The University of Nebraska is seeking 100 communities to welcome students
By Diego Flammini
Staff Writer
Farms.com
The University of Nebraska’s (UNL) Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources is looking for 100 rural communities within the state to welcome students for a fellowship program.
The school’s Rural Fellows Program matches pairs of students up with rural communities for 10-week stays during the summer.
“We partner students with communities that have identified projects they would like completed in those communities,” Helen Fagan, the program coordinator, told Farms.com. “The students live in those communities, work 400 hours, volunteer for 10 hours or more and can use these experiences to build their resumes.”
Project topics can include tourism, workforce development and childhood education.
Students are matched based on interests, field of study and community needs. The program is open to university students anywhere, but they must complete the program within Nebraska.
UNL faculty started the program in 2013 as a “serviceship” (service learning plus internship) to give students real life leadership and entrepreneurial experience.
Fagan started to oversee the program in 2018.
“I was asked to enhance the program because there’s demographic shifts happening all over the country,” she said. “We added an inclusive leadership development piece (two years ago) because we want (the students) to have the experience of inclusion and work to create that kind of environment elsewhere.”
Cheyenne Gerlach is a past participant of the program.
The integrated science major who also minored in global studies spent 10 weeks in Norfolk, Neb. in Madison County working on community projects there in 2018.
“I was split between two organizations,” she told Farms.com. “It was great because we got a really holistic view of the community and all of the different parts that make a community run.”
Gerlach helped complete two five-week projects in the community.
One was with the City of Norfolk working with retail sectors in different parts of the city.
“We were trying to unite the retail sectors,” she said. “There’s one sector downtown and one in another part of town. We were also trying to reignite the non-downtown retail sector because it had seen declines in the past couple of years before we got there.”
The other project was with Daycos, an organization which helps transportation companies increase revenue.
The Daycos tasks focused on internal issues.
“We did a lot of internal strategy and came up with incentives of having great internal culture within the corporation and did a bit of a rebrand for them,” she said.
Gerlach will draw on these experiences as she furthers her education.
One of her goals is to be involved with agriculture and rural development in Africa.
And though a rural community in Africa may be thousands of miles away from rural Nebraska, these communities have things in common, she said.
“I think a common thread in all rural communities around the world is agriculture and how it ties into the local economy,” she said. “Also the involvement of local government is important as well.”
UNL is accepting student and community applications for the 2021 Rural Fellows Program.
The internships are expected to take place between mid-May and late July.
Anyone interested in the program can find more information on its website and can apply until Dec. 31.