2023, the NCRCRD convened its Board of Directors and Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) to outline its plan of work. We used a facilitatied strategic planning session to prioritize themes and outreach mechanisms. The four topics from the listening session that were determined to be important were caregiving, housing, food security and systems, and climate change. These topics will serve as a foundation for NCR-Stat, at least one fellow, and a working group.
Project Methods
The NCRCRD maintains a baseline dataset, NCR-Stat, based on a household sample of the NCR. NCR-Stat aims to decrease the barriers for institutions to studyregionalchanges and conduct comparative research.NCR-Statwill increase regional collaboration for both research, extension, and teaching. De-identified data will be publicly available for faculty, staff, and students in the NCR using the Purdue University Research Repository.We have collected data with an emphasis on demography, economics, health, housing, environment, and social behavior. NCR-Stat includes primary economic and social data collected at the local, regional, and state levels that focus on household, business, and community wellbeing. In addition, the dataset contributes to the effort to understand the conditions and issues facing rural communities within the NCR in the three thematic areas of NCRCRD: creating resilient communities and economies, developing leadership and civic engagement, and promoting community health and wellness.The NCR-Stat: Baseline Survey is a 20-minute survey designed to provide a baseline from a social and economic perspective. The new data collection will enable a Baseline panel as data was collected in 2022 and will be collected in 2024. The focus is on households in the NCR. The survey asks questions about household demographics, income, workforce participation, entrepreneurship, caregiving, human capital, housing, broadband access, placemaking, community leadership and civic engagement, health and wellness, food security, and environment. The survey is designed to collect data that will enable the NCRCRD to produce data, statistics, and visualizations at a state level, for each of the 12 NCR states and a NCR level.Another forthcoming theme specific survey will focus on housing and food security and will be developed by an NCR team. The housing survey will focus rural housing issues and its intersection with food security and sovereignty.We issue RFPs for our grant program and distribute that RFP through multiple channels.The NCRCRD increases thevisibilityof research and extension from the NCR through webinars and newsletters and promotes Cooperative Extension's impact through the collection and dissemination of regionwide impact indicators. The NCRCRD will continue to support the following activities:Publishing a quartetly newsletter that highlights the NCRCRD's work and upcoming events.Hosting monthly webinars to connect extension professionals and researchers with innovative extension programming and research with ahighpotential for adoptionand/ordissemination.Publishing data snapshots that highlight NCR-Stat data useful to rural development practitioners and rural communities.Expanding current work with North Central program leaders to collect, highlightanddisseminate the collective impact of each program area, including cross-programmatic efforts, to NIFA and other stakeholders.Maintaining the CD Extension Library which is a national repository of programs, curricula, tools, and fact sheets shared and used among extension professionals.Hosting and providing logistical support to community development program leaders for their monthly meetings and stakeholder visits.Collaboration and Communication StrategyThe Director and Associate Director meet virtually with the Directors of the other RRDCson a monthly basis. We will also attend NCRA and NCCEA meetings annually to provide updates on NCRCRD activities and receive feedback on theCenter'simpact across the region. To ensure inclusiveness and equity, we will attend meetings sanctioned by the American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC) (i.e. FALCON) and the Association of Extension Administrators (AEA).NCRCRD Board includes reprensentation from NCRA, NCCEA, a representative from one of the 1994, and the Experiment Station and Extension Directors from Purdue. The TAC includes extension program leaders from 4-H, CFS, and CD that serve as liasons to the different program areas. It also includes faculty and staff from across the NCR with diverse subject matter expertise.The Director and Associate Director expect to meet in-person with the Board of Directors and its Technical Advisory Committee in the Spring. The Directors also meet with the both entities virtually in the Fall.The Directors also provide email updates to the Board of Directors quarterly between in-person and virtual meetings. The Advisory Committee review small grant proposals and panel data policies. The purpose of the Advisory Committee is to bring diverse viewpoints to the Center. The Advisory Committee will meet as necessarybutno less than two times annually (virtually or in-person).

