We are pleased to share with you the 2007 CaRDI Annual Report. The report provides a representative sampling of our work from July 2006 through December 2007, as well as a look ahead to some of our activities planned for the future.
The Community and Rural Development Institute was founded in 1990 to address the dramatic social, environmental and economic changes taking place in rural and urban areas. People and communities across New York State and beyond are significantly affected by local, state, federal and global trends. While CaRDI has made programmatic changes over the past 18 years, a constant focus has been our partnerships with elected officials and other community leaders to help them respond to these larger challenges and opportunities. We continue to be a multidisciplinary social sciences institute that emphasizes research, outreach and training to support informed decision making for NYS communities.
CaRDI reorganized in 2006 in response to an internal program review. We have renewed our commitment to producing applied research, training, policy and outreach focused on three areas – 1) land use, 2) community food and agriculture and 3) socio-demographic trends and changes. Our goal is to be a trusted provider of research-based information and educational programs that support local, regional and state-level decisions affecting rural people and communities. We invite you to visit our new website (www.cardi.cornell.edu) for more information about our focal areas and related initiatives. On the website, and in this report, we also highlight some of the training programs we provide for town, village and county leaders. These trainings represent partnerships with key state organizations, such as the New York State Association of Counties, and provide a platform to help our communities and leaders think beyond their own municipalities.
In addition to sharpening our focus and becoming more product-oriented, we have enhanced our connections with Cornell faculty and broadened and strengthened our growing stakeholder base of local leaders. We are now producing regular, up-to-date publications and training opportunities for local leaders and others on important community and economic development issues, promoting and facilitating policy-relevant research and providing a space where faculty, state and local officials and community leaders can meet to enhance rural New York’s quality of life.
CaRDI is uniquely positioned to be a facilitator and "connector," even in issue areas that extend beyond our three foci. One example is the topic of rural health, which was highlighted during the 2006 Rural Vision Project we conducted in collaboration with the Legislative Commission on Rural Resources and Cornell Cooperative Extension. While CaRDI does not have a specified focus on health, we were instrumental in providing leadership to continue the critical dialogue. The result is an emerging state-wide rural health university consortium. Another example is rural schools, a topic that also received significant attention during the Rural Vision Project. As a result of the project and activities of program staff members, a number of emerging policy and research initiatives are now focusing on the connection between rural schools and communities.
CaRDI moved to the Department of Development Sociology in 2006, and this has become an excellent, mutually beneficial relationship. The partnership between CaRDI and the department in developing the Rural Learning Network of Central and Western New York is but one example of the strong and productive ties between CaRDI and the department’s faculty. We receive our core funding from the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, the College of Human Ecology and Cornell Cooperative Extension, and selectively seek grants that enable us to extend the reach of our program and further contribute to our mission and objectives. For example, our designation as an Economic Development Administration (EDA) University Center for the past three years has allowed us to support a wide range of initiatives in economically distressed communities, ranging from main street renewal to regional partnerships for producing local foods. We submitted an application to the U.S. Department of Commerce this spring in hopes of continuing our EDA University Center designation for the next three years.
We work in close partnership with Cornell Cooperative Extension and take seriously our responsibility to support their Associations in the community and economic vitality arena. Our connections on campus, across the state and nationally aid us in this important endeavor.
We are proud of CaRDI’s accomplishments thus far and are pleased to have the opportunity to share them with you in this report. We look forward to the activities planned for this year, including: expanding our portfolio of training for local elected officials, exploring the formation of a leadership institute for community leaders, deepening our commitment to building the capacity of regions where community development has been elusive, expanding our land use training initiative and developing mechanisms to help communities develop their own indicators of well-being.
Sincerely,
Max J. Pfeffer, co-faculty Director
David Brown, co-faculty Director
Rod Howe, Executive Director