Rural Matters

In Part III of a four-part series on rural hospitals, produced in collaboration with and underwritten by the Center for Optimizing Rural Health (CORH), Michelle chats with Dr. Nancy Dickey, CORH's Executive Director and Jon Rains, President & Chief Operating Officer and Managing Partner at Carrus Healthcare, which includes Atoka Medical Center in Oklahoma. CORH selects 30 hospitals for the HRSA-fu...

In Part II of this podcast series on rural economic development and lending, Michelle chats with Thomas Kimsey, President & CEO of Thomas USAF Group, who has closed $4 Billion+ in government guaranteed loans.  Our other guest is Mike Couch, Executive Director of the Central State Hospital Development Authority. Couch was named the National Rural Lenders' Roundtable's Borrower of the Year and descr...

In Part II of this eight-part series on rural higher education and workforce development, produced in collaboration with and underwritten by Ascendium Education Group, Michelle chats with two thought leaders in education and two community college students: Meghan McCann , s enior policy analyst at the Education Commission of the States; Desiree Jones-Smith . senior program manager with the College...

"If you look at people who are unvaccinated, their risk remains substantial." — Dr. David Kessler, Biden Administration's Chief Science Officer of COVID Response and former FDA Commissioner. Listen to this 15-minute interview right now.

In Part III of this three-part series on Reimagining Rural Policy, produced in collaboration with and underwritten by the Brookings Institution, Michelle talks with Cheryal Hills, Executive Director of Region Five Development Commission, who has developed dozens of relationships that have secured investments to address critical issues in the rural communities of Central Minnesota and Rob Riley, pr...

In Part I of this eight-part series on rural higher education and workforce development, produced in collaboration with and underwritten by Ascendium Education Group, Michelle chats with four rural community college presidents:  Lisa Larson, from Eastern Maine Community College; Chad Brown,  from Zane State College; Angel Reyna, from Madera Community College; and Jay Falkner, from Carl Albert Stat...

"We plan to invest up to $100 billion in broadband infrastructure." —Heather Boushey, Member, Council of Economic Advisers. Listen to this 15-minute interview right now.

In Part II of this three-part series on Reimagining Rural Policy, produced in collaboration with and underwritten by the Brookings Institution, Michelle talks with Gbenga Ajilore Senior Advisor in the Office of the Under Secretary, USDA-RD; Kennedy O'Dell, a Senior Research and Policy Associate at the Economic Innovation Group (EIG), a bipartisan think tank focused on forging a more dynamic U.S. e...

In Part II of a four-part series on rural hospitals, produced in collaboration with and underwritten by the Center for Optimizing Rural Health (CORH), Michelle chats with Dr. Nancy Dickey, CORH's executive director and Adam Willmann, CEO & President of the Goodall-Witcher Healthcare System in Clifton, Texas. Each year, Dickey notes, CORH selects 30 hospitals for the HRSA-funded Vulnerable Rural Ho...

"If we can get our country at a high level of immunization, we can send this virus packing, but it's going to take all of us."— Francis Collins, M.D., Ph. D, Director, National Institutes of Health. .Listen to this 15-minute interview right now.

"The President's Jobs Package provides enough money to make sure that every American, including everyone living in rural America, will have access to high-speed, affordable broadband." — Gina Raimondo. Listen to our 10-minjute interview with the new Secretary of Commerce right now.

This is the first of our four-part series showcasing rural hospitals, produced in collaboration with and underwritten by the Center for Optimizing Rural Health (CORH). Michelle talks with Dr. Nancy Dickey, CORH's executive director and David Walker, CEO of George E. Weems Memorial Hospital in Apalachicola, Florida. They discuss how CORH's technical assistance program has helped Weems Memorial Hosp...

"The American Jobs Plan is not about one particular area of the country. This plan is truly an all-American investment in our workers." — Martin Walsh. Listen to our 10-minute interview with the new Secretary of Labor right now.

