The first Human Progress and Flourishing Workshop is scheduled for Friday, Sept. 9, at 10 a.m. in Beckwith Recital Hall. Sarah Low is set to present “Entrepreneurship for Regional Economic Development.”

All members of the NDSU community and the public are invited to attend the free event. After the presentation, food and refreshments will be served in the Challey School of Music Atrium.

Low is head of the Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She conducts research in several areas related to agricultural and rural development policy in the U.S., including broadband impacts, rural household wellbeing, value-added agriculture and entrepreneurial ecosystem building. 

In her presentation, Low will discuss how building an environment that is supportive of entrepreneurship – a bottom-up growth strategy – may be necessary for long-term economic development in rural regions and small towns.

Previously, Low held the Fred V. Heinkel Chair in Agriculture at the University of Missouri, where she also was inaugural director of the Rural and Farm Finance Policy Analysis Center. Before joining academia, Low spent 10 years at USDA’s Economic Research Service in Washington DC. She received her Ph.D. in agricultural and consumer economics from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. 

The Human Progress and Flourishing Workshop, which is hosted by the Challey Institute for Global Innovation and Growth, invites internationally-renowned scholars from universities across the country to present their research and engage with the NDSU community.

The series continues every other Friday through Dec. 2.

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