Southern Rural Development Center
 

Box 9656
410 Bost Extension Bldg.
Mississippi State, MS 39762
Phone: (662) 325-3207
Fax: (662) 325-8915
http://srdc.msstate.edu

 

 

 

Around the SouthNovember 2006, Vol. 2 No. 11

In this Issue . . .


SRDC Items of Interest

  • SRDC Releases Southern Region Information Toolkit
    The data you've been searching for is now at your fingertips! A new site, the result of a partnership among the SRDC, Mississippi State University Extension Service and the Delta Data Center, provides instant access to a wealth of data on areas within the Southern region. In the Southern Region Information Toolkit, you'll find a wide variety of economic, demographic and social indicators that can be used by organizations and agencies at the local, state and regional levels; various profiles, historical trends and tools for determining changes in economy and job growth in Southern region areas; specific data broken down by county, state, region and nation; the option to examine data by the metropolitan, micropolitan and noncore-based status of counties in your state or in the Southern region. See for yourself at http://srit.srdc.msstate.edu.


National Items of Interest

  • AACC Report Compares Community College and University Graduates
    The American Association of Community Colleges brief, En Route to the Baccalaureate, compares demographic characteristics and labor market outcomes among individuals who attended community college to college graduates who never attended a community college. Among the baccalaureates, two types of community college attendees—Reverse transfers, students who started at a four-year institution and then returned to a community college, and casual attendees, students who did not complete an associate’s degree, but took community college courses while or before attending a four-year institution—earned more than their fellow bachelor’s degree recipients who never attended a community college. Reverse transfers exhibited the highest earnings with average monthly incomes above $2,800. To view the report visit: http://www.aacc.nche.edu/Content/ContentGroups/Research_Briefs2/B_B_Brief_Final.pdf.

  • ERS Releases New Research on Poverty Measures
    New research from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service shows that adjusting Federal poverty measures to account for geographic cost-of-living differences reverses the rankings of metro and nonmetro poverty. Such a reversal could have important implications for the geographic and demographic distribution of Federal funding of poverty-based programs. For more information, visit http://www.ers.usda.gov/AmberWaves/November06/Features/Adjusting.htm.

  • Financial Education for Preschoolers
    Developed by the Credit Union National Association (in partnership with Cooperative Extension staff and credit union educators), Thrive by Five(TM): Teaching Your Preschooler About Spending and Saving offers free activities and other resources for parents who want to encourage healthy attitudes about money in young children. Thrive by Five is a set of eight activities (available in both English and Spanish) for parents of preschoolers to begin teaching basic concepts of financial education. There is a national cooperative extension push to educate parents/caregivers/teachers and the like, for the purpose of educating children around financial stewardship. Find out more about this program at http://www.creditunion.coop/thriveby5/.

  • Third Issue of Rural Realities Now Available
    As the Gulf Coast hurricanes of 2004 and 2005 made abundantly clear, rural communities are often left on their own to meet the emergency needs of local residents. This is increasingly true in an age when the federal government frequently cedes control to state and local jurisdictions. Although this new responsibility opens the possibility for greater community involvement in local planning, not all communities have the capacity to meet these new obligations. Rural communities often find themselves doing more with less. However, a new approach – the Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) program – shows promise, not only for disaster response, but also as a tool for building community capacity. This latest issue of Rural Realities explores CERT’s role both in helping rural communities prepare for disaster and in building sustainable capacity in those communities. To access the brief, check out http://ruralsociology.org/pubs/RuralRealities/Issue3.html.


Funding Opportunities

  • 2006 Southern Region Sustainable Community Innovation Grants Announced
    The new round of Sustainable Community Innovation Grants have just been announced. A partnership of the Southern Region Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program, the Southern Rural Development Center and the Appalachian Regional Commission, the deadline date for submissions is November 28, 2006. The grant information is available at http://www.southernsare.uga.edu/currentcalls/sci.doc.

  • SRDC's Grant Connections: Rural Development Funding Opportunities
    Volume 9, Number 1, October 2006
    http://srdc.msstate.edu/funding/oct06.htm

    The SRDC staff compiles Grant Connections primarily for the faculty of land-grant colleges and universities in the South to provide funding information in support of activities in agricultural economics, education, human sciences, rural sociology, youth development, and other related disciplines.


Conferences & Trainings


People in the News


Job Opportunities


Submit Announcements

Job announcements and other items of interest may be sent to Rachel Welborn, rachelw@srdc.msstate.edu, for possible inclusion in future issues.


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Some photos on this page
courtesy of USDA NRCS.

  

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