OHIO's regional campuses lead the way in rural education

“We don’t shy away from our remoteness,” said Dr. Jacqueline Yahn, associate professor of instruction at Ohio University Eastern and co-lead of the Rural Schools Collaborative Ohio Hub. “We realize the possibilities we have through it.”

From her office at Ohio University Eastern, Yahn is helping to lead a movement that doesn’t treat rural living as a barrier to overcome, but as a strength to build from. In partnership with Building Bridges to Careers (BB2C), Ohio University Regional Higher Education has been designated a new Rural Schools Collaborative (RSC) Hub, joining a national network committed to strengthening rural schools, communities, and teacher pipelines.

“We’ve always had great teachers in our region, but we haven’t always had the pipeline,” Yahn said. “We want students to see teaching as a way to come back and make a difference.”

The foundation of the hub was laid through the OHIO Rural Teacher Fellowship, a program that connects practicing rural teachers with communities.

“The Rural Teacher Fellowship was the project that brought us into this work,” said Yahn. “Our fellows projects told our story of how we engage with communities.”

Connecting education majors with rural schools and communities

One of the most visible of those projects is STEAM Stories, by fellow Crystal Barnett-Sheaves. STEAM Stories is a creative approach to featuring local community experts who serve as guest STEAM role models.

“They saw scientists as people from Harvard or on TV,” Yahn said, recalling how young students perceived science professionals. “But when we brought in people from their own towns, people they could see at Kroger or church, it changed their understanding of what’s possible.”

Yahn encourages faculty, staff, students and community members to consider sharing their own STEAM Stories and contributing to this growing collection of community-rooted narratives that inspire young learners.

Yahn describes the RSC as a national philanthropic organization that supports rural schools and the vitality of rural communities.

“That’s their mission and purpose,” she said.

Supporting rural teachers and schools

“What I like about our hub structure is that we can take a story we wrote in-house and prompt it back out through the hub so it gets a national reach,” said Yahn. 

That visibility helps elevate not just student voices, but also the powerful stories of rural educators.

“We’ve had a couple great things going on at the Chillicothe campus with teachers and our undergraduate students,” Yahn said. “We can pass that story on to them and have it shared at the national level.”

Collaboration across hubs also shapes the work.

“Our Rural Teacher Corps here at OHIO that we just started is modeled off of pieces of the Wyoming hub’s Rural Teacher Corps,” said Yahn. “I really liked things they were doing that would also work for us, funding and capacity-wise.”

Yahn sees this work as a way to restore education as a community-driven calling.

“When I ask kids who their favorite teacher was, they say, ‘Mrs. Smith in third grade, she helped me when I couldn’t read,’” she said. “It’s about connection. It’s not about what test scores they got.”

That philosophy also drives how partners are chosen.

“We’re really intentional about working with people in the community, like makerspaces, farmers markets, small businesses,” Yahn said. “We ask, ‘What’s the need?’ and then we design something together.”

This isn’t just theory. From Lawrence County to Muskingum County, OHIO students have helped create educational kits for local libraries, organized STEM events at fairgrounds, led health and wellness initiatives, and hosted after-school programming in partnership with local nonprofits.

“These are students who may have never seen themselves as changemakers before,” Yahn said. “But now they are.”

OHIO's commitment to serving the community

The RSC Ohio Hub also reflects a broader commitment within Ohio University Regional Higher Education to unite campuses and communities through shared purpose. Each year, events like the Early Childhood and Elementary Education Festival, known as EdFest, bring students and faculty together to exchange ideas, share research, and celebrate the future of teaching in a rural context.

Dr. Lewatis McNeal, vice provost for regional higher education, sees the hub as a natural extension of OHIO’s mission.

“We are committed to expanding access to higher education and enhancing the quality of life for the communities we serve. The Rural Schools Collaborative Hub helps us do both. It lifts up local stories and gives students real-world experiences that matter,” McNeal said.

As Yahn puts it, “You don’t have to be a teacher education faculty member to be part of this. If you care about your community, there’s a place for you.” She believes that mindset is essential to moving forward.

“We refuse to be anything but asset-based,” she said. “We don’t look at what’s missing. We look at what we can build from.”

That, ultimately, is the heartbeat of the RSC Ohio Hub: a belief that rural communities and the students who call them home deserve opportunity not in spite of where they live, but because of it.

“This hub is an invitation,” Yahn said. “It’s an invitation to value place, and to value people. And that’s something we need more of everywhere.”