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Authors
Brian Dabson, a pracademic with over 40 years in community and economic development policy and practice in the United Kingdom and the United States, consults, researches and writes on rural and regional economic development, entrepreneurship, and regional collaboration and governance. His prior experience includes leading the Corporation for Enterprise Development (now Prosperity Now), the Rural Policy Research Institute, and Institute for Public Policy at the University of Missouri.
Marjory Givens is the Associate Director of the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute (UWPHI), the Co-Director of the County Health Rankings & Roadmaps program, and Assistant Professor (CHS) of Population Health Sciences. Marjory has worked throughout her career to center health and equity in community decision-making.
Hilary Joyner is an Evaluation Researcher and Epidemiologist at UWPHI. Her research centers equity in the measurement and evaluation of community-driven programs and policies to support health.
Olivia Little is an Evaluation Scientist and Translational Researcher at UWPHI. Her research is focused on how local communities incorporate equity into their community-wide systems and institutions.
Minority-Serving Institutions (MSIs) – universities and colleges that enroll a significant percentage of minority students – are located throughout the nation in nearly every state. Our recent briefs focus on the potential for these institutions to produce more rural research and integrate rural perspectives into established and developing rural-focused research systems.
As MSI research efforts are predominantly led and conducted by scholars from minority communities, these institutions are in a position to bring minority voices into research agendas. There is a clear opportunity to advance rural research and racial equity by centering minority and rural scholars’ voices and shifting power and resources to MSIs and rural scholars.
In our latest research brief, Connecting Minority-Serving Institutions and Rural Research, long-time Aspen CSG partners Marjory Givens, Brian Dabson, Hilary Joyner, and Olivia Little explore strategies for MSIs’ to produce research needed to develop and implement solutions aligned with rural needs.
This brief builds on Aspen CSG’s past work on Building Trust and Visibility Through Community-Based Participatory Research at Rural MSIs. Both reports make clear that MSIs are at the forefront of designing new models of teaching and learning, research, and leadership development. More funding for MSIs and Indigenous research networks within rural research systems is an essential strategy to amplifying the distinctive difference MSIs can make in rural research.
Thrive Rural Framework Connection: This brief examines some of the driving forces and conditions – building blocks – that determine Rural Voice and Power, specifically ensuring a rural voice in design and action, the alignment of rural fields and actors, and an accurate rural narrative.
Researchers produce knowledge that plays a role in shaping culture, policy, and in effect, the distribution of resources. To realize the potential of rural communities, the network of higher education institutions and their research practices benefit from centering and grounding the production of knowledge in rural, minority voices. Doing so also works towards greater racial equity in the higher education landscape. Minority Serving Institutions play a crucial role in this change strategy.
Summary
Research institutions and networks play a foundational role in understanding and bringing awareness to rural issues. Research can help garner the support and resources needed to develop, implement, and evaluate solutions aligned with rural needs and experiences. Given the role of Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs) as an entry point into the middle class for many individuals and as anchor institutions in small and rural communities, this brief explores intersections between rural research and MSIs. We provide an overview of rural-focused research systems and MSIs, with a focus on their intersections, research activity and capacity, and opportunities for integration. We show that there is both substantial research activity coming from MSIs and the Indigenous research ecosystem, but also gaps and barriers related to the availability of research support within the context of how MSIs are structured and how research is funded.
This overview aims to uncover opportunities to better integrate and leverage rural perspectives and actors within rural research. We outline several key considerations and future questions for researchers, funders, and policymakers working to advance rural equity. In particular, we highlight opportunities to advance rural research and racial equity through centering the voices of minority and rural scholars and to shift power and resources to MSIs and rural scholars to own, lead, and set research agendas that directly address issues of rural and racial equity.
Rural research systems include research institutes, centers, and networks along with research programs at higher education institutions where research on rural issues and populations is being conducted and disseminated. Understanding rural research systems—who is part of the research landscape, what is being researched, and how that research is being informed by rural perspectives and actors—is a critical starting place to bring rural voices and experiences to the forefront of this work. One underexplored area is how Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs) fit into the rural development and research landscape.
