On the side of a mobile unit, a QR code feeds into a database so staff at Richard Bland College in rural Virginia can identify students who may not have anyone at home to guide them through college. That guidance can start with basic advice and extend to equipment. “If you need a laptop, we loan them,” says Kimberly Boyd, Vice President of RBC and Chief Research & Innovation Officer. The mobile units also come equipped with virtual reality headsets, a drone (so students can learn more about the college’s drone certification program), and other practical supports. For Richard Bland, it’s a simple premise: meet students where they are, across a wide rural radius.
Boyd is one of the leaders behind a four-institution cohort participating in the NSF EPIIC RREDI project — Raising Rural Economic Development and Innovation — alongside Longwood University (Virginia), Independence Community College (Kansas), and Angelo State University (Texas). They share rural contexts and a common goal. “Our cohort’s name is actually the mission,” says Christopher Kukk, The Wilma Register Sharp & Marc Boyd Sharp Dean of the Cormier Honors College for Citizen Scholars and political science professor at Longwood. “It’s raising economic development and innovation.”