{"id":1605,"date":"2026-10-20T16:49:38","date_gmt":"2026-10-20T16:49:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/english\/?page_id=1605"},"modified":"2026-11-03T19:23:47","modified_gmt":"2026-11-03T19:23:47","slug":"rllc","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/english\/site\/rllc\/","title":{"rendered":"Rural Language Literacy and Culture Initiative"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Rural Language, Literacy, and Culture Initiative<\/h1><\/div>
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Research, Outreach, and Partnerships in Rural Communities<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>

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About Us<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Language is infrastructure.<\/strong> It determines whether a landowner understands the easement offer on the kitchen table, whether a patient and a doctor can understand each other, whether a child who speaks Spanish at home finds a book in it at the library, and whether a community\u2019s stories outlast the people who remember them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The RLLC is the rural research and outreach program of the Department of English and Languages at Tarleton State University. We work alongside the schools, libraries, museums, clinics, county offices, and community organizations of eleven rural counties \u2014 in English and in Spanish, with children and with adults \u2014 on the reading, writing, translating, teaching, and storytelling that daily life in those counties actually requires.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Chair, Rural Language, Literacy, and Culture Initiative:<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Jill Davis-Steele jdavis1@tarleton.edu<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Collaborators<\/strong>: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Department Head, English and Languages<\/strong>: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Anne Widmayer awidmayer@tarleton.edu<\/a>

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Our Region<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

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11<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Counties<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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242,000<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Residents<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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9616<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Square Miles<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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56<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

School District’s<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Bosque \u00b7 Brown \u00b7 Comanche \u00b7 Eastland \u00b7 Erath \u00b7 Hamilton \u00b7 Hill \u00b7 Jack \u00b7 Palo Pinto \u00b7 Somervell \u00b7 Stephens<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eleven counties across Central West Texas \u2014 9,616 square miles, an area larger than Vermont, holding roughly 242,000 people at about 25 residents per square mile. Forty-eight incorporated towns, and many more communities with a school, a post office, or a name on a sign but no municipal government of their own. Fifty-six independent school districts serve the region, and eighteen public libraries \u2014 at least one in every county. Each of the eleven counties maintains its own historical commission. Nearly one in seven residents speaks a language other than English at home. Tarleton has built substantial rural capacity: a medical school in development for rural healthcare, a rural economic development institute, and the Center for Rural Resilience. None of that work addresses language, literacy, or culture. That is the gap this initiative fills.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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What We Do<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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