STAGE 3: PROFESSIONAL COLLEAGUES AND
COLLABORATORS: DEVELOPING PROGRAMS AND
MODELS FOR COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

  During 1968, the National Institute of Mental Health awarded a substantial three-year grant to the Research Center of Houston Baptist University, which I directed. The purpose of the grant was to study how being a "cross-over teacher¹" influenced the mental health of public school teachers. A cross-over teacher was a person who was working for the first time in a desegregated classroom where the teacher's race was different from the majority of the students. In other words, teachers were crossing what had previously been "racial barriers." The guidance which Ken provided as this project was developed and implemented was valuable to our success. One of his key insights was that attention should be given to levels of social support and rejection that teachers might receive from their families and significant others outside of the school setting because they were cross-over teachers. This insight proved to be the most significant learning from the research. Those teachers who experienced the most stress in the desegregated classroom received the least off-the-job support from significant others in their lives.² By-products of this applied research project and of action programs on issues related to school desegregation led to my appointments in the departments of sociology and agricultural economics at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Let me describe how Ken was involved in this transition.

  During the spring of 1970, Bob Bealer, chair person of the rural sociology search committee at Penn State, wrote to me about a position that was available. I was interested. Then during August of that year, while attending the annual meeting of the Rural Sociological Society at the Sheraton Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C., Fritz Fliegel, John van Es, and Andy Sofranko approached me about joining the faculty at the University of Illinois. Ken was on leave from Mississippi State, on temporary assignment with the Cooperative State Research Service of the USDA, and also was attending the same RSS meeting. We met and compared notes about the two positions and reached the following agreement--Ken would pursue the position at Penn State, I would apply for the position at Illinois. We acted on our intentions.

  January of 1971, an unusual coincidence happened. My wife and I were in Champaign for the job interview at the University of Illinois. One evening, while we were walking down the halls of the Illini Union, we met Ken unexpectedly. My immediate response was, "Ken, you're not here interviewing for the same position in rural sociology, are you? I don't want to compete with you." He immediately replied, with embarrassment, "No, I'm working with the Water Resources Center here at the University on a USDA project." I was embarrassed by doubting that he had broken our pact. Ken and I were the only persons interviewed by Illinois or Penn State, and both of us were hired. I've often wondered what would have happened if we had competed, or if Ken had ended up at Illinois and I in Pennsylvania (The only thing I'm certain of is that I would have enjoyed Penn State's football games much more than I was able to enjoy the Fighting Illini.). Life takes interesting turns, and it would have been different, very different, if we had not landed where we did.

  Ken and I were not in close contact for several years following the move to Illinois. During 1977-78, I was able to spend a year at Cornell as a visiting professor, securing an appointment in the Northeast Regional Rural Development Center [this was before the Center moved to Penn State]. Ken had a role in that appointment coming to fruition. During this period and the early 1980s, Ken and I interacted informally, mostly seeing each other at professional meetings. I learned from colleagues in rural sociology and community development that Ken's research and his work as a teacher was being received favorably and was regarded highly at Penn State, in the region and the nation.

  During the late 80s and early 90s, Ken's oldest son, Jeff, was a student in aeronautical engineering at the University of Illinois. When Jeff graduated, the entire Wilkinson clan descended upon Champaign-Urbana for the graduation celebration. My family and I hosted Ken, Beverly and several family members for this gala occasion. That was a day when Ken's behavior demonstrated pride in the achievement of his son and family!

  My last face-to-face encounter with Ken occurred during August 1993 at the annual meeting of the Rural Sociological Society in Orlando, Florida. I had drafted a twenty-six page paper describing an action and theoretical framework for a book that I hoped Ken would help me write. The proposed title for the book was Community Actualization: Mirage or Reality; Fantasy or Feasible? I gave Ken the manuscript and asked him, "Please take this paper back to Penn State and critique it for me. If you think this idea has potential, I want you to help me write this book." His reply was, "I'll read it tonight! ... I've nothing else to do. Let's have breakfast tomorrow morning to discuss it." The next morning we spent at least two hours discussing it.

  I have kept Ken's handwritten notes about this manuscript in my files. He thought the idea of a book about community actualization had potential. It needed refining, and he made more than a few suggestions. I have incorporated many of Ken's suggestions in the following material, and now I will share the framework for achieving an actualized community through two long-term community development programs, The RURAL PARTNERS program and The Delta Partners Initiative. The book, which Ken had agreed to help me write, would have been based partly on outcomes from these two long-term community development programs.

