Our Core Values & Supporting Intentions
We believe in the vision of a united Kentucky Commonwealth.
As we prepare to open application for our RUX 2022/23 cohort and welcome back returners from our 2019 cohort who will complete their second year in RUX after a two-year period without in-person Community Intensive Weekends, we are reflecting on how profoundly the world has changed as a result of the global pandemic and the Movement for Black Lives.
Here at the Kentucky Rural-Urban Exchange, we’ve been working to thoughtfully respond to these changes. We’ve tried to wisely use the time when we could not meet in person; we paused our leadership program so that we could listen, assess, redesign, and train. We are now more prepared than ever to deliver responsive, transformative intercultural leadership training in 2022, and look forward to meeting our cohort at Community Intensive Weekends in:
Muhlenberg County, May 27-29
Louisville, August 5-7
Estill County, September 23-25
Over these past two years, we’ve focused on the following strategies to strengthen our commitment to equity: Assessment, Responsiveness, Skill Building, and Community Responsibility. In 2021, we completed an impact assessment process that resulted in the Living with Complexity Case Studies and Rural-Urban Exchange Handbook.
We learned about our gaps, challenges, strengths, and opportunities to advance equity within RUX and across the state. We learned through parallel work with our Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion committee that having a separate EDI committee was not most effective for us. We decided to move forward with dissolving our EDI committee and instead centering Equity, Diversity, and Inclusions in all aspects of RUX—from committees to the cohort experience. We hired UnLock Creative to guide an Equity Audit and Coaching process to enhance the safety, support, and inclusivity of RUX, and we continue to refine our strategies with additional equity training with Creative Praxis in 2022.
RUX is designed to build relationships across sectors and regions in Kentucky, and to inspire collaboration and leadership development. The Steering Committee works year-round to create a stimulating and valuable experience for our members and host communities.
We do this work in alignment with our CORE VALUES of
connection, openness, diversity, and inclusion,
and SUPPORTING INTENTIONS of
community, justice, trust, and belonging.
To advance more progressive narratives about Kentucky, we continue our partnerships to support the 8th of August at the Hotel Metropolitan, and to invest in the Rural-Urban Solidarity media project. Rural-Urban Solidarity highlights Kentucky’s journey to become a more progressive region through the stories of Black rural Organizers. Segments feature Harlan County, Murray, Northern Kentucky, and Paducah. Collectively, they bridge the surge of rural BLM actions in 2020 with long-term racial justice work across Kentucky. The film series is facilitated by RUX and KERTIS, produced by diverse regional segment teams, supported in part by the Lee Initiative, the Kentucky Foundation for Women, the Kentucky Historical Society, and guided by our Advisors.
RUX knows firsthand that geography is not the only thing that divides us. To build pathways for people to work across differences, we have to create spaces that are safe, accessible, and welcoming to people from a range of backgrounds, beliefs, and experiences of age, ability, expertise, gender, race, sexuality, culture, and class.
RUX is an anti-racist organization. For us, that means working to create an environment where all RUX members know that they are valued. We do this by identifying, challenging, and working to correct racism and other inequities within our network and in the communities we visit.
We strive to be an open and compassionate space for Kentuckians to meet, learn more about our state, engage in respectful dialogue, and move forward together.
We’re excited to share what we’ve been working towards, and invite you to join RUX in supporting Kentuckians of all stripes to discover our shared culture and history, hone professional and leadership skills, and build connections across cultural, racial, economic, and geographic divides.