The Small Business and Technology Development Center &

The University of Missouri Extension:

A Study of Collaboration, Civic Engagement, and Diversity

Brandi L. HolderMaster of Public Administration

Southeast Missouri State University Internship Project

Spring 2016

Committee Members:

Dr. Rick Althaus Dr. James Newman Dr. Steven Hoffman

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 1: Introduction/Objectives………………………………………………...… 3

Chapter 2: Literature Review………………………………………….…………..... 6

Chapter 3: Internship Journal…………………………………………….…………. 44

Chapter 4: Analysis……………………………………………………………..…….. 48

Chapter 5: Summary & Conclusions ………………………………………….……... 69

References………………………………………………………………………............. 73

Appendix………………………………………………………………………............... 76

Appendix A – University of Missouri Organizational ChartAppendix B – LEAD Participant Observation DocumentAppendix C – SOC Press Release & InvitationAppendix D – LEAD Civic Engagement Network Appendix E – SET Civic Engagement Network

Objectives:

1. Study the organization under the rubric of organizational theory. Examine the collaboration networks that help the organization put theory into practice to accomplish work goals.

2. Analyze the relationship of civic engagement to program success and strategize ways to increase engagement in programs.

3. Analyze the composition of the participants and create strategies to increase diversity or identify impediments to diversity.

Chapter 4: Analysis

Analysis of the Host Organization

This internship represented a qualitative observational study of the host organization, as well as

an analysis of three separate economic and community development programs.

Objective One: Collaboration

The host organization, the SBTDC, is housed within the Extension of the University of

Missouri Columbia campus. The Columbia campus together with the campuses at Rolla, Kansas

City, and St. Louis represent separate entities that make up the central structure of the University

of Missouri system. The structure represents a divisionalized form of Mintzberg's model

(Bolman and Deal 78, 2008). Each campus acts as its own operating structure with a core of

essential workers, middle managers, and support and technical staff that report to a strategic

apex. Each strategic apex reports to an overall strategic apex that governs the university system.

At first glance, it would appear the Extension system operates more closely to a

Professional Bureaucracy form of Mintzberg's model (Bolman and Deal 82, 2008). In this

model, middle management, and support and technical staff are small compared to the essential

workers. In the example of the Extension, the support and technical staff and the management

core are all relatively large which fits more closely with a Machine Bureaucracy form of

Mintzberg's model (Bolman and Deal 81, 2008). It is interesting to note that the core of essential

work is performed by faculty, also called Extension specialists, in field offices, and yet they are

not represented on the MU Extension organizational chart (University of Missouri Extension

2015). The chart (Appendix A) stops with the Regional Leaders (middle managers) who oversee

the specialists (essential workers) and the governing Extension Councils.

The mission of the MU Extension is to provide relevant, science-based research

and resources to the public at large. To accomplish the mission, the MU Extension puts

specialists and staff in regional hubs, or field offices, to serve the specific needs of the service

area. In general, each office has specialists that serve multiple counties. As such, each office has

a different mix of programming but targets areas of economic development, social needs, and

environmental needs. Specialists work with the University and the Extension Councils to guide

programming for the regions. Each specialist has great latitude in program design, partners, and

funding sources to accomplish work goals. This is where the operating structure deviates from

the Machine Bureaucracy model. Due to budget constraints and varying needs of populations in

a given region, specialists evolved into collaborative network arrangements. These networks are

utilized to find funding and meet goals given to them by the "middle management" that is far

removed from the field work.

In this internship, I worked closely with the SBTDC in Jackson Missouri and the MU

Extension’s Community Economic and Entrepreneurial Development (ExCEED) program.

ExCEED is housed at the Columbia campus of the University of Missouri. The purpose of

ExCEED is to create regionally sustainable economic and community development initiatives

through collaboration networks that reach across multiple disciplines, and sectors (University of

Missouri n.d.). As a textbook example of collaboration, the Director, Sharon Gulick, uses

horizontal and vertical web-style networks described by Bolman and Deal (2008) to accomplish

program goals for regional programs. These networks often include MU Extension faculty from

campus and field offices, federal personnel such as the USDA, and state program personnel.

Programs are funded at the federal level and supplemented with Extension funds from the

ExCEED program and local field offices. This type of collaborative effort does not seek to fill in

gaps in service or interstitial spaces as proposed by the Chaskin and Greenberg (2015) work.

