Future of Rural
Fall 2026 Pilot Cohort
What is Future of Rural?
Future of Rural is Rē’s ongoing invitation to imagine what higher education can become when learning grows alongside communities.
For years, we have been listening to rural communities and the people who learn, create, work, and care within them. Through these conversations, shared questions have emerged… How can education better reflect the realities of our lives? How do we create learning that remains meaningful in a changing world? What becomes possible when communities help shape what is learned and how learning happens?
Future of Rural grew from these conversations.
This program brings together place-based learning, community knowledge and co-created research, experiential learning, reflective practice, and academic inquiry alongside a global network. Designed as a transformative M.A.-level higher education experience, Future of Rural invites curious minds into a learning process where relationships, lived experience, and multiple ways of knowing are valued alongside academic study.
Future of Rural is part of Rē’s broader vision for lifelong learning. Through short courses, fellowships, RēTours, and additional pathways, Rē is exploring new ways for education to become more connected to the places people call home.
Short Courses - Fall 2026
Community Care
Community Care is an invitation to step away from the pace of everyday life and spend time with one another and the Land. This retreat offers space to slow down, listen deeply, and reconnect with what feels most important.
Guided by the teachings and practices of Daniel Hull and Christina Ulibarri, our time together will unfold through conversation, ceremony, and quiet reflection. We’ll gather in circle, spend time outdoors, and make room for whatever each person brings with them. Rather than offering answers, this retreat invites us to notice what is asking for our attention and what we may be ready to release.
Throughout the retreat, participants will be invited into an Indigenous-led Native American Talking Circle, Prayer Tie Teaching, and Fire Ceremony. These teachings are shared with care and respect. Participation is always an invitation, and each person is encouraged to engage in the ways that feel right for them.
As we gather, we’ll be guided by a few simple community agreements. We meet one another with respect, listen without judgment, and honor the stories shared within the circle.
Nature and Belonging
What changes when we slow down long enough to truly notice the places around us?
Nature and Belonging is an invitation to explore your relationship with the natural world and discover how that relationship shapes the way you see yourself and the place you call home.
Drawing from deep ecology, ecological psychology, and place-based learning, this course offers time to slow down and pay attention. Rather than studying nature from a distance, you’ll be invited to experience it with curiosity. Through guided practices and conversation, you’ll begin to notice what has always been there.
You don’t need a background in ecology to take part. Whether these ideas are new to you or already part of your work, this course meets you where you are. Together, we’ll consider what it means to belong to a place and how that understanding can continue to unfold long after the course ends.
Fair Process and the Skill of Surprise
We’ve all experienced moments that leave us wondering, What just happened? A conversation takes an unexpected turn. A decision doesn’t land the way we hoped. Something shifts in a relationship, and we’re left trying to understand why.
Rather than rushing past these moments, this course invites us to stay with them. Together, we’ll explore how surprise can become an opening for reflection and how the way we respond can strengthen trust over time.
Grounded in restorative practice and Indigenous ways of knowing, Fair Process and the Skill of Surprise offers practical ways to approach everyday interactions with greater awareness. We’ll explore how fairness is experienced, how relationships are shaped through our choices, and how small moments can change the direction of a conversation.
Why Rural? Why Now?
Rural places hold deep knowledge, meaningful relationships, and ways of understanding the world that are often overlooked. At this same time, rural communities are experiencing changes that shape how people live, work, and connect.
Rather than beginning with predetermined answers, we begin with observation—learning alongside communities, engaging multiple ways of knowing, and getting curious about what becomes possible when education is shaped by the places and people it serves. Future of Rural is an invitation to reimagine higher education through place-based learning, inquiry, and co-creation.
This program is shaped through relationships and guided by the belief that meaningful learning happens with communities, not simply about them. Together, we unpack how education can respond to changing realities while creating space for communities to imagine the futures they want to see.
It's time.
Join the Future of Rural pilot cohort as we gather to examine new possibilities for growing and building ourselves and our communities’ futures.
Throughout Fall 2026, participants will engage in collaborative learning and reflection while co-creating questions that shape rural places today. Future of Rural brings together learners from different backgrounds and perspectives with an academic lens. Through the program, learners engage with new ideas, develop their own questions, and connect their learning to their innate knowing, professional work, and the communities they are part of.
Whether you are connected to education, community work, research, creativity, or simply feel called to the future of rural places, you are warmly invited to join us.
Future of Rural Pilot Cohort registration is now open for Fall 2026.
Pilot participants will receive a front row seat to the dynamic evolutions of higher education today, a chance to learn from their own community contexts, a touchpoint into a justice-aligned global network, and the opportunity to thoughtfully engage with your own lived experiences.
Fill out the form below below to express your interest in participating in the Fall 2026 Pilot Cohort.
We Believe in Open Access Education
In the spirit of regenerative economic reciprocity, Rē is offering pilot cohort spots at no charge. Your participation, engagement, and feedback offers our organization an opportunity to learn about the student experience, to continue developing program supports, and to explore what Future of Rural can further become. (Of course, as Rē is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, donations of any amount in support of this work are always welcome, appreciated, and thoughtfully stewarded.)
Future of Rural Pilot Cohort registration is now open for Fall 2026.
We look forward to learning alongside you.
Pilot Courses Interest Form
Thank you for your interest in Future of Rural’s Pilot Course Offerings. This short questionnaire helps us learn a little more about who is joining us, what brings you here, and what you hope to explore through these courses.
There are two short sections to this form: “About You” and “Short Course Interest”
We Believe in Open Access Education
In the spirit of regenerative economic reciprocity, Rē is offering Fall 2026 Pilot Cohort spots at no charge. Your participation, engagement, and feedback offers our organization an opportunity to learn about the student experience, to continue developing program supports, and to further imagine what Future of Rural can become.
(Of course, as Rē is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, donations of any amount in support of this work are always welcome, appreciated, and thoughtfully stewarded.)