CST Student Projects, 2006-2007

Ellery

Mofuah

Jenny

Kristin

This is an annual position for the term of the COPC grant (fall 04' - spring 07'). Holly will help with the administrative needs of the grant and its activities. Holly's responsibilities include assisting with all aspects of the COPC grant which include participation and recording of meetings, assisting with special projects of the grant, and working on publicity, document design and visibility efforts.

Katie will assist in evaluation activities required in providing External Evaluations services to the participating schools (Wheaton area, Browns Valley, Clinton-Graceville and Herman-Norcross) for their "Connections: Before School, After School and Summer Programs" grant funded project. This may include collecting field data through various instruments (interviews, surveys, observation "field notes") by phone, e-mail and face-to-face methods. Katie may also assist with the transcribing data from taped interviews, analyzing collected data, and drafting of reports.

Matt

Brett

Two courses, Statistics 1601: Introduction to Statistics and Statistics 2601: Statistical Methods, are now integrated with a civic engagement component that allows for the survey, analysis, research and reporting of rural statistical indicators. Students are involved in the compilation of variables, the analysis of rural indicators, and the creation of "media reports" that are distributed to communities and counties across Minnesota.

This workbook http://www.mrs.umn.edu/services/cst/statbook/ is used as a supplement for The Introduction to the Practice of Statistics (4th ed) by Dr. David S. Moore and Dr. George P. McCabe. This workbook will follow the textbook and provide problem sets for each chapter. The primary data source for this workbook is the 2000 US Census. The Census Bureau and the Minnesota Department of Administration (formerly Minnesota Planning) data repository web sites, which contain a wealth of data about the area, will be used throughout these problem sets. The student will provide guidance to students completing reports and reviews submissions for publication on the website.

Kim will assist with the coordination and documentation efforts of the publicity for the COPC grant. She will assist with the formation, implementation, and dissemination of varying types of publicity efforts for all of the COPC grant projects.

The DAR unit is a key component of CST. The students are primarily involved in the analysis and reporting of rural specific data. Projects include an income survey for Lobster Lake in Douglas County, a telephone survey of Jump Start can program recipients for the West Central Communities Action Inc, and analysis of social capital data for the U of M Extension Service.

This project involves working with the Center for Small Towns, Minnesota Public Radio, and the West Central Regional Sustainable Development Partnership to help with the 2007 Symposium on Small Towns. This combined event is a celebration of rural life through a keynote speaker, round table discussions, community project showcases, legislative forum, and a celebratory event.

Joel administered surveys at the homeless shelters, entered in all of the survey data, gathered data from local officials re: social support services, and wrote extensive sections of the final report.

CST provided Dr. Randy Cantrell at the University of Nebraska a number of items to examine rural migration. CST research has proven that there is an influx of 35-44 year old people (many with children) into our small towns. The research team completed a literature review for this project. Additionally, GIS basemaps were created to examine and analyze the Minor Civil Division (city and township) growth in this age cohort.

The project, Well Testing, partners Morris Area Students with Farmers, Township Residents, The Stevens County Soil and Water District, and Scientist located in West Central Minnesota. High school students will learn how to collect samples from wells, test the well water for nitrates, analyze the data and present their results to the well owner. This project was part of the Connecting Students and Communities program that was a partnership with the Center for Small Towns and the West Central Regional Sustainable Development Partnership.

The UMVRDC serves the five county areas of Big Stone, Swift, Lac qui Parle, Yellow Medicine and Chippewa counties in the areas of economic and community development, transportation, natural resources, tourism, services for the aging, GIS, grants administration, and planning. Katie will be working with one of our projects the Minnesota River Valley National Scenic Byway to review and make recommendations and changes to the byways website which focuses on the natural cultural and recreational resources of the 300 miles long Minnesota River Corridor. This also may include collecting and developing new digital photographs, site information such as phone numbers, hours of operation, driving directions, site descriptions and other information relative to the many discovery sites identified by the byway. Upon completion the student will be asked to help develop a public awareness campaign to showcase the new design of the website. This project was part of the Connecting Students and Communities program that was a partnership with the Center for Small Towns and the West Central Regional Sustainable Development Partnership.

This project with work with the Garden Goddess Produce one of the few wintertime Community Supported Agriculture’s (CSA) in the United States. This project will help with the researching existing organizational and business models of other CSA’s and producers’ cooperatives to create examples of organizational structures, and possible funding sources. This project was part of the Connecting Students and Communities program that was a partnership with the Center for Small Towns and the West Central Regional Sustainable Development Partnership.

The Blandin Foundation’s Editors and Publishers (E&P) program goal is to promote and support leadership among editors and publishers within their communities as they assess risks, frame visions and strategies, and develop competencies to survive and thrive in business and community. To apply these competencies and dimensions in an analysis of newspaper content, the Center for Small Towns was contracted to compile a research team to perform a content analysis of the newspapers which participate in the leadership program.  The research team has completed research on the application of these concepts in a content analysis of news stories and developed of a “Healthy Community Media Index” in consultation with a group of experts from the newspaper profession.  These reports allow the local newspaper leaders to assess the frequency and types of stories covered by the paper.