Instead, the collaboration is a way of providing University based data and faculty as bridging

structures for community stakeholders. The concept is rooted in the university as the "teacher"

and the stakeholders as the "students." Knowledge is transferred to the student to tackle projects

that will drive economic and community development in the region. This supports the Trencher

et al. (2014) hypothesis that universities are evolving into a fourth mission by utilizing

collaboration with outside actors to create sustainable regional projects. It also marks a

departure from the university mission of simply providing knowledge to one of action

orientation.

Although managing the programs without the horizontal collaboration networks would be

almost impossible, it is not without problems. Specialists and staff involved in the programs are

involved in multiple programs in multiple counties. This created situations where facilitators

were not always able to make it to program meetings. Also, with each actor bringing his or her

part, often the program felt disjointed. There were few opportunities to get the team together

face-to-face to divvy up responsibilities or go over changes in curriculum. Changes and

directions were addressed in conference calls and at lunch meetings right before the program

meetings. The program facilitators worked hard to overcome these difficulties, so they did not

affect participant experience.

Objective Two: Civic Engagement

MU Extension programs have a built-in element of civic engagement due to an

organizational structure that requires a governing body. Elections are held annually to allow

citizens of all backgrounds to hold seats on the Extension councils. Each council member is an

elected official. Extension program information is provided to the council via written and oral

reports during monthly meetings. These typically equate to a laundry list of items read by each

specialist at meetings. The programs are not explained at length to the Council, nor is the council

consulted during the decision to add/drop programs, unless it should require a grant application

that would run funds through the Council. The main responsibilities of council members are to

act in a marketing capacity for Extension and to guide regional programming. Through

attendance at county meetings and regional meetings, I have observed a disconnect in the council

that is felt across councils both at the local and regional level. The council members do not feel

fully informed about what specialists do and in speaking with my supervisor, Richard, the

specialists are not sure how to close that gap. I am curious whether this is due to organizational

leadership or a fact of life for all types of board/council service.

Objective Three: Diversity

Observing the field office where my internship was based, little diversity exists in the

staff. The majority of faculty and staff represent the baby boomer generation. There are more

women than men, and all members are white. This appears to mirror the MU Extension

leadership team, the program directors, and the regional directors. The University of Missouri at

Columbia has recently received bad press over race relations on the campus. I suspect this will

lead to an evaluation of hiring and recruitment processes in the future. However, the picture will

most likely remain the same for now as the Extension system is facing budget cuts and a hiring

freeze due to decreased student enrollments at the campus.

Analysis of Community and Economic Development Programs

The three programs covered by this study are all examples of collaboration, the topic of objective

one. Each program is also analyzed from the perspectives of civic engagement and diversity, the

topics of objectives two and three, respectively.

Strengthening Our Communities (SOC)

The SOC program began in 2012 in Ripley County, Missouri. The program was created

by ExCEED's director, Sharon, as an economic and community development collaboration

effort. Originally, the Ozark Foothills Regional Planning Commission (OFRPC) submitted an

application for a different regional program. The application was denied because there was no

history of the surrounding counties being able to work together and there were other stronger

applications. However, Sharon and Richard, saw potential in the county, so they worked with

the OFRPC to get funding for the program. The SOC program is vastly different from the other

two programs discussed in this paper. The SOC curriculum was created specifically for the

county and is not regional in scope. The curriculum focuses on seven community capitals

thought to be asset builders in communities. The capitals are natural, cultural, human, social,

political, financial and built. The capitals are used to point to strengths, challenges, and key

actors in the county. The director has built in a data portion that is unique to the program. The

data is based on demographic information for the county, such as population characteristics,

employment information, and economic impact factors. Members use this information to

address areas for growth and barriers to success.

Objective Two: Civic Engagement

The SOC program situated in Doniphan, Missouri is designed to bring cross-sector

stakeholders together from all over the county. This includes government, non-profit, business,

and interested citizens. The curriculum is designed to achieve improvements in the county by

utilizing collaboration and the bridging structures discussed by Berardo (2014) to gain access to

knowledge and fiscal resources. At inception, the program was intended to be 12 months in

length but has continued due to high engagement and concrete examples of success. This group

appears to display many of the traits associated with the Civic Index presented by McGrath and

Rubio-Cortez (2012). The traits of participation, networking and community vision and pride

could be contributing factors to the long-term engagement. In addition, the SOC group

maintained close contact between meetings with emails, social media, press coverage, and notes

from the events sent to participants. This commitment to contact appears to be essential to the

buy-in principles of civic engagement discussed in the Griffin (2014) work in Detroit.

