CU's Rural Advancement initiative hosts latest workshop on unlocking rural economic potential

by Gerard Flanagan, lead writer and communications specialist, Office of Marketing and Communications

Campbellsville, KY (10/09/2025) — In a state where every rural community tells a unique story, Campbellsville University is working to ensure those stories are heard - and empowered.

CU's Rural Advancement initiative hosted its latest rural economic development workshop on Sept. 15 in the Heilman Welcome Center.

The workshop, which focused on innovative strategies to unlock the potential of Kentucky's rural communities, included a presentation from Dr. Roger Huston, assistant vice president for strategic relations and rural advancement, and a panel discussion featuring rural economic development leaders from across Kentucky.

"I've had wonderful conversations with all of our partners here over the past year and thinking about ways that we can actually develop curriculum as a higher education institution that will help serve this population well," Huston shared.

Huston emphasized Rural Advancement wants to continue providing workshops and other continuing education programs to help provide information and direction on the landscape of rural development.

Huston explained CU's Rural Advancement initiative is focused on providing bottom-up initiatives, not top-down.

"Typically, it's from either the federal or state level saying, 'This is what we've got going on, this is where we'd like to go.' For us here at Campbellsville University, we're also in that ecosystem, but thinking about smaller strategies, holistic strategies, very individual ways that we can support the economic development ecosystem. So, again, holistic initiatives are part of what we're trying to do to help all of our rural communities achieve their fullest potential.

Huston added, "We're trying to highlight the assets that are in each individual rural community and making sure they're achieving their fullest potential. This is very much who we are as CU."

Following Huston's presentation, five economic development leaders from across the Commonwealth of Kentucky. The panelists were:

• Terri Bradshaw, president of the Kentucky Association for Economic Development who also led the panel discussion
• John Buchanan, community and economic development advisor for the Kentucky League of Cities
• Chris Girdler, president and CEO of the Somerset-Pulaski Economic Development Authority (SPEDA)
• Colby Kirk, president and CEO of One East Kentucky
• Missy Vanderpool, executive director of Henderson Economic Development

Girdler explained SPEDA wanted to "redefine economic development" when it was established back in 2019.

"Our goal was to redefine economic development to where it is anything your community does economically, politically and socially to benefit your citizens and your people," Gridler said. "We're still working extremely, extremely hard in that effort, but we're also really heavily focused in commercial and retail recruitment, tourism promotion, education and workforce development, even down to things like trying to attract conventions and conferences to your community that are going to bring people in and out."

Gridler also emphasized the importance of cooperation in unlocking rural economic growth.

"It's not an I game," he said. "It's a 'we and an us' game, because everything that we have been able to do, we as the community, it truly comes down to collaboration and coordinating efforts, like a big umbrella, big picture way of thinking."

Vanderpool added to what Gridler shared: "At the end of the day, it's what's best for our community. It's really easy to do the right thing when your passion is your community and the way it's going to grow."

Buchanan touched on what people are looking for when they choose to settle down in a community and how it relates to economic development.

"People want to find a community where they feel welcome, where they feel like they can raise a family, where they feel like they can have that American dream, that upward mobility, and leaving a better world than what they found it."

Kirk shared about challenges and obstacles he's faced during his time in economic development and how to work through them. Kirk explained he faced a unique challenge in Eastern Kentucky: what to do with former sites of coal mining activity and acknowledging many of these sites needed significant work before they were ready for economic development.

"Most, if not all, of the industrial property that we had to market in our region was once the site of coal mining activity," Kirk shared. "When One East Kentucky was started, we had done this push for recruiting new types of industry, and there was a high-profile project that was considering a site in Pike County, and they get to the engineering side of things, and you find out it's going to cost like $2 million more to $6 million more to build on this site, because it ranges from needing 30 feet of fill material to over 400 feet of fill material."

Kirk also highlighted the Kentucky Product Development Initiative (KPDI), a statewide effort to support upgrades at industrial sites throughout the commonwealth and position Kentucky for continued economic growth.

"We need to keep encouraging our state to invest in programs like KPDI because I really know that it's going to pay off for us," Kirk stated.

Campbellsville University is a widely acclaimed Kentucky-based Christian university that offers over 100 programs including doctoral, master, bachelor, associate and certificate programs. The website for complete information is www.campbellsville.edu.

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