This brief is a starting point for understanding rural research systems, the existing and potential connections with MSIs, and how these connections could be better leveraged to center rural perspectives and actors to drive change. First, we provide an overview of rural-focused research systems and the institutional overlap between these systems and MSIs. We then describe indicators of research activity and capacity for different types of MSIs as well as the Indigenous research ecosystem and discuss potential intersections with rural research. We conclude by raising key considerations and future questions to further scholarship, practice, and policy change that will advance research that centers rural and minority voices. This brief is based on desk research that has not been ground-truthed with rural scholars and practitioners and thus is intended as a starting point for discussion to inform research agendas, resource allocation, and scholarship in rural equity research.
Rural-Focused Research Systems
Research focused on rural people, places, policies, and practices is conducted at many higher education institutions across the United States. Most of these institutions are land-grant universities (see Glossary). Research is one of the three pillars of the land-grant system (the others being teaching and extension), and is conducted through the State Agricultural Experiment Stations, the Cooperative Extension Service, and the National Institute for Food and Agriculture. Within the 1862 land-grant university system, there are several well-established federally-supported nodes and networks of research activity that focus on non-agricultural rural topics and issues. We group these into three categories: regional rural development centers, rural health research centers, and rural research clusters.
Key Considerations and Research Questions
This initial overview of rural research and intersections with MSIs raises several key considerations and future questions for researchers, funders, and policymakers working to advance rural equity. In particular, advancing rural equity requires centering the voices of minority and rural scholars. Future work can help uplift presently marginalized or missing perspectives in rural scholarship, connect and expand existing networks of rural research institutions and scholars, establish a shared research agenda, and adequately resource minority research institutions and scholars.
- Research should further explore the shared strengths and challenges of MSIs and their roles within rural research systems.
Marybeth Gasman and the Centers for Minority Serving Institutions at the University of Pennsylvania and Rutgers University argue that despite the differences in history, size, and focus, there is much to be gained by exploring and building on the commonalities of MSIs across institutional types. For example, in their brief in this series, Gasman and colleagues discuss the potential of community-based participatory research and the crucial role of MSIs in “centering and grounding the production of knowledge in rural voices and concerns, and addressing power imbalances in research and practice.” - Establishing a shared research agenda for rural equity will require connecting existing networks of rural research institutions and scholars,
along with expanding networks to include more diverse and presently missing or marginalized perspectives. This means acknowledging and learning more about the distinctions in minority higher education and research systems, and integrating scholarship led by minority researchers that focuses on either rural or racial equity issues. The overview in this brief helps consider some connections that could be made, along with key future research questions, for example:- The land-grant university system encompasses three categories of institution – 57 universities designated as 1862 institutions, which are often the main public or flagship university in every state and tend to be predominantly white; 19 (out of 100 total) HBCUs; and all 32 accredited TCUs. There are systems and mechanisms in place to pursue cooperative research between these institutions under the purview of the US Department of Agriculture, specifically the four rural regional development centers. To what extent is this potential cooperation a reality that engages HBCUs and TCUs in a meaningful way? What are the barriers and facilitators to cooperative research in this context?
- HBCUs represent a long-established national system of higher education with a clear mission to advance the education of Black Americans. At least ten HBCUs are already recognized as doctoral universities with high research activity (R2), and some of these aspire to rise to the top level of university research institutions (R1). To what extent does this research activity have relevance to rural issues? What incentives or resources might stimulate new or accelerate existing research with a rural focus?
- There appears to be a robust ecosystem of Indigenous research, of which TCUs are a small but important player. Is there a case for expanding the research mission at some TCUs? How can rural research be more inclusive of TCUs? What considerations are there around engaging Tribal governments as a part of the Indigenous research infrastructure?
- Future research should take a critical lens to how rural research systems are supported and funded.
It should also further examine ways that discrimination and racism embedded into our systems, which affect communities of color across most aspects of our society, also impede MSIs and minority scholars from engaging in rural research systems. A more detailed understanding of institutional infrastructure, funding streams, and decision-making within these research networks will help identify systemic barriers and ways to dismantle those in order to fully encourage, support, and resource MSIs as a critical player in rural equity research.
In summary, future research and action should examine the opportunities and barriers to shifting power and resources to minority-serving institutions and scholars in owning, leading, and setting research agendas that directly address issues of rural and racial equity.