At the time I joined the program the SOC group was attempting to move into a

new planning phase designed to reinvigorate the long-term members and attract new members.

On average meetings consist of 15 people, with a core group of around 10-12 people. One of the

biggest challenges they are facing is whether to start another project or dissolve the group. One

of the first challenges I encountered with the group was to help plan a celebration of their past

accomplishments. The idea was given to them by my supervisor as a two-pronged approach to

celebrate the past efforts in a way that would re-energize the group and attract fresh members for

the new planning process. The SOC group was hesitant to plan the event with one participant

asking "what is the point" and another asking if they can just do something "simple". However,

the group did eventually agree that the celebration could be good for community awareness.

During the process we helped them identify people who had been affected by their work and

could provide meaningful commentary during the event. They were given a month to plan and

were able to draw a crowd of almost 60 people from all sectors. I was given the opportunity to

present alongside my supervisor, the director, and several community leaders. The event was a

success. However, as a civic engagement exercise the expectation for new membership fell flat

when the number of participants at subsequent meetings immediately returned to pre-celebration

levels.

The new planning stage, "strategic-doing" is designed to pick a project, assign tasks, and

move quickly through the process. In December of last year the SOC group picked development

of a bedroom community. Other choices proposed included development of downtown

Doniphan, increase economic development, and nurture tourism. At the time the group felt by

developing the community as a bedroom community to Poplar Bluff, the other projects would be

bolstered. In order to go forward with the project the group worked on addressing impediments

of aging housing stock and the absence of dental services. Other issues identified in the area are

lack of hotels, breakfast restaurants, signage, access to broadband, and the need for a 911 system.

In a data presentation given to the group by ExCEED staff, dollar leakages were identified

whereby 60% of the workforce commutes outside the county lines and an estimated 70% of retail

expenditures occur outside the county. The data confirmed community perceptions and the

group continued to develop the idea of the bedroom community.

In April as the group entered the strategic-doing phase there was intense push back on the

project they picked and confusion surrounding the definition of a bedroom community. One of

the local officials displayed a strong stance against the idea of the bedroom community. He

insisted that Doniphan is its own entity, to be completely separate from the retail trade area of

Poplar Bluff. This confirms the Lu (2011) work in rural governance; though the county unit is

ineffective in regional resource management there is extreme resistance to change due to power

structures and entrenched political boundaries. Guided by the new opposition the group

members began to struggle with the close proximity of a metropolitan area, seeing it as

competition for resources and political clout.

One serious problem the SOC group encountered was group fragmentation. A

"newcomer" from an urban area began to attend meetings late last year. She disagreed with a

vocal core member on the direction for the new project. The disagreements were not addressed

within the group, instead the new member formed her own group called Doniphan Vitality. In

March of this year she began recruiting members from the SOC. Another member from the core

SOC felt dissonance was occurring because the group had been "talking a lot at meetings and not

really doing anything". This appears to line up with the Griffin et al (2014) work addressing the

fatigue of an over-planned group that feels like no post-session work is accomplished. I suspect

that talking about strategic doing from October 2015 to April 2016 did not help this feeling. I

mentioned that spending a significant portion of time talking about strategic-doing seems to do a

disservice to its action orientation. At the same time, the leader of Doniphan Vitality began to

circulate a paper about why bedroom communities are bad economic development strategies.

Her thesis is an actual master's thesis rather than a scholarly source, about city administrator's

feelings towards expanding job roles, not bedroom communities. In addition, the document was

written in 2007 based on literature extending back to 1989, well before the recession changed

everything about collaboration and resource management. One of my tasks was to create a brief

of the paper for my supervisor and give a presentation to the SOC group. I was to help them

understand that in essence, they already were a bedroom community, and they need to find ways

to get dollars back into the community. The presentation helped the group re-engage under a

changed project label to "community growth".

In the meanwhile, Doniphan Vitality has opened an office and taken an active stance in

the community and on social media. This confirms one aspect of the Chun et al (2010) work;

although the authors presented the study in terms of government engagement of the citizenry

through the use of web 2.0 technologies, it appears to be applicable to this situation. The leader

has embarked on an aggressive recruitment effort of SOC members through social media and

represents an excellent example of how organizations can use social media to their advantage.