Toward the Actualized Community

  It's important that community action programs be practical and grounded in theory. This section provides an operational framework to help guide The Delta Partners Initiative, a program which seeks to help [Mississippi] Delta communities create solutions in leadership, community and economic development. The success of The Delta Partners Initiative (as was the case for RURAL PARTNERS in Illinois) depends on its ability to mobilize citizens to participate in local community improvement projects. Unless citizens participate in planning efforts and participate in projects to improve the quality of life in their community, this mission will not be achieved. Thus, the operational framework calls for the high goal of "community actualization," to help guide community leaders, citizens and project staff as they collaborate to create positive outcomes in Delta communities.

Defining Community Actualization

  If a community is defined and best described as people within a geographically bounded area involved in social interaction, and with one or more psychological ties with each other and with the place where they live,³ then community actualization might be defined as the collective ability of its residents to create the type of community they desire, with minimal dependence on resources external to that community for creating and sustaining change.

Six Indicators of Community Actualization

  Our community actualization concept is comprised of a hierarchy of six indicators that are shared among individuals and groups who are residents of a community: (1) a state of collective identity; (2) a sense of collective belonging; (3) a sense of community solidarity; (4) a sense of collective pride in the community as a place and in its associational networks; (5) a sense of achievement; and (6) a feeling of fulfillment. As Maslow theorized, we hypothesize that our continuum will be a hierarchy; i.e., community residents will not develop characteristics at the top of the hierarchy until the lower level of community needs have been met. Also, we do not hypotesize that every resident will be a fully actualized person.

  The goals for the Illinois RURAL PARTNERS program (1990-1994) and the emerging DELTA PARTNERS INITIATIVE (1995 - 2001) are to enable and foster community development. Hopefully, this will yield an outcome which has been labeled as community actualization. These two programs involve more than ten years of social action and action research designed to stimulate community preparedness for community development and economic development. A book, which I plan to write, will determine if community actualization, as defined later in this manuscript, can occur in a rural community. And, if community actualization is possible on the county level in rural America. The answer is complex, and the directional clues currently seem ambiguous. It is certainly easier to describe the progress and measure outcomes in program counties and communities than it is to figure out whether or not these communities are becoming actualized.

Community Actualization: Putting Theory into Practice

  The two rural development programs that I mentioned will be described with more detail later. Both programs seek to create much higher levels of membership, participation and ownership in community organization. A goal was to strengthen associational networks and broaden the community field. The Illinois RURAL PARTNERS program was funded by the University of Illinois Cooperative Extension Service, the W. K. Kellogg Foundation and more than seventy collaborating partners (mostly multi-place organizations, stakeholders in community and economic development.) The DELTA PARTNERS INITIATIVE was launched in September 1995, after a nine-month community and regional planning effort. It is currently funded by the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, Delta State University, Alcorn State University, Entergy, Union Planters Bank, the McKnight Foundation, and Delta and Pine Land Company. Other collaborating partners are emerging.

  Both programs were developed in response to frustrations of many private and public sector community leaders working in rural counties where there was no consensus regarding development (such as county wide priorities for investment in social and physical infrastructure, education, or types of development that would be appropriate and beneficial to the community). Both programs are sponsored by a unique coalition of public and private organizations that have rural development or rural revitalization as part of their mission. Collaborators are defined as individuals and organizations (stakeholders) with a wholesome, competitive interest in community and economic development. The strength of the two partnerships is derived from the members' commitment to foster community and economic development in rural areas.

  The major premise supporting both programs is that leadership development and community development MUST PRECEDE economic development in rural communities with declining human resource capital and population bases, deteriorating social and physical infrastructure, and declining financial resources and economies. To that end, educational and skills-oriented learning materials have been developed to guide social action at the community level. Through implementing the projects embodied in the program's educational and action research modules, community leaders engage in a process that builds leadership in the community and county. This process helps citizens in each county develop the skills and resources they need to guide and manage community and economic development. Therefore, economic development is not the central or primary goal. Rather, the ability to help citizens and leaders create and manage development in their community is a primary goal or outcome of both programs.

  It is hoped that the long-term consequences of such a process--providing educational programs, technical assistance and some financial support in a self-help program--might encourage and create: (1) a broader and stronger citizen involvement in community life and enhance the allocation of additional community resources to support local development efforts; (2) a better fit between institutions and residents (or service providers and service consumers); and (3) a clearer vision of a desired state for "the community" in small rural places. If these goals are achieved, then benefits enjoyed by current residents will be shared with future residents, and the efforts toward community actualization will be sustained across generations. Indeed, responsibility for creating the actualized community must be shared, for the vision of the desired community changes through time.

