Blog
Catching Up
My apologies for not keeping up since the early spring.
Vaughn has a contract with Kettering Foundation that has kept us on the road since about the first of March. We have been revisiting our Extraordinary Results in Ordinary Communities towns and neighborhoods in an effort to identify how citizens become civically engaged in improving or raising their quality of life. Limiting the scope to four case studies was rather like choosing among one's own children: all of our sites in 33 states are special and populated by talented and dedicated leaders.
He chose to further explore the regional efforts in western North Carolina with the assistance of HandMade in America; the creative economy of Colquitt, Georgia, which is built around folklife theater; the relationship between community and school in rural Houston, Minnesota; and the formerly drug-ridden, poverty-ridden neighborhood of Haven Acres which now is a desirable place to live and work.
After months of meeting, reading, and reflecting, we wrote an interim report to Kettering and were encouraged to continue our level of research. The fall holds return trips to each of the sites, which have now become something of a series of "return home" trips, and in December we will write the final report for this phase of the study. It has been an exciting time, and we are eager to get on the road again.
Other fall activities for Vaughn include:
September 10 Economic Development Institute, Auburn University, Auburn, Alabama
September 12-14 Workshop for the Appalachian Region at Berea College, Berea, Kentucky
October 25 - Keynote address at the 20th anniversary celebration of the North Carolina Rural
Center in Raleigh, North Carolina
October 27 - Keynote address to Southern Legislative Conference, San Antonio, Texas
In addition, he will be conducting a series of Leadership Development workshops for various communities and corporations during the fall. This represents another aspect to his research interests as he is partnering with a specific corporation to apply his leadership lessons to the operation of their billion-dollar company.
I hope to be a better blogger and put more timely information on this site during the rest of this year. Now that I have learned how to do it easily, I promise to do better.
Happy fall to y'all....
Posted by sandyg
The McLean Institute helps communities to help themselves through its twenty years of experience
The McLean Institute for Community Development is a nonprofit agency housed at The University of Mississippi. It has worked in more than thirty states and two Canadian provinces during the past twenty years. The Institute has three primary foci: research, specifically the attempt to understand the complex issues surrounding community/economic and leadership development; providing service to communities and regions; and education and training for those who work in the field of community/economic development.
- It brings the most current and best community development knowledge to local communities
- It helps to provide the basic community/economic development skills and tools necessary for communities to address its challenges
- It assists community leaders to understand and utilize the basic principles of community/economic development
- The agency assists communities in doing short term and long range planning
- It aids communities to identify and use local and external resources by doing asset mapping
- It conducts leadership development training
- The institute trains local citizens in current problem-solving techniques
- It assists communities in mobilizing its most vital resources, its own people