Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting

Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting: The NC100 meeting followed the conference presentations, thus the group was able to reflect on the findings of the presenters as they discussed plans for moving forward. The committee organized these reflections into five clusters identifying important areas for future research including: immigration and poverty, secondary data sources, the role of school and education as they relate to poverty in the rural Midwest, understanding the impact of poverty research on policy, and employment practices and poverty. The committee focused in on the last item as a topic of interest to all. They worked on clarifying objectives and methodologies to address community types, employer practices and impact on poverty reduction. The committee will work together to submit a collective proposal for additional funding. While the committee members feel like they are appropriate participants in this project, they will also identify addition faculty who might want to join the committee

Completed 2004 milestone: The North Central Regional Center in collaboration with RUPRI convened a conference on cultural perceptions of poverty and implications for rural development in the rural Midwest.(The conference also included the meeting of the NC1100 committee.) Information on the conference is available at: http://www.ncrcrd.iastate.edu/poverty/proceedings.html Specific accomplishments related to the conference include: 1. Brought together eighteen presenters from 10 institutions (8 universities, 1 foundation, and one governmental research unit). 2. Papers addressed how place affects poverty and how place can mediate the effect of policy on poverty. 3. Researchers identified 5 themes for future research: a. Immigration. Work to improve data availability and collection. Study the impact of exclusion on immigrants and their children as well as attitudes toward immigrants on the part of local community members, policy makers, institutions and organizations. Strategize how to bring good research to the attention of policy makers. b. Place and culture. Work with researchers who produce secondary data to include more questions on place and culture. c. Education, family and poverty. Study the interaction of education on families as well as, the impact of families on schools to increase our understanding of poverty. d. Policy impacts. Achieve a better understanding the impact of research in this fields impact on policy e. Employment. Research the interaction between low wage work, and well-being of workers in addressing poverty.

None at this time