Rural Schools Collaborative Adds Two Advocates to Organization

The Rural Schools Collaborative (RSC) is proud to announce its two newest Advocates, Brian Fogle, President of the Community Foundation of the Ozarks, and Ann Schulte, Ph.D., Professor of Education at California State University, Chico. RSC Advocates are making important contributions to rural schools and communities in their respective regions, and their willingness to formally support RSC and its work enhances both the credibility and capacity of the organization, which was launched in April of 2015.

Ann Schulte’s scholarly interests lie primarily in the study of how one’s identity impacts one’s teaching. She is a member of the Self-study of Teacher Education Practice (S-STEP) organization, having served as a past president. In her first book Seeking Integrity in Teacher Education: Transforming My Student Teachers, Transforming My Self (2009), Ann explored how as a white middle class woman, she prepared primarily white middle class women to teach diverse populations of students. She explored how she was able to use their shared identities to draw on her student teachers’ strengths in teaching them to meet the needs of students who were from different backgrounds than the teacher. Ann continued this line of inquiry in her second book, Self studies in Rural Teacher Education (2015), edited with Bernadette Walker-Gibbs from Australia. In this more recent book, Ann explores her rural identity in order that she might work in solidarity with rural teachers to overcome the deficit perceptions of rural places. Although Ann did not experience significant marginalization or sense of inadequacy in being rural, she knows that many students who come from rural areas feel disadvantaged or under-served because of their background. She prepares teachers to draw on the strengths of rural communities and to connect their teaching to rural places. Ann is developing her propensity to be a rural activist. Outside of education work, Ann enjoys making art, and is also active in local politics and in efforts to address homelessness.

Brian Fogle is President at Community Foundation of the Ozarks. Prior to joining CFO, he spent 30 years in banking in Springfield. Brian’s hometown is Aurora, MO, where he is a graduate of Aurora High School. He has his B.B.A. and M.B.A. in banking and finance from the University of Mississippi. He is also a graduate of the Graduate School of Banking of the South at L.S.U. He is married to Renee Arnaud formerly of Monett, and they have 3 children, Andrew, Betsy, and Ellen.

Brian has been active in numerous civic and non-profit groups. He currently chairs the Good Community Committee and is on the board of the Every Child Promise, Mercy Health Systems-Springfield, the 8th District Federal Reserve Community Development Advisory Council and the Federal Reserve System Community Advisory Council. He was awarded the O Franklin Kenworthy Leadership Award in 1990, the National Community Leadership Award in 1993, and the Springfieldian Award in 2010, and received and honorary doctorate of humane letters from Drury University in December, 2011.

He was appointed by Governor Nixon to the Coordinating Board for Higher Education in 2012, and he serves as chair for 2016.

The Rural Schools Collaborative believes innovative instruction, thoughtful collaboration, and targeted philanthropy strengthen the fabric of rural places. RSC supports these efforts through:

• Creating an agile social marketing network
• Offering planning grants and capacity building resources
• Providing selected technical assistance
• Making grants to teachers for innovative place-based instruction
• Convening advocates for purposeful activities

RSC is currently working in eight states with a small administrative office in the village of Cambridge, Wisconsin.