The new leader is using technology and her energy as a new person to activate networks with the

younger folks and key players at the city.

My supervisor asked how I would have handled the fragmented group given the chance,

and I suggested sitting her down with the core member with whom she disagreed. In doing so I

believe she would have seen that he is fatigued in his role and would have been happy to turn the

group over to new leadership. Her efforts, well-meaning or not, stand in stark contrast to the low

energy SOC group. One common rural problem brought to my attention by an ExCEED staff

member occurs with outside job recruitment efforts. When companies bring in outsiders to fill

vacancies the new person is often accompanied by a spouse that is unable to find work. That is

what occurred in Doniphan and the spouse turned her attention to community efforts. By outside

appearances this effort seemed to be easier due to the dense ties between civic organizations and

gathering places discussed in the Whitham (2012) study.

Objective Three: Diversity

Ripley County is not diverse in terms of race. This was reflected in the data presentation

by an ExCEED team member. The county is 97% white, and the program participants mirrored

this statistic with the presence of no minorities at the meetings. Regarding gender and age, the

participants showed more diversity. The core members are of the middle-aged cohort, with

several members of retirement age. There were also young professionals in their 30s. Gender

remained balanced in the meetings, often with more women present than men.

I suspect that there are no (or few) minority-owned businesses in the area. It is an area

characterized by the appearance of deep-seated racism as evidenced by the display of

Confederate flags on many vehicles, homes, and businesses. Drawing on the Swank (2012)

research about minority stress in regions of deeply held traditional values and historical patterns

of racism, no strategies were given to increase the diversity regarding race. However, the group

was reminded that regarding human capital diversity leads to new ways of thinking and group

longevity. The meetings are held in a multi-use building that contains the Chamber of

Commerce, a counseling center, and youth activity center. I believe this lends to the

intergenerational dynamics of the SOC group. One of the older members expressed her

satisfaction that the group worked to recruit young members. I suspect they will continue to

push that effort in the future.

Leaders in Economic Alliance Development (LEAD)

LEAD is an economic and community development program born out of partnerships

between the Southern Rural Development Center (SRDC), Purdue University, USDA Rural

Development (USDA RD), and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA). The

program is based on the seven community capitals and is designed to teach participants how to

partner across political boundaries and sectors to solve regional issues. Participants in the

program have been identified as areas with regional strengths and weakness and those that show

the capacity to work together. Traditionally, applications are submitted via regional planning

commissions. In this case, the OFRPC submitted on behalf of Butler, Ripley, Carter, Reynolds

and Wayne counties. Curriculum for this program is set by Purdue, delivered by Extension and

ExCEED, reported to state personnel, and funded and monitored by the USDA RD.

Objective Two: Civic Engagement

LEAD meetings occur monthly for sessions lasting 4-5 hours. The meetings were held in

a community center in Elsinore. The facility was rundown and often ill-equipped, but

participants did not object; perhaps due to lack of adequate meeting centers in the area. The

LEAD curriculum is organized into four sessions that mirror the New Civic Index categories as

presented by McGrath and Rubio-Cortez (2012). The first teaches participants about the

program, the second is designed to recruit members to a civic forum. The third session, the civic

forum helps flesh out the desired projects in the region, key players, and the pace of the

additional sessions. The fourth and subsequent sessions are designed to foster planning,

leadership, and momentum within the group. On average there were 16 members in attendance at

each session with attendance returning to a low level at the end that matched the low beginning

level. Low attendance could have been due to long program times or lack of clarity for members

that joined later sessions. A suggestion I made to help new people was to create an informational

flyer to help them acclimate to the pace of the program. I thought this might help them feel both

informed and useful to the process.

The purpose of LEAD is not only designed to utilize civic engagement for community

capacity building but to teach civic engagement in preparation for the SET program. This aspect

of program design parallels Downs (2012) idea about the role of the university as the responsible

party in civic literacy. The primary way LEAD accomplishes work is through the use of group

activities and specialist facilitated discussions of university-backed economic and community

development principles. Like SOC, this parallels the research presented by Trencher et al.

(2014) about the emerging role of the university in regionalism.

In addition to the strong role played by the university, the planning commission

(OFRPC) was heavily involved in the project. The OFRPC director, or her assistant, were

present at every meeting and participated to a great degree. The planning commission acted as a

bridge, activating regional networks to allow for access to funds, participants, and knowledge.

