Miami University student spearheads Ohio’s rural renaissance
How the Hometown Talent Initiative seeks to combat ‘brain drain’ across the state
Miami University student spearheads Ohio’s rural renaissance
When senior Evelyn Morrison, a Public Administration and Sustainability double major, came to Miami, she came with a mission.
Having grown up in a small rural community, she wanted to help others who hailed from similar surroundings gain access to the kinds of opportunities she never had.
“That's the backbone of all I want to do,” Morrison said. “I want people who grew up in areas like mine to have a better life. I had a lot of opportunities and I was very privileged. But I want to ensure that other people also have opportunities. I think the goal of any public servant should be making sure that each generation that comes behind us has more and more opportunities and better access to a good life.”
This philosophy is the crux of the Hometown Talent Initiative, which recently helped earn Morrison a nomination for the prestigious Truman Scholarship.
Originally from Brewster, Ohio, a village in southwestern Stark County, Morrison understood the growing need to build the kinds of pathways and support that will allow small rural communities to reinvest in themselves by encouraging more young people to become engaged community leaders and talented local workers.
Essentially, the problem the Home Town Talent Initiative is designed to combat is “brain drain,” which is the emigration of skilled and educated individuals who flee certain areas by seeking better opportunities elsewhere. With regard to recent college graduates, it often sees the best and brightest heading to major metropolitan areas, while the local rural communities – from which many are originally from – continue to languish in economic decline.
“Our universities produce really great graduates, and we're great about sending students to Fortune 500 companies, which is amazing,” Morrison said. “But what are we doing for our neighboring counties that are sending their students to our university? So that inspired us to go into Butler County, and into Darke and Preble County, to see what opportunities they have for young people in terms of post-graduation job placements.”
Morrison first got involved with this initiative through Miami University’s Office of ASPIRE, where she interned under the mentorship of Randi Thomas, vice president of ASPIRE. Morrison displays all qualities needed to become a great public servant, according to Thomas.
“She has the ability to relate with people, to understand where they're coming from, where they want to go, and to help guide them on how they want to accomplish what they want to accomplish, which is key for someone who is going to be leading communities,” Thomas said. “She believes in what she's doing and that comes through very clearly. And she is one you can count on to make the best decision, even when no one's watching.”
Through her internship with ASPIRE, Morrison has taken a key role in leveraging the Hometown Talent Initiative to establish new civic partnerships in rural communities surrounding Miami.
These partnerships aim to help each area understand what readily available university resources may be most beneficial to their individual local needs. The goal is to help them each accomplish whatever they may need to accomplish to make each neighboring Ohio community an attractive place to live and work.
“So, when we go in and we talk to, for example, the Darke County Commissioners, I don't talk, Evelyn talks,” Thomas said. “She explains the program from a perspective of why this is valuable to a student that this community is looking to attract back, or for the first time. Being from a smaller rural community herself, she's able to connect with them and say, ‘Here are the things that would also attract students my age back to this community.’”
In addition to her work with ASPIRE, Morrison also serves as a student associate for the Miami University Government Relations Network and as an advisory board member for Miami’s Office of Transformational and Inclusive Excellence. She plans to attend graduate school before pursuing a career in public administration.
“I've met enough economic development departments and organizations to know that that's where I really want to head right now,” Morrison said. “I'm very driven to have an impact on the things that are important to me and to make sure they're being driven to the point of success. I think a big thing that I love about public servants is that a lot of us care about people, and we just want to see people in our communities being taken care of.”
