COLLEGE AND COMMUNITY COLLABORATE

    One MIRA participant who has been dealing with rural development issues for many years is Dr. Mary Emery, Director of the Institute for Community Development at Lewis-Clark State College. Dr. Emery served on the governor's task force on rural development which issued a report in September 2000, outlining the serious situation for many rural communities where the disparity in incomes, employment, and services continues to grow. I met Dr. Emery in San José, California, where she was attending a business incubator conference. She filed the final MIRA report for her institute and a number of resource, conservation, and development councils and other development organizations. Emery's own projects included the purchase of a server for hosting a number of Internet databases and web sites. I asked why, given the low coast of server space for Internet applications, they chose to buy equipment, she replied that it gave students the experience in writing applications and maintaining the equipment. The support from the computer science department at Lewis-Clark State College helped the team, but she noted, "It is so easy for us to find a student to develop a technology solution to a problem, but that will have nothing to do with whether or not someone actually uses the tool to make things easier." Emery introduced a range of mailing lists on different topics of potential interest to the members, but she wound up trying to stimulate interest and by posting most of the messages. She overestimated the willingness of the people to use even these basic tools. Because the Idaho members were the most widely dispersed, it was difficult to collaborate, especially without a paid coordinator. They hosted a virtual gallery, the MIRA scrapbook, an oral history database and the mailing lists, a Nez Perce Indian cultural center, and a virtual incubator that helps prepare Idaho businesses to work online. It has helped bring in another $800,000 in grants to the college.