News & Events

With sustainability and green energy set to play a critical role in the growth of our national economy, community colleges represent a way to meet the needs of local businesses and residents.  Join experts and practitioners from the U.S. and Europe in Asheville on April 26-27 as they highlight expanded roles for colleges in educating students, businesses, and communities about and for economic opportunities in renewable energy, conservation, ecotourism, and local sustainable agriculture and manufacturing.

Topics to be discussed include:

• Skills for new green-oriented industries and for sustainable practices in other sectors
• Enhancing local and sustainable agriculture, natural resources, and crafts
• “Green thinking” in all programs
• Making campuses models of sustainability

Go to www.ta3online.org/2010meeting/ for more information including information about registration and scheduled speakers.

One of the most dynamic cities in the South, Charleston, South Carolina, has asked RTS to examine its creative economy. We will take a look at a three county region’s creative enterprises, workers and assets and help develop strategies to enhance the creative economy’s impact in the Low Country. The project will also benchmark Charleston’s creative economy against selected communities in the Southeast.

Helping communities act more collaboratively in regional approaches has long been a hallmark of RTS’ work. A new effort in South Dakota will allow us to work with a group of counties and municipalities looking to create a new regional growth strategy. The strategy will include an analysis of the region’s clusters and a plan designed to build and support the research enterprise and educational assets at the region’s universities and link them to the private sector as economic development drivers.

The Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) awarded RTS a grant to assess the workforce trends and training requirements necessary to meet the needs of the ARC region’s increasingly important energy sector.  We will be working with colleagues at Penn State to project energy workforce growth, particularly in light of new green energy legislation. We’ll also be looking at the ability of the region’s community colleges and universities to train workers to meet the expected need.  Finally, we’ll take a look at best practices at these institutions.

Working with a group of business leaders in the Shreveport, Louisiana region, RTS is looking at ways to increase the ability of minority entrepreneurs and small business owners to compete and prosper.  In 2008, RTS reported back to the  Strategic Action Council of Northwest Louisiana on the most important economic development challenges and opportunities facing the region, identifying issues relating to the numbers and capacity of minority-owned businesses as critical. The SAC agreed with that assessment and has asked RTS to further investigate the challenges facing these firms and to develop a plan to begin to ensure their success.  RTS staff will conduct extensive on-the-ground interviews and focus groups with entrepreneurs and owners in the region to find out what exactly they see are the most important barriers to their success and how the region can help them grow.

Our latest work in the creative economy takes us to the land of Faulkner, the Blues and a whole lot of new artists making a name for themselves.  The Mississippi Arts Comission along with the Mississippi Development Authority has contracted with RTS and the Alliance for Creative Advantage to analyze how the state’s creative industries contribute to the economic health of the state.  Along with looking at the impact of the arts, we will also be examining how manufacturing companies such as Viking Ranges and Peavey Electronics have used design to not only grow their enteprises but influence growth in the region.  Over the next few months, we will be traveling to the Magnolia State to conduct focus groups, write vignettes about creative economy from the Delta to the Gulf Coast and help the state develop strategies for enhancing the impact of arts and design.

The theme for the 2009 symposium and meeting of the Trans-Atlantic Technology & Training Alliance in Tampere, Finland was New Learning Environments and Cultural Differences.  Organized by Marjut Salminen of Tampere College and hosted by the college on May 4-6, 2009, the first day included presentations on the Finnish educational system, skills to cope with cultural differences, new business incubators as learning environments, creative entrepreneurship, cross cultural understanding for international employees, and benchmark practices.  Members from seven countries were took part in the three days of professional, business, and cultural events.  TA3 members toured Tampere College and visited the Kuru Forest College, where they held their business meeting, which included a strategic planning discussion led by EUC-Syd—and also test-drove the school’s log haulers and had an evening meal at a log cottage.  The agenda and selected presentations can be downloaded here

With the recent release of our work on Arkansas’s creative economy, we thought it appropriate to share some of the lessons learned about the impact creativity can have in rural parts of the country.  Dan Broun, RTS’ Director of Special Projects, wrote a piece entitled “The Creativity of Rural America,” for the online publication, The Daily Yonder.  The Daily Yonder focuses on issues impacting rural communities across the nation.  The piece can be read here.

CraftNet, a network of community colleges supporting the creative economy, now has an exciting new home on the internet. craftnetglobal.com offers  information abot the many exciting programs offered by the network.  Of special interest is the new ECommerce for Artists curriculum that serves as an introductory guide to help artists establish and sustain an entrepreneurial Web presence.  The curriculum was developed collaboratively by CraftNet member organizations and artists and funded with the support of the Appalachian Regional Commission.

We are excited to announce the publication of Unveiling the Creative Economy in Arkansas: Strategies to Increase Creative Capacity and Competitive Advantage.  The report is the culmination of a three year study that RTS, along with its partner in the Alliance for Creative Advantage, Mt. Auburn Associates, conducted for the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation.  This report offers recommendations on how Arkansas can build upon its impressive assets to enhance its creative economy. The report offers lessons for other states as well particularly those with large rural populations and that have traditionally depended on low-wage manufacturing.  You can download a copy of the report here.