2004 Walter Barnard Hill Awards for Distinguished Achievement in University Public Service & Outreach

Rusty Brooks

Rusty Brooks began working at the University of Georgia in 1982 and a rural sociologist within the Cooperative Extension Service’s community and rural development division. His current work at the Vinson Institute’s International Center for Democratic Governance focuses on developing nationally and internationally recognized programs in economic development for government, nongovernmental organizations, and the private sector. Recently, Brooks was promoted to the academic rank of professor by his peers in the Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics within the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.

Over the years, Brooks has served as an ambassador for UGA by providing training, lectures and technical assistance on sustainable development in Ukraine, Croatia, Zimbabwe, the Republic of Georgia, and China. In 1998, he was elected by his peers from around the world to the board of directors of the International Community Development Society. Also that year, Brook was 1 of only 65 scholars representing 43 countries to be selected by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation as a Salzburg Fellow in Sustainable Rural Development. In 1999 Brooks became the only non-research or non-teaching faculty member ever to be selected as a UGA International Fellow through a competitive awards program.

Brook’s contribution on an national level includes role as an officer in the Rural Sociological Society, where, in 1984, he led a delegation of five rural development scholars to Washington D.C., to serve as special advisors to President Reagan’s first Rural American Challenge. Through his collaboration with his colleague Alan B. Moore, recently retired from the College of Education, Brooks has made significant contributions to the literature supporting the field of community economic development. Transforming Your Community: Empowering for Change (1996), their collaborative book, has been instrumental in developing this area of scholarship.

In Georgia, Brooks has taught extension and outreach programming in 128 of the state’s 159 counties and has conducted over 500 educational training sessions in Georgia. His other projects include the creation of the U.S. 441 Heritage Trail, Inc., a heritage tourism effort centered on historic and cultural resources along Georgia’s coast. Brook was also asked by the University Parkway Alliance and the Georgia Rail Partnership Authority to provide input regarding how rail service along GA 316 should be developed and how it would impact communities along the route