New fellowship connects students to the richness of rural life

Early one morning in Viroqua, Wisconsin, this past summer, Stanford senior Jeannette Wang found herself surrounded by sheep that refused to move. She was helping a local farmer herd them from one pasture to another, but her gentle prodding wasn’t working.

“You need to pretend you’re a wolf,” the farmer advised.

And so, Wang made her best wolf impression, running and waving across an expansive valley in the Driftless Area, a 24,000-square-mile stretch of rugged and rolling terrain spanning southwestern Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, and Illinois. The region’s name comes from its lack of glacial “drift” – the silt, sand, and gravel that smoothed nearby lands – leaving its distinctive hills intact.

“Being in that environment, I learned there are things that just need to get done – like, the sheep are not going to move themselves,” Wang, a political science major, recalled. “That’s why it’s so important that our systems and infrastructures – from schools to health care – work when people need them.”

Wang spent six weeks in Wisconsin as part of the People, Politics, and Places Fellowship, a new program at the Hoover Institution’s Center for Revitalizing American Institutions (RAI). As the nation becomes increasingly geographically and politically divided along urban and rural communities, the fellowship fosters a deeper understanding of how a place can shape a person’s identity and beliefs.

“In conjunction with us becoming a more polarized society, Americans have increasingly sorted themselves into like-minded communities. The People, Politics, and Places Fellowship enables students to understand on the ground some of the issues facing these areas – by showing up, listening first, and pitching in on the work these communities are already doing,” said Brandice Canes-Wrone, the Maurice R. Greenberg Senior Fellow at the Hoover and faculty director of RAI. “In doing so, the fellowship lets students experience a new kind of civic presence.”

“We hope this fellowship will help students go beyond abstract conceptions of the American experience and instead, see for themselves the richness of remote and rural life,” said Thomas Schnaubelt, the executive director of RAI.

For Schnaubelt, launching the People, Politics, and Places Fellowship felt like a complement to Stanford’s existing efforts to engage across political divides, which he views as critical to rebuilding trust in American institutions.

“Campus dialogue is essential, but trust is rebuilt through proximity,” he said.

The year-long program begins with spring workshops and events to prepare students for their summer internships. This inaugural cohort included five students who worked at either Thoreau College in Viroqua, Wisconsin, or the Tidelines Institute on the Inian Islands in Alaska. In the fall, participants reflect on their experiences and share insights with the broader Stanford community – for example, on Nov. 4, Wang, along with two other People, Politics and Places fellows, will discuss their experiences in a discussion on the rural-urban divide and its impact on democracy, which will also include students from the Stanford Rural Club.

Elevating rural perspectives at Stanford

The fellowship builds on earlier work that Schnaubelt led to connect students to the rural experience. Prior to joining RAI, he was the executive director of the Haas Center for Public Service from 2009 to 2022. He was also a Resident Fellow at Branner, which at the time was the public service-themed residence hall at Stanford.

A Wisconsin native who grew up on a farm, Schnaubelt noticed a disconnect between urban and rural students. He heard about the challenges some students encountered in coming from a place not everyone knows, with a different way of life and culture. He heard one story from a student who had mentioned to his roommate that his family’s well had broken back home in West Virginia, to which his Stanford roommate – apparently picturing a bucket and pulley – asked, “What happened, did the rope snap?” It was a moment that laid bare how differently students imagine life outside their own experience.

Schnaubelt also noted that many rural students arrive having had access to far fewer Advanced Placement courses than their urban and suburban peers, leaving some feeling less academically prepared when they first reach campus. Additionally, others come from places where there are limited choices in terms of extracurricular activities and may feel overwhelmed by the prospect of attending Stanford.

Following the 2016 election, which revealed the country’s stark urban-rural divide, Schnaubelt and several students organized a gathering at Branner Hall to bring together students from rural areas. Expecting a small turnout, Schnaubelt was surprised when more than 90 people attended – many of whom stayed late into the night, talking.

The event planted the seeds for the Stanford Rural Club (known officially as the Stanford Rural Engagement Network), which was launched in 2018 with support from the Haas Center for Public Service and the Bill Lane Center for the American West, home to the Rural West Initiative.

Is there a “typical” American?

For Wang, herding sheep was memorable, but what really stood out to the Bay Area native was daily life in a small town.

Viroqua, with a population of about 4,500, is a two-hour drive from the state capital, Madison, and is accessible mainly by limited-access roadways and slower, scenic state highways. It has just a handful of places to buy food – a Walmart, a grocery store, and a food co-op – as well as a couple of restaurants and cafes.

Politically, the town is diverse: One news outlet described it as a place where “Trump voters, libertarian homesteaders, leftists and liberal back-to-basics urbanites converge in an eclectic political stew.”

As Wang got to know her neighbors, she saw how the land’s ruggedness and ruralness seemed to shape the people who stayed, drawing out certain traits, as well as values, including self-determination, discipline, and resourcefulness.  

“Because the land has hills on it, you have to farm it differently, and in some ways, people self-select to stay and live there,” Wang said. “If a person is going to be a farmer, they have to be the kind of person who is willing to adapt farming to hills.”

The “do it myself” attitude Wang experienced also extended to the local community: Together, they persevered.

She found that residents were united more by shared values than shared politics. Conflicts inevitably arose – for example, this past summer, one issue that sparked deep disagreement among residents was related to town-ordered lawn maintenance – but she didn’t glimpse signs of partisan animosity between residents.

“One idea I keep returning to in political science is that you can’t have a productive argument unless you’re on the same plane; you need a shared foundation,” Wang said, which is why she believes so many problems seen across politics feel intractable: “We’re not starting from common ground. In Wisconsin, I saw that having those shared values gave everyone a baseline, so they could still disagree productively.”

After her summer in Wisconsin, Wang said she no longer believes in the concept of an “average” American. “The news often talks about ‘the average American,’ but I don't think there is one,” she reflected.

“There’s unity amid plurality – we’re all just people. Fundamentally, what we all want is the same thing: We all just want to be able to live our lives well, and the way we want to live it.”

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