Throughout the process, the OFRPC actively recruited members and suggested projects. In fact,

at the last session participants were choosing a project to tackle out of eight choices, and the

OFRPC suggested a different topic. The topic of Workforce Readiness was presented with an

organization on board if it was chosen, and the likelihood of funding for the project. The newly

proposed project was chosen by the group. That led me to question whether the planning

commission knows the region well, or whether they have undue influence over the civic

engagement process through their perceived authority like that of community organizations

discussed in the Chaskin and Greenberg (2015) study.

The group dissonance problem shows up in LEAD due to the participation of the same

two members that were unable to work together in Ripley County. During the March meeting,

there was a tower building group exercise designed to teach the planning process. When my

supervisor split the group for the exercise both members were put in the same group. I noticed

the poor dynamics occurring in the team and pointed it out to the ExCEED director. She made a

suggestion to swap members between the two teams before continuing to the next phase. Once

the swap occurred the group re-engaged in the project and flourished. After the meeting the

leader of Doniphan Vitality called the OFRPC to complain about the core member from the SOC

not listening to the needs of Ripley County. She was asked to work within the framework of the

program even if that meant voicing her opinion at the meetings.

One highlight of the program occurred when a panel of regional stakeholders was asked

to present to the LEAD group. A superintendent and a business leader had a discussion about

unemployment, brain-drain and unmet educational needs in the region. The business leader felt

the youths newly entering the workforce are not well prepared for the jobs at hand. The

superintendent explained that schools often do not know what skills are needed in the area, and

how low levels of funding put them years behind in technology training. This gave the group the

opportunity to create a forum for businesses and schools to form curriculum in a joint effort that

will work to cut down unemployment and young professional brain drain from the area. By

allowing this panel to take place, the program facilitators eased the problem of immediate needs

clouding long-range planning as discussed in Griffin et al. (2014).

Overall, the program facilitators were pleased with the way the Ozark Foothills LEAD

group progressed through the program. This particular group progressed through the sessions

more quickly than other groups across the nation. This appears to be due to the ability of

participants to work across social, economic, and political boundaries as discussed in the Innes et

al. (2011) study about megaregion governance. At the end of the program, the LEAD group

wanted to complete their chosen project and found funding the five-county region. This also set

them apart from other LEAD groups as the program is designed only to teach the civic

engagement process. The group was encouraged to submit an application for SET which is the

third program to be discussed in the next session. At the time of this writing, the LEAD group

did submit an application for SET and is currently being considered by the state team.

Civic engagement networks

An analysis of the civic engagement network formed by the LEAD participants

(Appendix D) shows the members traveling the furthest were those servicing the program. For

the analysis, I used the meeting prior to the civic forum and the last official meeting. There was

almost an equal number of repeat participants as there were participants at the meeting prior to

the civic forum. This gives the appearance of participant commitment. The main cluster of

participants is located in Butler County. This is also the county where the planning commission

is housed. There was no representation from Reynolds County which is the furthest from the

meeting location. This supports the research by Compion (2015) showing that the central EDO

is the strongest collaborator. On average, half of the participants at each meeting represented

multiple counties. These were people that worked for the Workforce Development Board, the

regional planning commission, the Department of Natural Resources, and various non-profit and

private organizations. Many of the actors work together in other projects in the region. This is

true of both participants and facilitators, confirming Berardo's (2014) hypothesis about the

strength of multi-project based network capital configurations.

Objective Three: Diversity

The five county area is not diverse regarding race. This was reflected in the data

presentation by a team member from the University. The counties taken together are 95% white

on average. The program participants mirrored this statistic with the presence of no minorities at

the meetings. Of the five county region, Butler has the highest population of 42,000 people as

compared to the other counties at 13,000 people and below. Butler also has the lowest

percentage of white inhabitants at 90%. If the race characteristics were weighted with the

population density, it is likely that Butler county could have produced some diversity for the

program. Regarding gender and age, the participants showed more diversity. The core members

are of the middle-aged cohort and the young professional group. Gender remained balanced in

the meetings, at times with more women present than men.

I suspect that a lack of diversity in a rural area like the Ozark Foothills is historic.

According to the OFRPC's Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy (CEDS), there is

some truth to this thought. The CEDS plan (Brady and Winters 13, 2013) cites a post-Civil War

economic boom as the region was inundated with settlers and the resultant economic activity.

This activity was occurring parallel to a very active Ku Klux Klan that organized in Missouri at

the same time, taking up residence in Butler and Ripley counties.

