The Center for Rural and Regional Studies (CRRS) was established in the fall of 1999. The CRRS is a natural outgrowth of Southwest State University's founding mission to serve the region. The CRRS staff includes a well-published Dean, two Ph.D. research and teaching faculty with expertise in the fields of environmental history/studies and demography/geography, as well as affiliated faculty from a range of University disciplines. The Center also has a History Center coordinator, an environmental educator, and an associate editor.
The Center maintains a direct affiliation with the Southwest Minnesota Regional Research Center housed at the University, the newly established Geographic Information Systems (GIS) laboratory, the independent Society for the Study of Local and Regional History, and Crossings Press. It also fosters relationships with a variety of disciplines throughout the University including environmental science, English, and journalism.
Advocating the importance of rural and regional knowledge, the Center focuses on applied research that crosses fields ranging from environmental and ecological studies to demographic, geographic, social, cultural and historical studies. The CRRS disseminates its research through the publication of books and essays and through organized conferences co-sponsored with other agencies and institutions. The Center welcomes collaboration with independent scholars and institutions whose work will supply fundamental knowledge of and unique insights into southwestern Minnesota, the upper Midwest, and/or the northern prairie.
Currently leading the development of an interdisciplinary curriculum, the Center helps guide the University's long-standing Rural and Regional Studies course requirements which date from 1978. All University students must take a three-credit semester course in Rural Studies for their liberal arts requirement and a three-credit semester course in Regional Studies as a graduation requirement. Courses satisfying these requirements are offered in the arts, humanities, sciences, and social sciences, and are overseen by a faculty committee.
Center Staff Profiles
Joseph A. Amato, Dean of the Center for Rural and Regional Studies and Professor of History, received his doctorate from the University of Rochester in 1970. In addition to numerous works in European intellectual and cultural history, he has authored many books on rural life and the contemporary countryside. They include Countryside, Mirror of Ourselves; When Father and Son Conspire: A Minnesota Farm Murder; The Great Jerusalem Artichoke Circus: The Buying and Selling of the Rural American Dream; Servants of the Land: God, Family, and Farm, the Trinity of Belgian Economic Folkways in Southwestern Minnesota; To Call It Home: The New Immigrants of Southwestern Minnesota; and, most recently, Dust: A History of the Small and the Invisible (University of California Press, 2000). He directs the Center's Rural Essay Series and is presently completing a lengthy work on writing local and regional history.
Geoff Cunfer, Assistant Professor of Environmental History and Studies, explores past interactions between people and the natural world, focusing especially on agriculture, agro-ecology, and land use in the Great Plains. He holds a Ph.D. in U.S. environmental history from the University of Texas.
Anthony J. Amato grew up in southwestern Minnesota. He received his B.A. from the University of Minnesota and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Indiana University. The author of several articles and reviews in national, international and on-line publications, Dr. Amato currently focuses his research on the intersection of culture, economy, and environment.
Jan Louwagie received her B.A. in History from Southwest State University. She is coordinator of the Southwest Minnesota Regional Research Center, an archive of public documents located at SSU. One of the founders and an officer of the Society for the Study of Local and Regional History, she coordinates and organizes grant projects and conferences. She, her husband, and four children operate a family farm in Lyon County.
Donata DeBruyckere is a lifelong resident of Lyon County. She and her husband, Matt, have farmed in the Ghent area for over 40 years. In 1991 Donata graduated from Southwest State University with majors in history and political science and minors in speech communication and rural studies. Since July 1991, she has worked in Rural and Regional Studies assisting with conferences and publications.
Beth Spieles earned a Master's degree in Environmental Communication, Education, and Interpretation from Ohio State University. While in Ohio, she gained experience as an environmental educator in state park and private nature center settings. Locally, she has taught ecology to elementary students through the Marshall Summer Talents Academy. Beth provides administrative support for the Center, assists with environmental research projects, and directs outreach services, which disseminate the Center's research findings to regional schools.
Rural and Regional Faculty Activity
The Center's development has been underpinned by support from
the University's administration, the Gunlogson Regional Research
Fund, the Minnesota Humanities Commission, the United States Department
of Agriculture, and the Otto Bremer Foundation. The latter is
principally responsible for supporting the Rural and Regional
Fellows Program.
