SUNDAY MONDAY TUESDAY WEDNESDAY
Opening Session 1:30 p.m. Lake Superior Ballroom
After morning business meetings and new member orientation, the Community
Development Society and National Rural Development Partnership members will be
welcomed by their Minnesota hosts, including Summit chairs John Kuester, Jane
Leonard and Marcie McLaughlin. Minnesota’s 8th District Congressman, the Honorable James L. Oberstar will welcome you to
his district and review congressional activities for community and rural
development. Wanda Leonard, President of the Community Development Society, and
Dennis Engelke, representing the National Rural Development Partnership, will
introduce their organizations, their missions, and their plans for next year’s
conferences. The first “Ron Shaffer Award” will be presented. This award is
given in honor of a man who has provided leadership in both organizations to
encourage barrier-busting, collaboration, leveraging resources, including
diverse stakeholders, innovation, and creating long-term, positive impacts for
rural America. And before attendees go off to their first concurrent session,
Michael Cotter, through the art of storytelling will remind us why we have
passion for the work we do.
Michael Cotter, third generation Minnesotan, farmer, dad, and storyteller. He is
a combination of pride in straight corn rows and concern for a healthy
environment. His Irish-Catholic heritage gives him the gift of compassion and
understanding, blended with a little blarney. His gentle nature invites
audiences to look deep within themselves to find their own stories. He believes
in farming, in people, and in the healing power of storytelling.
Reception
and Harbor Cruises 5 p.m.
Harbor
Side Third Level
Our opening evening reception takes place at the Harbor Side area of the
Duluth Entertainment Convention Center (DECC), nestled against Duluth’s inner
harbor. You’ll have a chance to greet old friends and make new ones. We’ll
also have the Vista Fleet cruise ship available for rotating rides in the harbor
to see the big ships from across the world, and the famous Aerial Lift Bridge.
7
Mobile
Workshops & Professional Development Seminars
Come Monday morning, all participants will have the opportunity to delve
into their favorite subjects, or new ones, over a full day or half day’s time
period. Mobile
workshop participants will board buses at the DECC on Monday morning to set out
for adventures far and wide across northern Minnesota and Wisconsin. Other
workshops will be in Duluth, along with the professional development seminars.
You may combine a half-day mobile workshop with a half-day seminar. Or take the
plunge and go all day with either mobile workshops or seminars. If you haven’t
yet signed up, please do so at the registration desk.
Community Service
Volunteers are invited to join builders on one of two housing projects in
the western suburbs of Duluth. The first is the Women
Build Project. Here’s an opportunity for women attendees to exercise
their creativity through work on two homes being built in cooperation with
Women’s Transitional Housing Coalition, a local program for women seeking to
improve their lives. You will work on all-women teams with women as construction
supervisors. The second is Habitat
for Humanity. This
is an opportunity for men to work on two houses on lots adjoining the Women
Build Project. All four families have been selected and are eagerly awaiting the
day when they will move into their new homes. You may well work with the new
homeowners themselves on these projects. This activity will run concurrently
with the Mobile Workshops and Professional
Development Seminars.
Reception
4:30 p.m.
The Minnesota Center for Rural Policy and Development welcomes Summit
participants to join elected state and local leaders at this reception. This is
a perfect time to regroup after a full day of activities and follows the
Center’s Policy Forum on the changing population of rural Minnesota.
Continental
breakfast, music and announcements 7:30 a.m. Lake
Superior Ballroom
Start this full day with a continental breakfast, music and announcements.
Performing and recording artist Michael Monroe is now in his fourth decade of
performing music for a living. His Minnesota Music Academy nominated “Best
Independent Recording” “as far as i can see”, was recorded solo, in his
solar powered log cabin MisTree Studio, on the North Shore of Lake Superior,
where he lives and records in harmony with nature. Michael is a member of the
Minnesota State Arts Board Performing Artist Roster and is a recipient of
Fellowship and Career Opportunity Grants awarded to him from the Arrowhead
Regional Arts Council
Concurrent
Sessions
There was overwhelming response to the call for proposal for this year’s
Joint International Summit on Community and Rural Development. The program
committee chose 80 from 200 plus proposals representing twenty-five states,
seven Canadian provinces and fourteen countries. Papers, panels, workshops and
projects on Diversity and Inclusion, Globalization, Human Services, Rural/Urban
Coalitions, Technology, and Models for Sustainable Community Development are
presented during the four concurrent sessions.
Plenary
Session 1:00 p.m. Lake
Superior Ballroom
The
Future: What It Is and How to Use It
For many of us in both our personal and public lives, the future appears
to be an unknowable and often scary series of events moving towards us in an
inexorable march. Yet in actuality, there is not one future before us but an
infinite number and our future is created by the decisions we make today. Join
Natalie Schoch, Manager of Product Development Market Research and Trends at the
Kellogg Company, as she discusses ways of thinking constructively about the
future. She will also describe some major trends that will affect actions and
policy in rural development in the new millennium.
Natalie Schoch is currently Manager of Product Development Market Research and
Trends at the Kellogg Company in Battle Creek, Michigan, where she seeks to
provide insights for innovation and strategy. She holds BS and MS degrees in the
Biological Sciences and a Ph.D. in Zoology from Miami University in Oxford,
Ohio. She holds a second masters degree in Information Studies from the
University of Michigan.
