RDLN Rural Development Institute

RDLN Rural Development InstituteClick here for an application.

The four-and-a half week RDLN Rural Development Institute is held every other year during May and June at the University of California at Davis. It has been hosted by the Department of Human and Community Development in the College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences.

At the Institute, there is intensive study and exchange among peers from different regions. Core couresework in the following areas complements the independent study designed by Leaders in consultation with their Advisors for the rest of the credits:

Learning Components

A. Overview of Rural America

Introduction to major regions, peoples, problems, and challenges of the rural United States, with an emphasis on groups and places in poverty and special emphasis on communities represented by RDLN Leaders. A look at the interrelationship of history, culture, socioeconomic factors, and choice of strategy for change. Identification of historical and contemporary trends in the rural U.S. Field trip to community projects in California, including those headed by RDLN Leaders

B. Tools for Rural Development

Introduction to skills and mechanism useful for comprehensive rural community development: organization and management, library research, documents research and analysis, fundraising, expository writing, interpretation of statistics, accessing data, organizing, review of programs, structures and technologies, such as agriculture and food systems, credit mechanisms, youth programs, cultural programs, community controlled educational institutions, appropriate technology, housing. May include special emphases on topics related to Leaders' field projects..

C. Economics and Economic Development

Introduction to basic economic concepts and methodology. Examination of determinants of economic growth and development. Opportunity to develop analytical skills in regard to problems of economic development in rural areas, including an understanding of alternative institutional systems and structures for the production and distribution of goods and services. Investigation of how alternative institutional structures influence the quality of life in rural areas.

Overview of financial markets, institutions and instruments, including the Federal Reserve system. Introduction to specific applications such as cost/benefit analysis of rural development projects and analysis to tax impact and to such functions as financial intermediation and financial leveraging.

Discussion of specific economic development efforts in some depth through case studies, including examples from communities where RDLN students live and work.

D. Organization and Management

Review of structures of community development organizations; the process of setting institutional goals and objectives; review of alternative strategies for coordinating the accomplishment of goals and objectives; alternative means of budgeting and cash flow analysis; overseeing work flow; matching organizational structure to the type and size of the enterprise.

Resource People - Core Faculty

Dr. Satyananda Gabriel, Economics and Economic Development

Dr. Satya J. Gabriel, a full professor at Mt. Holyoke College and RDLN's Academic Coordinator, is an economist specializing in rural economic development. A native Arkansan, he has worked with rural leaders since he was a graduate student and has committed himself to developing the theoretical tools necessary for the success of rural community activities. His Ph.D dissertation provided a new way of understanding economic development based upon productive self-employment and economic self-sufficiency. He has worked with the Urban League in Portland, Oregon, at the Center for Popular Economics in Amherst, Massachusetts and has served as editorial director of Food First in Berkeley, California.

He has taught Economics in Vietnam and at Nanjing University in China. He is the author of Chinese Capitalism and the Modernist Vision (Routledge, 2006), and Dream Death, a book of poems (2007).

Isao Fujimoto, Overview of Rural Issues

Isao Fujimoto spent part of his childhood in an internment camp during World War II and also grew up on the Yakima Indian Reservation in Washington State.One of the founders of Community and Regional Development department at the University of California at Davis, where he is Senior Lecturer Emeritus, he also has chaired the Asian American Studies program there. He is a past recipient of an excellence in teaching award from the Rural Sociological Society. He has mentored many students who have gone on to do significant community development work, and he has also worked with a number of grassroots groups in the Pacific Rim. He was co-editor of Change in Rural America and has served on the boards of Rural America, Institute for Rural Studies, Food First, and National Center for Appropriate Technology, among other organizations.

Isao Fujimoto has worked with all RDLN Leaders in every group of RDLN Leaders, and he has participated in our Assemblies in diverse rural communities.

Maria Varela, Reclaiming Original Economies

Maria Varela has been a community organizer since 1962 when she joined the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in Selma Alabama. As part of her movement work, she developed a photographic exhibit of participants and marches.

In 1967, responding to a request from leaders of the Hispano land rights movement, she moved to New Mexico, where she founded model economic development programs, Ganados del Valle,Tierra Wools, and Pastores General Store, among other sustainable enterprises that have contributed to economic and cultural self determination. In 1990, she was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship for this work. The subject of a Smithsonian article on conflicts between environmentalists and land based people, she is co-author of Rural Environmental Planning (Island Press, 1991). She is Acting Director of the Hulbert Center for Southwestern Studies at Colorado College. And Coordinator of the Colorado College Southwest Studies Research Fellowship Program.

Maria earned her master's degree through the National Rural Fellows program, and her project work in northern New Mexico inspired the field project emphasis of RDLN.

Grizelle Apodaca, Tools for Rural Development (includes Organization and Management)

Grizelle Apodaca is President & CEO of Eslabon Associates, Inc., a consulting firm that has provided organizational development and management advice, training, and other services to non-profit organizations for the past seventeen years. She previously was Director of Affiliate Services for the National Council of La Raza, a national advocacy organization focused on reducing poverty and discrimination, and improving opportunities, for Hispanic Americans. Coaching and on-site, ongoing technical assistance are her preference although she is often called upon to facilitate Board retreats and provide training in defining and measuring outcomes.