When I began work in this program, it was right before the civic forum, session three in

the curriculum. The purpose of the civic forum is to bring a large and diverse set of actors

together to discuss strengths in the region and barriers to success. During the civic forum, the

group identified needs of education and workforce development, regional planning, and

infrastructure development. The group was disappointed that the key players they needed for the

areas identified were not present. The hope was that 40 members would be present, but only 24

came to the civic forum. The responsibility for who showed up to meetings ultimately fell to the

participants, giving them full control over participant selection criteria and possibly giving the

illusion of inclusion as referred to in the McGrath and Rubio-Cortez (2012) study on the Civic

Index.

Stronger Economies Together (SET)

SET is vastly different from LEAD and SOC. The focus of SET is regional like LEAD

but relies heavily on the collaboration between rural and urban areas to address a specific

problem and write a high-quality economic plan in preparation for solving the issue. Participants

accepted to the program produce a plan for how to effectively use a catalog of resources in the

context of regional challenges and demonstrate an ability to work with other counties. The SET

program operates on a smaller scale of the principles Innes et al. (2011) proposed of megaregion

governance. Although the cities and towns are not necessarily "growing together" the SET

partners express the desire to move communities away from thinking about economic

development in isolation from other communities (University of Missouri Extension. n.d.).

Participants learn this process through sessions guided by University of Missouri faculty, and

regional data and industry cluster modeling provided by Purdue University. Participants receive

guidance on writing a high quality regional economic development plan that is used to apply for

USDA funding to complete their chosen project.

Objective Two: Civic Engagement

SET meetings occurred monthly at Mineral Area College in Park Hills for sessions

lasting 4-5 hours. Participants consisted of leaders from all sectors in the four-county region of

Ste. Genevieve, St. Francois, Iron, and Madison counties. The curriculum is organized into five

sessions. The first is an informational meeting designed to drum up participation in the civic

forum. The second is a civic forum to address regional issues, strengths, resources and key

players to utilize in later sessions. The third session is an overview of the regional data; the

fourth is an in-depth industry cluster analysis and planning session. The fifth session is designed

to connect the seven community capitals to the team's individual human capital assets. A sixth

session is required for the writing team to finalize the planning document. The planning process

is expected to take six or seven months, with built in time for the splitting of sessions if needed.

The splitting of sessions occurred within this group and was largely a function of two issues, lack

of clarity in the data, and refusal to embrace the process.

On average there were 20 members in attendance at each session including two outlying

numbers of 37 for the civic forum and 8 for the last session. Low attendance could have been

due to long program times, lack of perceived value in the process, or lack of understanding of the

data. I believe the data had as much to do with attendance as it did with the splitting of the

sessions. The data sessions are designed to educate the region on what industry is present and

where dollars are leaving the area. Participants learn how many establishments are in the region,

how many jobs are in the area, industries experiencing growth and decline as compared to the

nation, and characteristics of the workforce. One of the main issues in the data presentation was

the source of the data. The 2009-2014 data was produced by Purdue University and did not

include a wholesale or retail component, which participants questioned. There was immediate

pushback towards presenters. Participants felt the numbers were incomplete and not

representative of their actual numbers especially in the area of actual jobs. The presenters

challenged the participants on the notion of perception but in the end explained that there might

be some gaps in the data due to the source. I do not think this sat well with many members.

Also, there were several points of confusion in the program due to staff issues including

switching of presenters, changing of curriculum, and no staff meetings before presentations.

There was disruptions to continuity in leadership due to the management of two SET programs at

once.

Civic engagement dropped drastically after the data presentations. The last data session

had 20 people; there were eight people present for the last program session designed to connect

information with the community assets. The eight included a media person and a member of the

regional planning commission, meaning there were only six area leaders engaged in the final

process. The community capital session is so important to the process that the presenters almost

called off the meeting in favor of trying to recruit more people. Participants wanted to go ahead

with the process, so the meeting continued. The low numbers of participants could be attributed

to the programs' violation of the co-creation for sustainability theory discussed by Trencher et al.

(2014). The SET program appears to be paternalistic in approach instead of built on the

foundation of joint cooperation associated with the emergence of the university as the facilitator

of regional collaboration.

