Engaging Appalachia: A Guidebook for Building Capacity and Sustainability [Hardback]

Inclusive campus-community collaborations provide critical opportunities to build community capacity - defined as a community's ability to jointly respond to challenges and opportunities - and sustainability. Through case studies from across all three subregions of Appalachia from Georgia to Pennsylvania, Engaging Appalachia: A Guidebook for Building Capacity and Sustainability offers diverse perspectives and guidance for promoting social change through campus-community relationships from faculty, community members, and student contributors.

This volume explores strategies for creating more inclusive and sustainable partnerships through the arts, humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. In representing diverse areas, environments, and issues, three relatable themes emerge within a practice viewpoint that is scalable to communities beyond Appalachia: fostering student leadership, asset-building, and needs fulfillment within community engagement.

Engaging Appalachia presents collaborative approaches to regional community engagement and offers important lessons in place-based methods for achieving sustainable and just development. Written with practicality in mind, this guidebook embraces hard-earned experiences from decades of work in Appalachia and sets forth new models for building community resilience in a changing world.

Introduction Town and Gown Collaborations in Southwest Virginia Post-Coal Communities Collaborating for Conservation Roots With Wings Bringing Back the Forest Wealth and Poverty in the Little Cities of Black Diamonds Documenting the Past to Sustain the Future Students Leading the Way to Social Change Breaking the Chains of Addiction through University, Nonprofit and Community Partnerships GIS Mapping of Legacy Oil and Gas Wells Appalachia Abroad Saving Appalachian Gardens and Stories Conclusion Epilogue Contributors and Editors Index