She has assisted the United Way of America to gather a cadre of facilitators that represent diverse communities to facilitate Affinity Groups to guide United Way of America's efforts to recruit from, retain staff of and better serve those communities. Ms. Apodaca is Vice Chair of Farmworker Justice, a national nonprofit organization based inWashington, D.C. that works to improve the wages and working conditions of farmworkers. She holds a master's degree in Latin American Studies from San Diego State University.

Dr. Margaret Eldred, Writing Workshops

Margaret Eldred received her Ph.D in English Literature from the University of California at Davis in 1986, and she taught English Composition there until she retired in 2002. She also presented writing workshops to faculty and students throughout the university and edited Writing on the Edge, a journal on writing and teaching writing. Her teaching specialties were report writing, magazine article writing and writing in the disciplines, especially in engineering and the sciences.

She also published general interest articles on gardening and on travel, and she has recently renewed her study and practice of art.

She has taught writing workshops for RDLN since 1991 at the institute, at writing retreats in rural communities, and through RDLN webinars.

Resource People - Visiting Professors and Practitioners

Gordon Goodwin, Economics

Dr. Al Sokolow, Chair, Department of Human and Community Development, University of California, Davis

Desmond Jolly

Dr. Annie King, Associate Dean, College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences

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`Resource People - Core Faculty`
	Dr. Satyananda Gabriel, *Economics and Economic Development* Dr. Satya J. Gabriel, a full professor at Mt. Holyoke College and RDLN's Academic Coordinator, is an economist specializing in rural economic development. A native Arkansan, he has worked with rural leaders since he was a graduate student and has committed himself to developing the theoretical tools necessary for the success of rural community activities. His Ph.D dissertation provided a new way of understanding economic development based upon productive self-employment and economic self-sufficiency. He has worked with the Urban League in Portland, Oregon, at the Center for Popular Economics in Amherst, Massachusetts and has served as editorial director of Food First in Berkeley, California. He has taught Economics in Vietnam and at Nanjing University in China. He is the author of Chinese Capitalism and the Modernist Vision (Routledge, 2006), and Dream Death, a book of poems (2007).
	Isao Fujimoto, *Overview of Rural Issues* Isao Fujimoto spent part of his childhood in an internment camp during World War II and also grew up on the Yakima Indian Reservation in Washington State.One of the founders of Community and Regional Development department at the University of California at Davis, where he is Senior Lecturer Emeritus, he also has chaired the Asian American Studies program there. He is a past recipient of an excellence in teaching award from the Rural Sociological Society. He has mentored many students who have gone on to do significant community development work, and he has also worked with a number of grassroots groups in the Pacific Rim. He was co-editor of Change in Rural America and has served on the boards of Rural America, Institute for Rural Studies, Food First, and National Center for Appropriate Technology, among other organizations. Isao Fujimoto has worked with all RDLN Leaders in every group of RDLN Leaders, and he has participated in our Assemblies in diverse rural communities.
	Maria Varela, *Reclaiming Original Economies* Maria Varela has been a community organizer since 1962 when she joined the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in Selma Alabama. As part of her movement work, she developed a photographic exhibit of participants and marches. In 1967, responding to a request from leaders of the Hispano land rights movement, she moved to New Mexico, where she founded model economic development programs, Ganados del Valle,Tierra Wools, and Pastores General Store, among other sustainable enterprises that have contributed to economic and cultural self determination. In 1990, she was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship for this work. The subject of a Smithsonian article on conflicts between environmentalists and land based people, she is co-author of Rural Environmental Planning (Island Press, 1991). She is Acting Director of the Hulbert Center for Southwestern Studies at Colorado College. And Coordinator of the Colorado College Southwest Studies Research Fellowship Program. Maria earned her master's degree through the National Rural Fellows program, and her project work in northern New Mexico inspired the field project emphasis of RDLN.
	Grizelle Apodaca, Tools for Rural Development (includes Organization and Management) Grizelle Apodaca is President & CEO of Eslabon Associates, Inc., a consulting firm that has provided organizational development and management advice, training, and other services to non-profit organizations for the past seventeen years. She previously was Director of Affiliate Services for the National Council of La Raza, a national advocacy organization focused on reducing poverty and discrimination, and improving opportunities, for Hispanic Americans. Coaching and on-site, ongoing technical assistance are her preference although she is often called upon to facilitate Board retreats and provide training in defining and measuring outcomes. She has assisted the United Way of America to gather a cadre of facilitators that represent diverse communities to facilitate Affinity Groups to guide United Way of America's efforts to recruit from, retain staff of and better serve those communities. Ms. Apodaca is Vice Chair of Farmworker Justice, a national nonprofit organization based inWashington, D.C. that works to improve the wages and working conditions of farmworkers. She holds a master's degree in Latin American Studies from San Diego State University.
	Dr. Margaret Eldred, Writing *Workshops* Margaret Eldred received her Ph.D in English Literature from the University of California at Davis in 1986, and she taught English Composition there until she retired in 2002. She also presented writing workshops to faculty and students throughout the university and edited Writing on the Edge, a journal on writing and teaching writing. Her teaching specialties were report writing, magazine article writing and writing in the disciplines, especially in engineering and the sciences. She also published general interest articles on gardening and on travel, and she has recently renewed her study and practice of art. She has taught writing workshops for RDLN since 1991 at the institute, at writing retreats in rural communities, and through RDLN webinars.
`Resource People - Visiting Professors and Practitioners`
	Gordon Goodwin, Economics
	Dr. Al Sokolow, Chair, Department of Human and Community Development, University of California, Davis
	Desmond Jolly
	Dr. Annie King, Associate Dean, College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences