Engaging Appalachia: A Guidebook for Building Capacity and Sustainability

Inclusive campus-community collaborations provide critical opportunities to build community capacity―defined as a community's ability to jointly respond to challenges and opportunities―and sustainability. Through case studies from across all three subregions of Appalachia from Georgia to Pennsylvania, Engaging Appalachia: A Guidebook for Building Capacity and Sustainability offers diverse perspectives and guidance for promoting social change through campus-community relationships from faculty, community members, and student contributors. This volume explores strategies for creating more inclusive and sustainable partnerships through the arts, humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. In representing diverse areas, environments, and issues, three relatable themes emerge within a practice viewpoint that is scalable to communities beyond Appalachia: fostering student leadership, asset-building, and needs fulfillment within community engagement. Engaging Appalachia presents collaborative approaches to regional community engagement and offers important lessons in place-based methods for achieving sustainable and just development. Written with practicality in mind, this guidebook embraces hard-earned experiences from decades of work in Appalachia and sets forth new models for building community resilience in a changing world.

Dr. Rebecca Adkins Fletcher is Associate Professor in the Department of Appalachian Studies, Assistant Director of the Center of Excellence for Appalachian Studies and Services, and an Associate Director of the Center for Cardiovascular Risks Research at East Tennessee State University. She is an Appalachian Regional Commission Appalachian Teaching Project fellow, Director of the Governor's School for the Scientific Exploration of Tennessee Heritage, co-editor of the online magazine Appalachian Places: Stories from the Highlands and serves on the Journal of Appalachian Studies Editorial Board. She is co-editor of the book Appalachia Revisited: New Perspectives on Place, Tradition, and Progress. Rebecca-Eli Long is a scholar, activist, and artist who uses lived experiences of disability to imagine a socially just, sustainable future. They hold an M.A. in Appalachian Studies from Appalachian State University, and they are currently a doctoral student in the Department of Anthropology and Center on Aging and the Life Course at Purdue University. William R. Schumann is Professor of Appalachian Studies in the Department of Rural Resilience & Innovation and the former Director of the Center for Appalachian Studies at Appalachian State University. Schumann has 25 years of experience in community development andapplied pedagogy in Appalachia, South Africa, and Wales. He has authored or edited four books, includingAppalachia Revisited: New Perspectives on Place, Tradition, and Progress.