The CRRS works in cooperation with new programs in environmental science and agronomy, while making use of the Geographic Information Systems (GIS) laboratory. While maintaining its ties to ethics and philosophy and anticipating ties with several social science programs, the CRRS is working with the English Department to establish an annual rural journalism conference and to co-sponsor a conference on, and an anthology of, the fiction and non-fiction writers of southwestern Minnesota. Supported by the exceptionally active Southwest Minnesota Regional Research Center and a local historical society (see appended lists of writings and conferences), the CRRS maintains a tradition of working with state and federal agencies to produce conferences and publications. Topics covered have included regional demography, ethnicity, floods, alternative crops, and other facets of rural life in southwestern Minnesota.
RURAL AND REGIONAL FELLOWS - Grants for Graduate and Post-Graduate Students - Beginning Spring 2000
Rural and Regional Fellows will be chosen biannually from the whole range of natural, social, and historical sciences, as well as from economics, business, or agronomy. Fellows will be selected on the basis of their projected research and the likelihood that their completed research will result in useful knowledge, will stimulate fresh approaches to regional studies, and will prove worthy of dissemination through the Center's publications and conferences.
The fellows program supports researchers exploring any of a broad range of topics related to southwestern Minnesota, the upper Midwest, and the northern prairie. Possible candidates include graduate students with thesis topics or chapters relevant to the Center's mission, as well as post-doctorates or independent scholars pursuing similar research. The fellowships provide funding and research support at Southwest State University for maximum research tenure of one year. Fellows will receive an initial stipend of $2,500 after they present a public lecture on their intended study. They will receive an additional $1,000 for each month in residence, for a maximum of four months. The program provides a $1,000 bonus to fellows who produce significant work meriting publication in the Center's essay series or who organize a local conference on their topic. The maximum stipend is $7,500 for a four-month tenure and production of significant scholarly work.
During their research tenure, fellows will be provided with an office in the Center. They will have access to moderate research funds.
While in residence, fellows will participate in the Center's ongoing work and consult with the Center's faculty and Center-affiliated faculty. This will permit fellows to gain familiarity with senior research and a rural and regional curriculum as they interact with visiting experts and professors, participate in the organization of multi-disciplinary and popular conferences, and engage in activities associated with small press publication.
Applying for a Fellowship
To apply for a fellowship, send a five-page letter describing
the place of southwestern Minnesota, the upper Midwest, and/or
the northern prairie in your research and indicate what contribution
you intend to make to your chosen subject and to regional studies.
Explain your topic, your approach, the stage of your work, and
your qualifications to undertake and complete it. Include two
letters of recommendation and a copy of your curriculum vita,
and send to: Joseph Amato, Dean of Rural and Regional Studies,
Center for Rural and Regional Studies, Southwest State University,
Marshall, Minnesota 56258 or Apply
Online Now
Fall applications for the subsequent spring semester must be received by November 30; spring applications for the subsequent fall must be received by April 30.
Questions
Phone: (507) 537-6226
Fax: (507) 537-6147
Email: Joseph Amato
List of SSLRH Conferences and Publications
Conferences
Banking and the Countryside (1999)
To Call It Home: The New Immigrants of Southwestern Minnesota (1996)
Crops
(add one more conference here)
Rural and Regional Essay Series
Scott Anfinson, Prairie, Lakes, and People: The Archaeology of Southwestern Minnesota.
Tom Isern, The Cultures of Agriculture of the North American Plains.
Donald Stull, On the Cutting Edge: Changes in Contemporary Midwestern Meatpacking Communities.
David Wright, Plants and Crops, Chemistry and Alchemy, Markets and Metaphors: The Farm Chemurgic Movement and Agricultural Entrepreneurship between the World Wars.
Historical Essays on Rural Life
Randy Abbott, Jr., The Automobile Comes to Southwest Minnesota.
Donata DeBruyckere,, You Can Never Say We Didn't Try The National Farmers Organization in Lyon County, Minnesota.
Sidney W. Mintz, Crops and Human Culture.
John Radzilowski, One Community, One Church, Two Towns: The Poles of Southwestern Minnesota.
About Southwest State University
Founded in 1967, Southwest State University offers both liberal arts and professional programs on a modern 215-acre campus in Marshall, Minnesota. Students study in over 45 baccalaureate majors, four associate degree majors, 38 minors, and 16 pre-professional programs.
The Southwest State campus features a total of 46 buildings. All academic buildings, the Recreation/Athletic Facility, the Student Center, and food service are interconnected. Approximately 1,000 students live on campus in modern residence halls. Accessible facility design, coupled with support services available to students, makes the University well suited to people with physical disabilities.
Southwest State University graduated its first four-year class in 1971. Today the University's alumni body totals over 10,000 of which over 65 percent live in Minnesota. With 4,375 students and over 140 teaching faculty, Southwest State offers a friendly, cohesive learning environment with small-sized classes and a high level of interaction between faculty and students.