Rural Matters

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.

In this episode, Michael chats with Adam Ferrari, CEO of Phoenix Energy, an oil and gas company operating in the Williston Basin. They discuss current market conditions, responsible energy development in rural communities, and how landowners can evaluate mineral rights offers. Adam also shares how his engineering and banking experience shapes Phoenix's approach to risk and long-term value. They explore how data and technology are used to find value across U.S. basins, what disciplined energy production looks like in today's market, and signals shaping the future of the oil and gas industry.

In this episode, Michael chats with Andrea Fox, Senior Editor at Healthcare IT News. Together, they discuss a recent study on how rural hospital at home programs have improved the patient experience—who conducted the study and its findings. Plus, they dive into what makes home health in rural areas unique compared to urban areas, policy implications of the study, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services' new Office of Rural Health Transformation and the funding behind it, what this new federal focus on rural health could mean moving forward, and much more.   Read "Acute care at home helps improve outcomes for rural patients" in Healthcare IT News.   Read "Hospital-Level Care at Home for Adults Living in Rural Settings, A Randomized Clinical Trial" in JAMA Network Open.