Progress 09/01/23 to 08/31/24

Outputs
Target Audience:Thetarget audiences include rural community leaders and individuals living in rural communities, policymakers, and nongovernmental associations.The target audiences are also reseach and extension faculty and staff of the 34 institutions in the North Central Region. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?NCRCRD staffattended and presented at research and extension conferences. Three graduate students were part of research projects and wrote short publications that are published on the Center's website. Three students graduated and wrote theses that used NCR-Stat data. Graduate students were able to present their findings at professional conferences. Two undergraduate students have learned how to work with large datasets. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Research and outreach publications were published on our website and the websites of our collaborators. We have disseminated results through journal articles, outreach publications, webinars, social media, and conference presentations. Total registrations for the 2023 webinar series, showed a growth of 17.6% from the year before with a total of 1,230 registrants (an average of 123 registrants per webinar). Recordings of each webinar are posted on the NCRCRD YouTube channel and in 2023 the total views of all webinar recordings (1,085 views) increased 36.8% from the total views in 2022. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Grants will be awarded through our small grant program, the extension implementation grants program, and fellows program. We will continue to conduct webinars, publish our quarterly newsletter, and monthly data snapshots. We will also continue to publish short research papers that provide more in-depth use of the NCR-Stat data. We will present results of research conducted at appropriate conferences. We will continue to do site visits to our partner institutions across the region. We will conclude our project on updating the community development extension indicators that was funded by the NCR Extension Directors. We will conclude data collection on the 2024 Baseline Survey which is being collected for the North Central Region, the Northeast Region, and the Southern Region. We will continue work from two new projects that were funded in 2024. One project is focused on evaluating the New Beginnings for Tribal Students Program funded by NIFA. The other project is funded by the Delta Regional Authority and enables us to work with five communities in MO and IL in cooperation with the University of IL and University of MO.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? The director and associate director conducted site visits to the University of Minnesota, Red Lake Nation Campus in Minneapolis, Lincoln University, and the University of Missouri. Site visits allow for the directors to better understand the rural development needs of the different LGIs in their region. We find an increase in engagement with the Center after each visit. NCRCRD conducts a monthly webinar series with average registrations of 100 individuals. In its third year, the 2023 NCRCRD Webinar Series offered ten webinars that sought to facilitate and enhance collaboration across the North Central Region. To that end, NCRCRD webinars explored a diverse set of topics related to the NCRCRD thematic areas of Creating Resilient Communities, Developing Leadership and Civic Engagement, and Promoting Community Health and Wellness. As in previous years, the webinar content included North Central Region (NCR) rural development Extension projects, research and integrated work of multiple NCR institutions, and results of NCRCRD-funded grant projects. NCRCRD webinars once again proved to be a popular avenue for regional engagement in 2023. Total registrations for the 2023 series, showed a growth of 17.6% from the year before with a total of 1,230 registrants (an average of 123 registrants per webinar). Recordings of each webinar are posted on the NCRCRD YouTube channel and in 2023 the total views of all webinar recordings (1,085 views) increased 36.8% from the total views in 2022. In addition, our post-webinar attendee surveys indicated a very positive reception for the webinar content. Overall, attendees' rating for the 2023 Webinar Series averaged 4.45 (out of 5) and the likelihood of a person attending another webinar averaged 4.46 (out of 5). The Center also publishes a quarterly newsletter that goes out to over 1400 subscribers. NCRCRD also publishes monthly data snapshots that are available on its website and on AgEcon Search. NCRCRD hosts and provides logistical support to community development program leaders for their monthly meetings and stakeholder visits. We also provide an impact report every year for community development. Every year we have been able to include more LGI into the report. We have included stories by 1890s and hope to include stories by 1994s in the report in the future. NCRCRD NCR-Stat Database is open access. NCRCRD collects data focused on regional household, business, and community wellbeing focused on the three themes, across time and space. Rural businesses are essential to their communities, often employing rural residents and impacting the local economy. This survey includes data on small business owners, copreneurs, small business benefits, substance misuse and mental health, workforce development, trust and community, adjustment strategies, socioemotional wealth, financials, and business owners' households. The NCR-Stat: Small Business Survey focuses on the intersection of small businesses, benefits, and rural health. It was made available in May 2024. The NCR-Stat Database now includes the 2022 Baseline Survey, the NCR Caregiving Survey, the NER Caregiving Survey, and the Small Business Survey. The NCRCRD housing working group comprised of nine states continues to work and have met several times to work on housing issues in the NCR. The title of the working group is "Collaborate, Scan, Develop: A Multi-State DEI Rural Housing Program Based in the North Central Region". The working group is led by Iowa State University and includes Kansas State University, Michigan State University, Purdue University, University of Illinois, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, University of Missouri, and University of Wisconsin. An NCRCRD Fellow from Iowa State University worked with the housing working group to develop a housing survey that will be conducted by the Center. The title of his project is "Rural Gentrification and Housing Inequality in the North Central Region". The qualitative research component involves ethnographic research in amenity-rich rural Lake Michigan communities with recent histories of gentrification, seasonal residential patterns, and economic development among growing inequality. The NCRCRD funded four small grants that began work in Spring 2024: Enhancing rural healthcare by incorporating generative AI and machine learning: Building stronger communication networks. Partnering to customize building an entrepreneur-friendly community curriculum for the outdoor recreation sector. Assessing social value of Nebraska livestock sale barns to assist with community well-being and resiliency. Partners in produce--A food distribution project in East Central Illinois. An NCR Extension Collaboration and Implementation grant was funded titled "Bridging Horizons: Rural Career Pathway Development by UMN Extension, Red Lake Nation College, White Earth Tribal Community College, Leech Lake Tribal College, and Fond Du Lac Tribal and Community College: using APLU's FORWARD Curricula". This training and piloting grant was planned and conducted to support the UMN collaboration with tribal college peers in Minnesota to implement the FORWARD curricula developed by NCRCRD and APLU and help their respective communities strengthen STEM Career pathways they have for low-income youth. We spearheaded the work to update the community development extension indicators that was funded by the NCR Extension Directors. A workshop was conducted and included not just NCR members but also members from the other three regions and included our sister RRDCs.

Publications

  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2024 Citation: Bednarik, Z. (2024, July 31). The relationship between education and happiness: Findings from the North Central and Northeast Regions. Research Brief. North Central Regional Center for Rural Development. https://doi.org/10.22004/ag.econ.344483.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2024 Citation: Pojman, E., Becot, F., and Inwood, S. (2024, August). Variations in caregivers health and well-being in the North Central Region. Research Snapshot. North Central Regional Center for Rural Development. https://doi.org/10.22004/ag.econ.344688.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2024 Citation: Carrillo-Siller, I. (2024, September). The landscape of childcare time burden in the North Central Region. Research Snapshot. North Central Regional Center for Rural Development. https://doi.org/10.22004/ag.econ.345102
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2024 Citation: Southard, E., Becot, F., Inwood, S., and Pojman, E. (2024, October). What do caregivers in the North Central Region use for support and what support do they still need? Research Snapshot. North Central Regional Center for Rural Development. https://doi.org/10.22004/ag.econ.346770