Economic Resiliency through Rural Community Colleges is a one-year Initiative supported by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to further work previously conducted in two successful rounds of a cooperative agreement related to economic resiliency and community colleges. This work involves the AACC affiliate council, the Rural Community College Alliance (RCCA) and 10 community colleges. Grantee community colleges are establishing and embedding institutional knowledge and skills related to strengthening cooperative relationships between colleges, agricultural interests including farmers, and economic development entities that will persist past the period of funding. The findings and lessons learned will be documented and disseminated to the wider RCCA and AACC networks. Under this agreement, AACC is also supporting the Community College Alliance for Agriculture Advancement (C2A3). The C2A3 Alliance is comprised of up to five community colleges spanning five states and focus on collaboration to address regional and national economic issues. This is an economic resiliency model that agricultural communities across the country engaging in economic and workforce development can use as a model for other rural and agricultural issue areas and associated needs.
The ten colleges involved in the cohort are:
- College of the Siskiyous, CA
- Dabney S. Lancaster Community College, VA
- Edison State Community College, OH
- Garrett College, MD
- Glen Oaks Community College, MI
- Mid-Plains Community College, NE
- Missouri State University, MO
- Rhodes State College, OH
- Seminole State College, OK
- University of Arkansas Community College Batesville, AR