Urban universities have long faced a critical challenge to help K-12 schools, students, and families effectively access a college education. While colleges and universities have embraced strategies such as charter and partner schools, these interventions do not always result in a robust pipeline of students entering the higher education system.…

In an era of increasing complexity, the majority of local land-use decisions in the United States are made by volunteer citizen planners. Often these elected or appointed volunteers enter their positions with a passion for their communities but without appropriate background training. The Michigan Citizen Planner Program was developed to address…

For decades, research on geography of opportunity has indicated that where people live impacts their access to opportunities, especially education. Most research on geography of opportunity has focused on spatial inequality between low and high opportunity neighborhoods, which has unintentionally fostered narrow perspectives about low-opportunity…

The most pressing social problems facing humanity in the 21st century are what systems theorist Russell Ackoff referred to as "messes"--complex dynamic systems of problems that interact and reinforce each other over time. In this article, the authors argue that the lack of progress in managing messes is in part due to the predominance of…

The AgShare Phase I Program, conducted at Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda, was formed to create open education resources for teaching and community development through action research. The study was conducted by an interdisciplinary team of investigators from fields of veterinary medicine and agri-business. Two master of science students…

In the past decade, economic development experts have moved away from traditional approaches to economic development that have relied upon recruiting or attracting large businesses with offers of tax breaks, financial incentives, and other subsidies. Increasingly, communities are focusing their economic development resources on supporting the…

Residence life programs play a key role in recruiting students, helping them make a successful transition to a new institution, and in retaining them, whether students are enrolling for the first time, transferring from another institution, or entering graduate school. Chapters in this book address theories of learning and development, new…

In an effort to determine the extent to which the development of the retirement function can contribute to growth and development of rural communities, 42 counties not adjacent to Standard Metropolitan Statistical Areas in Michigan were studied. The retirement function was treated as a specialized community function, parallel to specialization…

The recent, widespread trend toward rural migration can create disturbances in the organization of the host community by overloading community services and by creating conflict between oldtimers and newcomers. To obtain information about community disturbances and migration in Michigan, questionnaires were sent to a random sample of 21,792…

An evaluation of four experimental programs designed to stimulate participation of agricultural and rural leaders in public affairs assessed the effectiveness of leadership training on young men and women in California, Michigan, Montana, and Pennsylvania. Varying from two to three years in length, the programs emphasized the analysis of major…