The Tech Team is a continuous component of CST that provides website development and training to community-based organizations. Caitlin is working on the website for the City of Chokio along with a how to guide so that the City will be able to make their own updates after the website is up and running. She will also assist the city in the creation of other publicity materials. Catlin will also work on other tech team work as it comes. This project was part of the Connecting Students and Communities program that was a partnership with the Center for Small Towns and the West Central Regional Sustainable Development Partnership.

The City of Morris Planning Commission is a 7 – member citizen board appointed by the Morris City Council. The Planning Commission is the primary entity that conducts long-range planning for the city of Morris, and also serves as the board of zoning to which citizens bring requests for zoning variance. The student will work with the City Manager to help gather background information on several specific topics that will provide the necessary information to help the planning commission make future planning decisions. Topics may include:

1. Review what kinds of programs and policies other small cities have implemented to encourage the replacement of substandard housing with new houses or appropriately renovated houses ;
2. Examine the process of annexing several neighborhoods in which all houses have septic systems and how they eventually city sewer lines will be constructed to these houses;
3. Investigate standards and best practices for Rental Housing Issues;
4. Research noise ordinances that other small cities have implemented to reduce commercial, industrial and traffic noises that intrude on surrounding residential neighborhoods.

This project is supported through the Community Assistantship Program through CURA on the Twin Cities campus

West Central MN Communities Action, Inc. (WCMCA) is a non-profit organization dedicated to reducing the effects of poverty, helping people to achieve self-sufficiency and improving the quality of rural life. To this end, WCMCA has offered VITA Tax Clinics to residents in Morris and Elbow Lake to assist folks in obtaining Earned Income Tax refunds as well as other tax credit opportunities . The project began as an effort for households to become aware of the EITC and the benefits that it can offer to them. It is estimated that in our five county services area, $1,834,908 in EITC refunds are not accessed each year. This student will be working at managing the scheduling of volunteers and basic operations of the Morris Tax Clinic Program. Adam’s duties include helping to schedule volunteers and oversee basic operations related to the delivery of services at the Morris Tax Preparation site. This project was part of the Community Assistance Partnership program that was a partnership with the Center for Small Towns and the West Central Regional Sustainable Development Partnership.

The goal of this project is to work with the Long Prairie-Grey Eagle High School to demonstrate the value of culture and education to the Hispanic community. It has been found that Hispanic students that finish high school generally do not pursue post-secondary educational opportunities. The research components of this project will develop curricular, co-curricular, and community-based integrative strategies. The objectives are to provide professional development opportunities for teachers, connect the community to the school to provide role models and mentors, as well as develop and implement a team teaching environment. This project is part of the Small Town Faculty and Student Fellows program funded in part through a Bremer Grant.

The goal of this project is to identify gaps between employers in the region who have entry-level positions that will lead to higher-wage positions and those individuals seeking employment. Employers report they are unable to find workers who have the necessary skills to enter employment. Prospective employees report they are not able to find entry-level positions in the region. In order to build skills that qualify family members to hold better jobs within the region, it is imperative that we understand what skills are required for positions that allow individuals to move into high-demand, higher-wage positions, directly or through career ladders. This will be completed through interviews and/or a survey of employers, employees, and employee training programs.

The Jobs, Careers and Employability workgroup requested this project. This workgroup is a subcommittee of the Family Economic Success program provided by the West Central Initiative with funding from the Annie E. Casey Foundation. The workgroup will identify a series of questions for employers, adult job seekers and K-12 organizations that provides data to better understand the current gap between the skills that current perspective employees present to the labor market with the skills currently required by employers. In this way, programs or other strategies can be developed to address the gap rather than making assumptions about the needed skills.

This project is part of the Small Town Faculty and Student Fellows program funded in part through a Bremer Grant

The project entails determining optimum models for vehicle routing across our area in a cost- and time-effective way.  By determining the location and number of students in the dispersed areas, together with time, models can be built to determine routes, and flows, of student pickups.  Mathematically, these are referred to as combinatorial problems. The solutions would allow our school districts to save transportation funds (at the approximate rate of $1.60 per mile) while at the same time providing an efficient solution to overlapping geographic areas brought about by open enrollment. The schools involved in this project are Chokio-Alberta, Clinton-Graceville-Beardsley, Cyrus, Hancock, and Morris.

This project is part of the Small Town Faculty and Student Fellows program funded in part through a Bremer Grant

This project involves working with the Pomme De Terre river committee to help organize and carry out activities and help develop a volunteer base for projects. Interviews will we conducted using the Appreciative Inquiry model and will be recorded to gather stories about the history of the river, how people view the river, and how they use the river.

This project was part of the Community Assistance Partnership program that was a partnership with the Center for Small Towns and the West Central Regional Sustainable Development Partnership.

This project involves working with the University of Minnesota Extension Service county offices in six of the surrounding counties. Responsibilities include assisting with all aspects of the 4-H programs, including day camps, trainings, working with different 4-H clubs, and other short-term activities to get youth involved in the community. Other duties include participation and recording of meetings, assisting with special projects like the county fairs, and working on publicity and visibility efforts of the county’s 4-H programs.