Faculty reflect on connections built during Rural Indiana Faculty Tour

Faculty from across Indiana University Bloomington left campus behind for three days this summer, boarding a chartered bus together to explore the people, places, and partnerships shaping rural southern Indiana.

The immersive Rural Indiana Faculty Tour was hosted by the IU Center for Rural Engagement with support from the Office of the Provost & Executive Vice Chancellor. The event invited faculty to connect with local leaders, explore rural communities, and develop their community-engaged research, teaching, and service.

From farm-to-table partnerships to new approaches in housing and education, they saw firsthand how local leaders are creating opportunities tailored to their communities and the ways IU partnerships support these efforts.

The tour itinerary included stops in Daviess, Dubois, Lawrence, Martin, Orange, and Washington counties, with visits to the General Motors plant in Bedford, the Tomato Products Company in Paoli, the Monastery Immaculate Conception in Ferdinand, Fischer Farms near St. Anthony, Salem City Hall, the Monon South Trail, and WestGate at Crane Technology Park.

At each stop, community partners shared stories of local innovation and resilience in areas ranging from housing and workforce development to health, arts, and culture.

“The tour created a forum for faculty and community leaders to discuss critical rural issues,” Center for Rural Engagement Interim Executive Director Kyla Cox Deckard said. “These conversations lead to deeper understanding and serve as the foundation for strong partnerships in the future.”

For Kimberly Carballo, senior lecturer in chamber and collaborative music and director of the Jacobs Virtual Academy (JVA) at the Jacobs School of Music, the tour was an opportunity to broaden connections she has already built in southern Indiana. JVA engages young musicians through online instruction and an annual event at IU’s Musical Arts Center, where students from rural Indiana communities spend a day learning and performing. Carballo is also the founder of Reimagining Opera for Kids, a program that brings opera to schools and community spaces.

“Most of my experience with the community partners in rural Indiana before this had been in school circumstances,” Carballo said. “But I knew that there was a whole host of communities that I didn't yet have direct contacts with, and I just really wanted to develop those new contacts.”

Carballo expected to make connections in Orange County but was surprised by the possibilities at WestGate at Crane.

“What I did not anticipate was that WestGate Crane would have a point of contact for the Jacobs Virtual Academy,” she said. “There are actually quite a few potential ways to collaborate there that would never have occurred to me if I hadn't been there with the tour.”

Carballo also valued the chance to connect with IU faculty members she might not have met otherwise.

“Getting to know colleagues across silos was pretty spectacular,” Carballo said. “These are folks with a similar heart in terms of prioritizing community engagement, or else they wouldn't be on the bus, right? So just being able to take that piece of it for granted and move forward in the conversations was inspiring.”

For Lisa Lenoir, assistant professor in The Media School, joining the tour was a chance to reconnect with her Indiana roots. She grew up in Indianapolis with a strong history of farming in her background on both sides of the family.

“I’ve been gone for about 25 years,” she said. “I was interested because I’m trying to kind of see my place in Indiana, since I’ve lived in Illinois, which has a very different kind of spirit to it. I really wanted to understand what’s going on in the state and how there’s these many different parts.”

One of the tour highlights for Lenoir was visiting Fischer Farms, where faculty learned about innovative approaches to sustainable agriculture and local food systems.

“Now when I go to a restaurant, I think, ‘Oh my gosh, this is from Fischer Farms.’ That was really cool,” she said.

Back on campus, she was eager to share her experiences with colleagues at The Media School.

“I just thought it was really enlightening. I learned a lot,” Lenoir said. “I came back, and I talked about it at our faculty meeting. They said, ‘Oh, Lisa, this is really fascinating.’ I said, ‘Oh, it was good. It was good.’ A lot of my colleagues in my unit are former journalists, so this is part of their wheelhouse — just getting out and thinking of ways that they can engage students in these environments, and sharing so that they can illuminate and tell people's stories.”

While each of the 22 faculty members departed for the tour with their own distinctive professional and personal backgrounds, they returned with a shared awareness of rural Indiana’s strengths and opportunities. For Carballo, that awareness crystallized in an appreciation for the grassroots spirit at the heart of rural Hoosier life.

“That intentionality at the local level, to not follow the outside world trends, and to keep it like we’re all moving together — I think that was one of the big highlights for me,” she said.