Developing an Economic Engagement Playbook

Goal:

Traditionally, regional comprehensive universities focus inwardly on educating students who come to their campuses, many from within a commuting distance.  Often, regional comprehensives are located in places with declining populations and economically distressed downtowns and neighborhoods.  In recent years, there has been more of a push for these regional universities to play an active role in their communities, and to assist in reversing the economic fortunes of the region.  Radford University, situated in the midst of an economically distressed community, wanted to identify opportunities to play a larger and broader role in engaging their community with economic opportunities.

Challenge:

With a change in university leadership and the anticipated arrival of a new president, the university had no clear direction about how to focus its external efforts.  The town of Radford sits in rural southwestern Virginia with a foot in Appalachia, a vast region historically struggling economically.  The question facing the university was how to partner with a rural region and struggling downtown, in ways that were realistic and feasible?

Solution:

In addition to some initial asset assessment, both in the region and in the university, as well as exploring ideas with many varied internal and external stakeholders, an economic “playbook” was generated, providing a menu of possibilities for the new administration to consider and implement.  The playbook’s thirteen plays were organized around place, innovation, and talent.  Among the playbook’s recommendations were an entrepreneurship and innovation hub downtown, a scaled student engagement centered around embedding community-based learning in the curriculum, and partnering with nearby Virginia Tech in mutually beneficial ways.

Outcomes and Impacts:

A new president was hired and he declared that economic engagement would be a top priority of his administration.  The playbook was ready for him to digest and use as a basis for determining strategies to pursue that would be realistic and feasible.  Doors with many potential partners had been opened to prepare the way for fruitful relationships.