The second issue that caused the splitting of sessions was a refusal to embrace the

process. The splitting of the sessions is not inherently wrong; it is expected that it will occur to

some degree. But for it to occur over a three-month span can create conditions rife with fatigue

and burn-out. This leads me to question how much of the problem is with the data and how

much is with participants' unwillingness to accept the numbers and work with them. Also, the

program follows more of a university knowledge transfer pathway than the civic engagement

categories as presented by Mcgrath and Rubio-Cortez (2012) in the New Civic Index. There was

no leadership building, low levels of group participation activities, and no promotion of

community vision. The engagement aspect for actual work with this group was troublesome from

the beginning. In the first session after the civic forum, participants were required to form a

writing team to create an economic development plan based on participation in the sessions.

Putting this team together was so difficult it lead the director to remind them that if they were

unwilling to do this, the whole process should be stopped.

The lack of interest in writing the plan continued throughout the process. I did

not observe anyone on the team taking notes at meetings. Progress reports to the group

contained no information thus accumulating no participant or public buy-in. As they were pushed

for a draft one of the members began to push back with a previous plan that was produced in the

region over five years ago. He circled back to it at each session and asked if it could be re-

written for the SET program. This was a dominant member of the group who mentioned that

when they tried to do this work before it was private and not open to the public. This led the

federal monitor to remind the group that perhaps they were not right for the SET process.

Because most of the participants were associated with government or community leaders in some

capacity, it should go without saying that they have some level of understanding of civic

engagement principles. This leads me to question if more could be done to create buy-in during

the initial stages of the project. The community development project discussed by Griffin et al.

(2014) was obviously much larger in scope. However it seems some of the principles of

engagement, feedback and leadership could be applicable to creating success for the program.

Civic Engagement Networks

An analysis of the civic engagement network formed by the SET participants (Appendix

E) shows the members traveling the furthest were those servicing the program. I was unable to

obtain the sign-in sheet for the last meeting. The analysis presented here contains only the

members present at the meeting before the civic forum. Although it appears that the main cluster

of participants is located in St. Francois County, there is only one participant. Participants were

spread out between Madison, Ste. Genevieve, and Perry counties. Perry County was not part of

the SET program but is the county where the planning commission is housed. Two other EDOs

were involved, and they are located in St. Genevieve County. There was one representative from

Iron County which is the furthest from the meeting location. This supports the research by

Compion (2015) showing that the central EDO is the strongest collaborator. Government

officials were more heavily involved in this program as compared to LEAD. Ten out of the 17

participants in the meeting before the civic forum identified themselves as state or local

government employees. Participants in this program did not work together in any other capacity

confirming Berardo's (2014) hypothesis about weak single project network capital

configurations.

Objective Three: Diversity

The four-county area is not diverse in terms of race. The counties taken together are 95%

white on average, and the program participants mirrored this statistic with the presence of no

minorities at the meetings. Of the four county region, St. François has the highest population at

around 66,000 people as compared to other others at 17,000 people and below. St. François also

has the lowest percentage of white inhabitants at 93%. If the race characteristics were weighted

with the population density, it is likely that St. François County could have produced some

diversity for the program. Regarding gender, the participants give the appearance of diversity.

However, when looking more closely at actual attendance, men outnumbered women in terms of

repeat attendance. Also, several of the women counted on the sign-in sheet were associated with

the program. The presence of women at the meetings dwindled towards the end, with no women

present at the last meeting. There was little diversity regarding age, with most participants

reflecting the middle-aged cohort. Also, this group was more heavily attended by government

officials with local, state, and federal reaches. It is possible that the ages and backgrounds of the

participants reflect the degree of education and professionalism needed to understand the

program as discussed in the STEM pay gap study by Oh and Kim (2013). It also possibly

reflects the study by Chin (2010) about the access of the traditional white male power elite group

to leadership roles. Lastly, SET participation could reflect what McGrath and Rubio-Cortez

(2012) deem the need for inclusion over diversity. Was the drop in participants related to them

not feeling welcome? Or were there some other problems with the program? There is no real

way to know without surveying participants. However, I suspect that the element of

inclusiveness has something to do with the characteristics of the participants.

Appendix A

Appendix D

LEAD Civic Engagement Network

Blue lines: members present before civic forum

Purple lines: members present before civic forum and at last meeting

Red lines: members present at last meeting

Thick lines: member that serve multiple counties

Thin lines: members with ties to one county

Appendix E

SET Civic Engagement Network

Blue lines: members present before civic forum

Thick lines: member that serve multiple counties

Thin lines: members with ties to one county