Author: Darla Munroe

Derby Diaries: A Transformative Experience

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I entered Derby Hall in 2008, yet I suspected and hoped it would be a transformative experience. I found faculty research grounded in the physical and social sciences both intriguing and daunting, especially since I earned an undergraduate degree in the natural sciences. And I knew that OSU’s Geography program was long-respected and highly ranked in the field. The next two years–plus an additional four years spent earning my PhD–proved to be an excellent fit and provided me with a strong foundation for my academic career and personal life.

My Geography courses were demanding and rigorous, yet flexible enough to accommodate my research interests. My graduate student peers provided much needed levity in the form of office banter, trivia nights and High Street outings, and testing my (inferior) ping pong and badminton skills. And Staff like Diane Carducci and Colin Kelsey were warm and supportive. Friendships and professional networks developed during that time remain strong to this day.

My advisors Becky Mansfield and Kendra McSweeney supported my multidisciplinary pursuits in History, Rural Sociology, and Public Health. They, along with Nancy Ettlinger, Joel Wainwright, and Cathy Rakowski, among others, encouraged me as I developed research projects in Nicaragua and Latin America. As a Teaching Assistant, graduate students Eveily Freeman and Jessica Barnes modeled excellent undergraduate teaching and opened my eyes to online learning, which has proven immensely helpful in the last two years.

SUNY Old Westbury students and I (lower right) visit a coffee farm near Matagalpa, Nicaragua, in March 2018.

Ultimately, my years in Derby Hall prepared me for my current position as an Assistant Professor of Public Health at SUNY Old Westbury. My broad background and pedagogical training suited my current department’s diverse liberal arts courses: Introduction to the Social Determinants of Health, Global Health, and Research Methods, to name a few. The Environmental Justice course that I developed is heavily inspired by the Nature and Society courses that I took in Derby Hall. I am particularly proud of having taken undergraduate students to Nicaragua and Bolivia; if travel restrictions ease in time, I’ll add Cuba to that list this summer!

Community celebration at Sure We Can, a not-for-profit that supports informal recyclers and advocates for their well-being in Brooklyn, New York, where I serve as Co-Chair of the Board of Directors.

Finally, my time at OSU helped me realize the importance of community. Ed Malecki, Ola Ahlqvist, Alvaro Montenegro, and Max Woodworth regularly ate lunch with graduate students in the lounge, and Morton O’Kelly, Kendra McSweeney, and Becky Mansfield hosted get-togethers in their homes. Importantly, these conversations and gatherings gave me an idea of what work-life balance and parenthood as an academic might look like. (My first child was born in December 2021!) Also, they reinforced the importance of building community beyond Derby Hall and academia, and the possibilities that arise from scholar-activist engagement.

In sum, my time in Derby Hall was truly transformative, and I am happy to be part of OSU Geography’s storied history!

Chris Hartmann, MA (2010), PhD (2016)

Food system challenges in rural forested communities

There is increasing awareness of food access and availability challenges in so-called food deserts (too little available food) or food swamps (too much low-quality food). One helpful geographical insight from prior research is that as cities expand into surrounding countryside, new retail developments follow, and big grocery stores are often to be found in the suburbs or beyond the city limits, while inner city grocery stores close as wealth and population density decline (Hamidi 2020).

My team has been looking at the complexities of food accessibility at the urban-rural interface, particularly in rural regions with substantial forest cover. While cities have sprawled into surrounding countryside, formerly remote rural areas have been pulled into new relationships with cities, in the form of commuting (Olson and Munroe 2012), or as new “bedroom” communities for city dwellers who want a more rural lifestyle, or as a weekend “getaway” to recreate in nearby forests (Munroe et al. 2017, van Berkel 2014).

Figure 1: Main thoroughfare in Shawnee, Perry County Ohio. Population 319 in 2019. Photo Credit Darla Munroe

In 2017-2018, I interviewed a variety of community key informants in an Appalachian Ohio study area[1], comprising of small towns in Athens, Hocking and Perry counties. Though my central focus was on small town resilience to big employment shocks (Morzillo et al. 2015), the complexities of food in this region were a common theme among respondents. These towns have often surprising mixtures of high poverty, significant forest tourism, and small group business initiatives. Specifically, Athens County, Ohio, is trying to capitalize on new biking trails where weekend cyclists from all over the state come to ride hard and then drink craft beer. Schools are promoting entrepreneurship, encouraging students to create sustainable livelihood strategies for themselves via food trucks, farm-to-table programs or other such small-scale ventures.

At the same time, grocery options in small towns can be limited. Many communities do not have a dedicated grocery store, and they must rely on what’s obtainable at the convenience store if driving to the Kroger in the next town over is not an option. Public transportation is particularly limited in Appalachian Ohio; the rural poor often locate in places where walking to a post office to collect benefits is possible, and thus are limited to whatever food options might be available in these village centers. Within the state or even larger region, if you are laid off from your job, you might move to a town where you have a family connection, however distant. These areas offer a rural quality of life, and a low cost of living, which appeals to rich and poor alike.

Figure 2: Downtown Glouster in Athens County Ohio. Population 1896 in 2019. Photo Credit Darla Munroe

As a geographer, it is hard to see small towns reorienting their economic development strategies to cater to (relatively) wealthy tourists while locals are dependent on whatever the local dollar store might carry. At the same time, I marvel in the complexity of these urban-rural spaces (Irwin et al 2009) that defy easy categorization and rather call for much deeper collaboration and engagement. For those students in the 6th grade onward who are being taught that their economic futures are, at least in part, in their own hands and subject to their own imaginations, I can’t wait to see what this landscape might yield in decades to come.

Darla Munroe

Professor and Chair

Department of Geography, The Ohio State University

 

References

Hamidi, S. (2020). Urban sprawl and the emergence of food deserts in the USA. Urban Studies, 57(8), 1660-1675.

Irwin, E. G., Bell, K. P., Bockstael, N. E., Newburn, D. A., Partridge, M. D., & Wu, J. (2009). The economics of urban-rural space. Annu. Rev. Resour. Econ., 1(1), 435-459.

Morzillo, A. T., Colocousis, C. R., Munroe, D. K., Bell, K. P., Martinuzzi, S., Van Berkel, D. B., … & McGill, B. (2015). “Communities in the middle”: Interactions between drivers of change and place-based characteristics in rural forest-based communities. Journal of Rural Studies, 42, 79-90.

Munroe, D., Gallemore, C. & Van Berkel, D. (2017). Hot Tub Cabin Rentals and Forest Tourism in Hocking County, Ohio. Revue économique, 3(3), 491-510. https://doi.org/10.3917/reco.683.0491

Olson, J. L., & Munroe, D. K. (2012). Natural amenities and rural development in new urban‐rural spaces. Regional Science Policy & Practice, 4(4), 355-371.

Van Berkel, D. B., Munroe, D. K., & Gallemore, C. (2014). Spatial analysis of land suitability, hot-tub cabins and forest tourism in Appalachian Ohio. Applied Geography, 54, 139-148.

 

[1] This research was funded by USDA NIFA Award #2016-6701925177, Biodiversity, ecosystem services, and the socioeconomic sustainability of rural forest-based communities, 2016-2021