Building Community in Rural Towns and Counties

  For both programs, the small towns and open rural areas are thought to have the potential to become "the community," although distinct cultural differences and clearly delineated rural communities exist in both states and in most of the counties within each state. In Delta communities, the majority of the residents are African American. In Illinois, less than two percent were African American. In the Mississippi Delta and rural Illinois, production agriculture is becoming much more diversified. To enhance the role of citizens in some rural communities, especially those with many small municipalities with few resources, it is useful to enlarge the community focus to a county focus. Using the county focus in Illinois, every town, village or township, however sparsely populated, has a voice in development efforts. Some participating counties in Illinois have as many as twenty-six incorporated municipalities, each with a population of fewer than 5,000 residents. In the Mississippi Delta, one rural county has fifteen municipalities. Gaining collective consensus among so many units of local government in bi-racial communities is not easy. Resources are severely limited in many small Delta towns, and collaboration among the private sector, county government and neighboring towns is seen by some leaders as the "last best hope" for the smallest of these places.

  Rural residents may identify with several locales or communities--places where they may shop, work, socialize, recreate, seek medical treatment, attend church, govern themselves or educate their children or themselves. The geographic boundaries of these communities might well approximate a county's boundaries. The associational networks and community arena in which residents interact creates a "community field without barriers."

  Defining the county or the town and the rural countryside as community allows localities to pool local resources and to seek additional resources together. In short, it is difficult (or nearly impossible) for small communities to "go it alone." In the economic development arena, amenities are typically considered region by region, and, in these instances, a larger focus makes sense.

  Since rural people are concerned about the quality and availability of services and jobs, they usually find that current conditions are causing them to form partnerships with a number of towns to "develop" those things that they need. In effect, rural people find themselves in a position of belonging to, or needing to develop, several different "communities" depending on the need. The growing needs for health care, education, economic development, etc. are causing many rural people to form much larger "economic and service communities," such as the county.⁴

  Both of the community development programs are designed to help small towns and surrounding areas (in Illinois the county was the larger area) emerge as the "good community." Both programs recognize the limitations that individual communities have to control their destiny and the opportunity counties have to achieve economic growth for a greater number of rural residents. The challenge to the local leaders working in the programs is to communicate, to encourage, and to involve greater numbers of local citizens from all parts of the county community.⁵

A Comprehensive Formula for Rural Development

  A comprehensive rural community and economic development program needs a solid foundation with a flexible structure to implement program goals and action strategies. The following comprehensive but flexible formula provides a framework for developing and implementing both of these programs--the Rural Partners/Kellogg Program and The Delta Partners Initiative.

Human Resource Development (H. R. D.) + Leadership Development (L.D.) + Organization Development (O.D.) + Community Development (C.D.) + Economic Development (E. D.) = Community Actualization (C.A.)!

  This action formula provides a broad foundation (see Figure 1) for holistic and systemic community-based development efforts. It espouses the long-term mission of building actualized citizens, stronger community-based organizations and creating stronger rural communities. Goals and objectives of the RURAL PARTNERS/Kellogg Program and THE DELTA PARTNERS INITIATIVE were developed by economic development professionals, community leaders and university faculty.

  Through these two programs, local leaders are launching new types of community action projects, actions designed to reverse decline in community life, to bring a new spirit of community activity, and to prepare the community to participate more effectively in the economic development arena. Each project has a specific outcome, some tangible and others intangible. The intention is to empower formal and informal associations in each county to create at least part of the change which local citizens desire. Some counties have more than 600 persons serving on or involved in the "Countywide Strategic Planning Committee for County and Economic Development" and its related subcommittees. Thus, the research will measure the degree of achievement which residents and local leaders have as a result of participating in self-help projects sponsored by the community's formal and informal associations.

Control and Community Actualization Is Not A Dilemma

  A key factor in achieving community actualization in some communities seems to be the level of control (responsible freedom) given to or assumed by citizens and communities over program outcomes. In Illinois, as it is in Mississippi, the program staff and funding partners adhered to the premise that the community development process must be inclusive. Leaders and citizens from all communities and all walks of life (private and public sectors) were elected to planning and action groups. They must be representative of the community's population in terms of gender, age and racial factors.

  In the RURAL PARTNERS program, five community action modules provided a foundation for activities to begin the process of creating and sustaining community and economic development across the county. By working together in inclusive groups (usually for the first time) in these foundation action projects, leaders from throughout the county became convinced that economic development must be driven by informed decision making. Furthermore, the leadership skills of local leaders throughout the county were enhanced.

