Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting

During its second annual meeting, the committee organized a series of presentations by committee members related to project objectives. The goal was to generate ideas for collaboration and to assess how our collective research was contributing to the goals of W-3001 (see minutes of the annual meeting).

Members contributed 8 articles—and served as one of the co-editors for—Rural America in a Globalizing World: Problems and Prospects For the 2010s. The book provides advanced policy scholarship on rural America, specifically on the changing structure of North American agriculture, natural resources and the environment, demographics, diversity, and quality of life in rural communities. W3001 members also published 24 refereed-journal articles and several policy briefs and research reports aimed at stakeholders and policymakers (see list of publications).

Members received external funding to extend and build on project-related research:  National Science Foundation Grant, $297,000, 2014-2017, to complete the first international comparative analysis of rural gentrification; USDA-ERS Cooperative Agreement, $22,000, 2011–2014, to study the geographies of high cost lending and housing crisis in rural and nonmetropolitan regions; HUD grant of $22,000 to add a longitudinal element to the USDA project by using HUD’s American Housing Survey Data (2012-2014); The Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality New Scholars Grant Program, $20,000, 2013-2014, to examine Hispanic health care access and utilization in rural and urban new and established destinations; National Science Foundation, $179,493, 2001-2012, to study local state responses to recession and socioeconomic well-being; Appalachian Research Initiative for Environmental Science, $208,000, 2013-2015, to study the mining industry and its relationship to community well-being; Northern Research Station of the U.S.D.A Forest Service, $149,000, 2014-2016, to study demographic transformations in the forest regions of nonmetropolitan America.

During it second year, committee members engaged in significant outreach and research dissemination. In Mississippi, a workshop was conducted on the use of socio-demographic and economic data to inform community and economic development initiatives. Numerous presentations were made at international conferences at the annual meetings of the Rural Sociological Society, the Population Association of America, the Association of American Geographers, the American Sociological Association, and several other groups.

Briefings and consultations were made to policymakers and stakeholder groups, including Minnesota State Legislature, Michigan State University Fisheries and Wildlife Department, Michigan Tech University School of Forest Resources and Environmental Sciences, the Interagency Working Group on Scenarios and Interpretive Sciences, U.S, Global Change Research Program, senior staff of the U.S. Forest Service, New Hampshire Department of Education, Association of Health Care Journalists, USDA Rural Utilities Service CPA Conference, National Institute for Social Work and Human Services in Rural Areas, USDA Rural Development-Cooperative Programs, U.S. Census Bureau, Department of Veterans Affairs, Offices of Congress members Elijah E. Cummings, Chris Gibson, and Barbara Mikulski, Fannie Mae's Economic & Strategic Research Group, and the Corporation for National and Community Service.

Members communicated research findings to the public with numerous interviews through many media outlets, including the New York Times, NBC News, Bloomberg News, Wisconsin Public Radio, and USDA radio.