In this episode, Michael chats with Meg Taft, Executive Director of the Rural Youth Institute. They discuss rural youth development and opportunity; the development of the Aspirations Incubator model in rural Maine; relationship-driven approaches to youth success; family and community engagement; lessons from implementing and evaluating rural youth programs; the future of rural youth support and leadership; and much more.

In this episode, Michael chats with Angela Galbreath, Director of Partnerships for uFondwa USA, and Lesly Joseph, Agronomist and Statistician specializing in biostatistics. They discuss what the University of Fondwa is and what makes it unique within Haiti and globally; what rural development actually looks like in Haiti; how Fondwa is helping to reverse the trend of brain drain; what draws professors, administrators, graduates to Fondwa; career and livelihood opportunities students at the University of Fondwa are pursuing after graduation; how the university helps students turn family land or local resources into viable economic opportunities; research and innovation coming out of the university that are helping rural communities; the role community, agriculture, and access to natural resources play in quality of life for university students and faculty; how the university is changing the meaning of a "good life" in rural Haiti; and much more.

Take a virtual tour of uFondwa in Haiti at www.ufondwa.org/virtual-tour.

In this episode, Michael chats with Mara Tieken, Professor of Education at Bates College and former Rural Matters host. They discuss school closures, how communities respond to them, common misconceptions about school closures, what the research says about the effects of closure, and much more.