  The balance of power and influence between local leaders and program staff became a delicate issue on more than one occasion in several Illinois counties. For example, in addition to requiring inclusiveness, the funding partners and program staff insisted that scientific and systematic procedures be followed as community action projects were being planned and implemented. Random sampling was required in countywide needs assessment studies, and leaders were encouraged to be inclusive when committees were elected to develop, distribute, and collect questionnaires and prepare the needs assessment report. However, the product or final outcome from EVERY community action project was controlled by local citizens. To help assure local ownership, citizen committees selected the issues to be addressed, developed the priorities, and wrote the reports from data obtained from action research studies. They held local meetings to share results with citizens throughout the county. Yet, in more than one county, insistence on adhering to systematic procedures and avoiding shortcuts created the impression that the program staff were being "too academic" and wanted to control the program.

  The project leader has noted a contrasting theme in the Mississippi Delta--citizens are much more likely to expect and depend on the outside expert and funding partners for the initiation of change. Creating and sustaining local "ownership and support" for community and economic development will probably be more difficult in Mississippi. However, a permissive policy might be objectionable to the state's taxpayers or the sponsoring partners.

  Conversely, program control cannot lie totally with the local groups or citizens if they do not have the ability or commitment to complete a difficult project which requires high skill. Responsibility is shared by local groups and sponsoring partners. The goal is to strike the appropriatebalance, favoring to the wishes of the local community. If technical assistance is needed, the sponsoring organization should help local groups find it. The research question which needs to be answered here is, "What is the proper relationship between citizens and program staff in community and economic development projects when citizens lack the knowledge and skill to successfully complete an action project without technical assistance?"

  Collaboration at the local level is required if a community is to participate in the RURAL PARTNERS program and in THE DELTA PARTNERS INITIATIVE. Collaboration which shares ownership for a project's outcome is much more likely to create a sense of community actualization. Valuing partnership and mutual ownership is critical. Program staff noted that a "framework for teamwork" was difficult to manage and sometimes idealistic. However, when local leaders initiated dialogue to clarify issues of control, all parties were able to develop acceptable solutions.

Outcomes: Unknown but Unlimited

  In August of 1994, eight of the ten RURAL PARTNERS program counties in Illinois started to implement their long-range strategic plan. When the program began in 1990, only two of the program counties had a county wide organization charged with the responsibility of leading community and economic efforts throughout the entire county. However, as the planning process was being completed in 1994, all ten counties created a new organization or revitalized an existing organization to lead their county wide development efforts. Thus, social infrastructures were created, and a duly empowered group of leaders was present to guide the county wide development program.

  Long-term action programs are being planned to develop the social infrastructure (to strengthen internal and external associational networks) and to improve the quality of life in the Mississippi Delta. The Delta Partners Initiative will be carefully monitored and evaluated to determine its long-term effect on Delta leaders and communities. Will it help create solutions in leadership, community and economic development? Will it create stronger senses of collective identity in rural communities, of collective belonging, solidarity, community pride, achievement and fulfillment? Perhaps both action programs will help create community actualization in rural communities and rural counties.⁶ Outcomes are unknown, but with the support and best efforts of citizens, leaders, and the collaborating partners in The Delta Partners Initiative, the potential is unlimited.

1 The label "cross over" was created by a federal judge, not by the research team.

2 See Jerry W. Robinson, Jr. and William B. Crittenden, The Effect of Participation in a Desegregation Institute Upon the Attitudes and Behaviors of Black and White Teachers: A Before - After Study. Preliminary Report, No. 3, Research Center, Houston Baptist University, 1970.

3 Community Development in Perspective, James A. Christenson and Jerry W. Robinson, Jr., eds. The Iowa State University Press, Ames, Iowa. 1989.

4 Daryl Hobbs, Helping Rural Communities Prepare for Economic Development Newsletter. Number 3. November 21, 1991. Laboratory for Community and Economic Development, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Daryl Hobbs is Professor or Rural Sociology at the University of Missouri-Columbia and past President of The Rural Sociology Society.

5 Douglas Dougherty, Helping Rural Communities Prepare for Economic Development Newsletter. Number 3. November 21, 1991. Laboratory for Community and Economic Development, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Douglas Dougherty is the Director of Economic Development and Marketing for Soyland Power Cooperative and past President of the Illinois Development Council.

6 See, Jerry W. Robinson, Jr., op cit..