Exhibit
Supper, Soapbox and Great Lakes Aquarium 5:00 p.m. Edmund Fitzgerald Exhibit Hall
After a full day of concurrent sessions, relax at the Exhibit reception
and walk-around supper, highlighting our theme of building “working
partnerships for viable communities.” We’ll have several serving stations,
beginning with appetizers, working through a main course, and ending with ice
cream and birthday cake, celebrating the University of Minnesota’s
sesquicentennial. When you get full, pick up your free tickets to the Aquarium
and then take a stroll down to the Soapbox and Aquarium on the harbor right next
to the DECC. The Soapbox, a CDS tradition, will give you a chance to sound off
on whatever you wish. Wander over to the new Great Lakes Aquarium, America’s
only all-freshwater aquarium, packed with the amazing wonders of Lake Superior
flora, fauna, and, of course, fish.
Breakfast
Panel 7:00 a.m.
Lake
Superior Ballroom
Addressing
Poverty in Rural America Panel Presentation 8:00 a.m.
The Northwest Area Foundation will host breakfast on Wednesday morning for
Summit participants, convening a panel discussion on poverty issues in rural
America. Lead by incoming CDS vice president, Neal Flora, the panel will share
perspectives on causes, effects, and innovative solutions to poverty in rural
areas. The three aspects of community work will be covered with Elsie Meeks,
First Nations Oweesta Corporation speaking on practice, Bonnie Braun, University
of Maryland representing research and Diane McSwain, United States Department of
Health and Human Services giving insight into rural policy. The panel will
entertain discussion with the audience.
Learning
Stations 9:30 a.m.
Learning Stations will reinvigorate you after you’ve patiently sat
through the more traditional 90-minute concurrent sessions earlier in the week.
Learning Stations turn all the rules of conferences upside down. Like community
members everywhere, you get put on teams of people you may not know, and your
team gets handed a schedule of station stops that are already selected for you.
Like in real-life, we don’t get to pick the issues we face in our communities,
we just gotta deal with ‘em. So off you go, with your interdisciplinary team
of 10 to 15 people, setting out on a morning odyssey through several 20-minute
sessions where you’ll get a brief and intense introduction to many key topics
in community and rural development. Play along with us on this one and you’ll
be glad you did. Be sure to sit with your team at breakfast during the breakfast
panel, hold hands when you cross the street, and you’ll have a great time.
Summit
Policy Discussion 2:00 p.m.
Does rural development policy in the United States reflect “the times
they are a-changing?” Does it reflect the notion that community is complex and
multi-dimensional? Does it reflect the pressures of an increasingly urbanized
culture where agriculture is but one of many facets in the prism affecting our
development perspective and leadership?
Our Summit policy discussion will build on several regional and national
attempts at thinking through changes needed for 21st century community and rural development
policy. Hosting the discussion will be Minnesota Department of Trade and
Economic Development Commissioner Rebecca Yanisch. Commissioner Yanisch gives
the state’s report card on actions since our last Minnesota Rural Summit. Our
guest from Northern Ireland, Kate O’Dubhchair, shares the Cork Declaration and the European Union Rural Policy. Commissioner Colleen
Landkamer, Blue Earth County, Minnesota, reviews the national efforts of several
local government associations to affect national rural policy. And Tommy
Thompson, Secretary, United States Department of Health and Human Services,
brings word from the Bush Administration of its commitment to rural America.
Results
of ruralpolicyforum.org and Next Steps
One of the goals of this Joint International Summit on Community and Rural
Development is to significantly advance the conversation, in the United States
and worldwide, regarding rural policy. Did we generate a grassroots consensus on
the key issues facing rural America? Through a cyberspace discussion prior to
the Summit, two hundred folks from all over the world logged on to
www.ruralpolicyforum.org. This online discussion was summarized and a survey
developed to be completed at the Cyber Café by summit participants. This
"unmediated community and rural voice" survey will be compiled
electronically and presented during this wrap-up session. We'll attempt to
construct and dedicate the cornerstones for a "Duluth Declaration" –
the beginnings of a roadmap through the economic, technological, and cultural
forces shaping our society, rural and urban together.
Community
Development Society Awards Dinner and Dance 6:00 p.m
Holiday Inn Ballroom
You are welcome to attend, if you pre-registered for
the CDS dinner and dance. This dinner is traditionally held to honor significant
players and projects in the community development world. It’s also an
opportunity to hear from the incoming CDS president, John Rohrer.
Post
Summit Study Tour: Explore Rural Minnesota
Thursday,
July 26 – Saturday, July 28
Welcome to rural Minnesota! The purpose of this study tour is to travel
across this beautiful state – from the shores of Lake Superior through the
northern conifer and deciduous forests and onto the prairie – to gain a
perspective of the great variety of geographical landscapes and to examine the
major forces that have shaped community and rural development throughout these
regions.
For the travel portion of this mobile workshop, the journey is the destination!
The pace and convenience of riding
in a comfortable coach bus provides opportunities for a variety of learning
experiences such as presenters from various regions along the journey,
documentary segments shown on in-coach monitors and strategic stretch sites.
Utilizing a comparative/contrasting approach to other regions of the country,
participants will gain a meaningful understanding of socio-cultural forces
affecting mining, forestry, farming, the environment and rural society, and
conversely how these industries and rural values shape how individuals view the
world.
The prairie destination is Morris, located in the west central area of Minnesota
and on the eastern edge of the Great Plains region of the United States. The
tour lingers a while in this small, intimate town of about 5,500 people located
in “a haven of small towns” and includes the study portion of this mobile
workshop. Engaging in a highly interactive venue, study tour participants along
with people from the area with interests in research, policy and practice in
community and rural development will have opportunities to share information and
experiences. Visits to area points of interest and events that highlight local
culture are also planned.
NOTE: Check in at the registration desk for more information. This tour
was part of the pre-registration and will require additional payment.