Exploring Rural Issues
We connect college and university students with the people and stories of Wallowa County. Despite economic hardships from a declining forest industry, Wallowa County has come together to adapt and thrive. Visiting students engage directly with local residents and learn first-hand about rural values, issues, and problem solving. These personal interactions strengthen rural-urban relationships. We have partnered with Oregon State University, Whitman College, and Portland State University to offer dynamic undergraduate and graduate courses. Additionally, we work with universities (Whitman College and Eastern Oregon University) in creating internships and practicums. Students work closely with staff and see the inner working of a nonprofit. Contact us if interested in partnering with us and creating a course.
Current University Courses
Whitman in the Wallowas, a month-long, 4-credit interdisciplinary course in the summer. This program, developed by Wallowa Resources and Whitman College faculty, explores the natural and human communities of Wallowa County. Students' fieldwork integrates the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. The course begins with natural history, followed by community-based conservation. Students camp on private lands and learn directly from Wallowa County residents. The final segment of the course is a writing workshop based on field journals.
Semester in the West. Whitman students spend a semester traveling and studying public land conservation in the American West. The field program offers coursework in ecology, writing, politics, and integrative projects. Wallowa Resources coordinates 7 days of the program during which students meet with ranchers, land managers, county government officials, and entrepreneurs to learn about rural problem solving in Wallowa County. The Wallowa County wolf issue is a popular one for student final video/writing productions.
Communities and Natural Resources. Oregon State University offers this graduate level field seminar for students in Forest Ecosystems and Society and Human Development and Family Science programs. Wallowa Resources coordinates and leads the program in Wallowa County. The Communities and Natural Resources seminar provides students interdisciplinary, experiential learning about contemporary community and natural resource issues in rural Oregon. Students learn firsthand from community leaders about current conditions and future prospects for Oregon's rural, natural resource dependent communities. Students synthesize what they learn on-site about poverty, natural resource dependency, community well-being, adaptive capacity, resilience; social, human, economic and natural capital; and land tenure.
Rural Engagement & Vitality Center
Leaders at Eastern Oregon University, Oregon’s designated rural university, recognized that they were sitting on a vast resource: a pipeline of talented young people with creativity, energy and desire to make an impact. Why not pair those students, under the guidance of faculty, with regional leaders in government, business, arts, culture, health care, and natural resources to identify and solve problems? With this goal in mind, the REV Center was born through a joint venture between Eastern Oregon University and Wallowa Resources.
The REV Center connects university students to neighboring rural communities through carefully designed projects involving students and local citizens to address local issues. These projects will address strategies that encourage the revitalization of rural communities, and increase the likelihood that students will identify opportunities for work in rural Eastern Oregon after graduating.
Bruce Dunn Scholarship FUND
Bruce Dunn died Aug. 21, 2018, just three months after being elected to the Wallowa County Board of Commissioners. A forester managing RY Timber’s northeastern Oregon land, Bruce spent much of the last 32 years serving on the Wallowa County planning commission, drafting the Wallowa County Nez Perce Tribe Salmon Plan, and chairing the county’s Natural Resource Advisory Committee.
Bruce’s influence ranged far and wide – from private and agency-employed foresters to fish, wildlife and land managers to loggers, reporters and politicians. His fingerprints are on most of the land-use guiding documents used by the board of commissioners today.
A Detroit native and Michigan Tech graduate, Bruce spent his youth summers and his first years after college on his grandfather’s tree farm. When the farm sold Bruce headed west to Idaho to take a job with the U.S. Forest Service. For 50 years he worked in the Intermountain West, for both public land managers and private land owners, as a self-described “dirt forester” – taking his management cues from the forest itself.
To honor Bruce’s dogged tenacity ensuring science-based natural resource management and the professional development of Wallowa County’s future forest, fish and wildlife and range managers, his friends and family created the Bruce Dunn Scholarship Fund.
To be considered, a student must be
A Wallowa County high school graduate
Enrolled in a school of agriculture, school of forestry or other natural resource-related area of study beyond the high school level
Graduating high school seniors and students presently enrolled in post high school programs are eligible for consideration. Preference given to applicants with at least college sophomore standing.
Preference will be given to applicants seriously contemplating a return to Eastern Oregon to work and live and to students with at least college sophomore standing. Applications are due May 1st.
Learn about the 2021 recipients on our Facebook page!
Please download an application form here:
Internships & Practicums
Every summer, we offer up to three internship experiences ranging from 6-10 weeks. Students receive a small weekly stipend and have the opportunity to live in our visiting scholar wing. Additionally, we work with universities in creating hands-on projects for practicum credit during the school year. For the full internship descriptions or to apply, visit the links below.