In this first of a three-part series, Michelle talks with Tony Pipa of the Brookings Institution and Janet Topolsky of the Aspen Institute about the opportunity for the Biden-Harris administration to modernize and improve U.S. policy to support equitable rural development. Drawing upon the landmark report recently published by Brookings, Reimagining rural policy: Organizing federal assistance to m...

Michelle chats with attorneys Ming Wong of the National Center for Lesbian Rights and Michelle Garcia from New Mexico Legal Aid about protecting the legal rights of LGBTQ people in rural areas. There are more than 3 million rural LGBTQ residents, according to Wong. Garcia says that many LGBTQ individuals in rural communities face isolation, which can lead to self-harm or suicide. Wong discusses th...

Michelle discusses the importance of rural economic development and USDA's loan programs with two experts in the field: Thomas Kimsey, President & CEO of Thomas USAF and past President of the National Rural Lenders' Roundtable and Bill Broydrick of Broydrick & Associates, lobbyist for the National Rural Lenders' Roundtable. Kimsey clarifies the various USDA loan programs that can be utilized by ru...

Michelle chats with several speakers from the Rural Assembly Everywhere conference, taking place April 20-21 with the theme of The Road to Repair. The speakers include Cariel Klein and Travis Coe from the Double Edge Theatre Company and Margaret Renkl, author  of Late Migrations: A Natural History of Love and Loss and the upcoming  Graceland, at Last: And Other Essays from The New York Times . Kle...

In the second part of our special two-part series, the Biden-Harris Rural Vision, Michelle talks with Thomas J. Vilsack, the 32nd United States Secretary of Agriculture who has returned to the role he served for eight years under President Barack Obama. Secretary Vilsack highlights the American Rescue Plan sections that benefit rural residents, including increasing food assistance, extending broad...

In this first part of our special two-part series, the Biden-Harris Rural Vision, Michelle talks with Will McIntee, the Associate Director of Public Engagement in the White House Office of Public Engagement. The office's goals are to improve the connection between the federal government and the public and ensure that all constituencies have a seat at the table. McIntee explains that, in many ways,...

Michelle chats with author Ross Benes about his new book, Rural Rebellion: How Nebraska Became a Republican Stronghold . Benes notes the influences of his hometown of Brainard, Nebraska, on his current life in New York City. Benes describes the misconceptions of people in New York City about his rural upbringing, where he found a strong support of community organizations and the value of neighbors...

Michelle chats with Sarah Jane Tribble, Senior Correspondent at Kaiser Health News, Brock Slabach, Senior VP for Member Services at the National Rural Health Association, and John Henderson, the CEO and President of Texas Organization of Rural and Community Hospitals, about COVID vaccine rollout in rural areas. Tribble notes that many health disparities are more prevalent in rural communities, whi...

Michelle chats with Katie Baca-Motes, director of The Participant Center for the All of Us Research Program at Scripps Research, and Alan Morgan, CEO of the National Rural Health Association, about several significant rural health issues. Baca-Motes describes how the All of Us Research Program, in which individuals provide their health data to an open-source health database, is accessed by researc...

Michelle chats with Zachary Michael Jack, the author of a superb book, called Country Views , which deals with his choice to remain in rural Iowa and reflects his personal views and historical data on agrarianism and rural life,. Jack, who has written columns for many of the nation's best-circulated newspapers, including USA Today, the  Los Angeles Times , and San Francisco Chronicle, as well as T...

In this final episode of our four-part series, Rural Higher Education: Challenges & Opportunities, Michelle chats with three experts about innovative programs in rural higher education: Matt Dunne, founder and executive director of the Center On Rural Innovation; David Tandberg, senior vice president for policy research and strategic initiatives at the State Higher Education Executive Officers Ass...

In the third of our four-part series, Rural Higher Education: Challenges & Opportunities, Michelle chats with four experts about rural diversity, both perceptions and reality; challenges and opportunities involving diverse students in the rural higher education space; and the innovative initiatives colleges and rural communities are developing to deal with these challenges and opportunities: Alyss...