Day Two Opening Remarks and Keynote Address | Indiana University Rural Conference 2020

Opening remarks

Lauren Robel, Executive Vice President and Provost, Indiana University Bloomington

Lauren Robel was named provost of Indiana University Bloomington and executive vice president of Indiana University in 2012. She is the Val Nolan Professor of Law in the Maurer School of Law, where she served as dean from 2002 to 2011 and as associate dean from 1991 to 2002.

In fall 2013, Robel initiated a strategic planning process aimed at reimagining and invigorating academic programs across the Bloomington campus in anticipation of Indiana University’s Bicentennial in 2020.

Robel’s Bicentennial Strategic Plan for Indiana University Bloomington includes ambitious initiatives for the Bloomington campus such as a new School of Art, Architecture, and Design, a new program in engineering, the Center for Rural Engagement and IU Corps, and the integration of health sciences programs into a new on-campus Regional Academic Health Center. The plan also calls for initiatives to promote student and faculty success in a variety of areas, from financial literacy and career development to work-life balance and diversity recruitment.

Keynote address

Matthew Fluharty, Founder and Executive Director, Art of the Rural

Matthew Fluharty is a visual artist, writer, and field-based researcher living in Winona, Minnesota, a town placed along the Mississippi River. He is the Executive Director of Art of the Rural, a member of M12 Studio, and he serves on the Board of Directors for Common Field. Matthew’s poetry and essays have been widely published in the US and abroad and are present within the field-establishing publication A Decade of Country Hits: Art on the Rural Frontier (Jam Sam, 2014), as well as in To Make a Public: Temporary Art Review 2011-2016.