Rural Ways of Knowing in Higher Education

Colleges and universities are wise to better understand the vital sense of place that underlies rural ways of knowing in higher education. For rural students, going to college is often challenging in large part because of an external institutional perspective that precludes these place-based ways of knowing. Drawing parallels with indigenous knowledge systems, this article highlights the importance of shifting from the institutional perspective of “coming to the university” to the student’s perspective of “going to the university.” The Spiral Dynamics model allows colleges and universities to better understand students who are "coming to the university” from environments where higher education is not already embedded into the everyday cultural ecosystems.