Sam Houston State's Center for Rural Studies aims to be main research, outreach unit for rural Texas

Sam Houston State University has established a new Center for Rural Studies: Research and Outreach. "I truly believe that the Center will quickly emerge as the premier teaching, research and outreach authority on rural Texas," says Director Gene Theodori, an associate professor in the university's sociology department, site of the center.

The center will offer educational and technical assistance programs and a broad range of policy research and recommendations, using faculty from several disciplines. "Rural Texas communities, school systems, and businesses desperately need data on which to base their decisions," says John de Castro, dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences.

Theodori, right, says the center will address a variety of issues and projects, including community-based planning, environmental and natural resource planning and policy, rural and small town government, ecotourism, transportation, health care and public and private collaboration for rural areas, using faculty from a wide range of disciplines. Potential clients include local governments, community and economic development corporations and chambers of commerce.

"The social and economic fabric of many rural communities throughout the U.S. has been progressively weakened by a number of regional, national and global changes over the past few decades," Theodori says. "Rural communities in Texas have not been exempt from such structural-level occurrences. Transformations in economic, demographic and spatial organization have had profound impacts on rural Texas." Read more.