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<\/span>\nCrowder, who is ending a nine-week research internship at the Ellen No\u00ebl Art Museum, is one of four UT students who returned to the Permian Basin this summer as part of the university\u2019s Home to Texas program. It\u2019s the third year businesses in Odessa and nearby cities have partnered with UT to bring students back to the blue-collar region known for high school football and oil fields.<\/p>\n
Smaller industrial cities and rural towns in Texas and across the nation have long struggled to attract talent, much less retain bright-eyed students. To combat the phenomena of \u201cbrain drain,\u201d organizations from rural chambers of commerce to school districts and universities have worked to establish programs that encourage young people to keep their talents in their backyards.<\/p>\n
UT-Austin piloted an earlier version of the program in 2019, aimed at diversifying internship opportunities for undergraduate students. The program \u2014 which includes a $5,000 scholarship \u2014 attracted roughly 100 applications that year, said Dustin Harris, the program\u2019s coordinator. Four years on, the program has only grown. This year, 420 students applied. Sixty-seven were placed in more than a dozen Texas towns, including nearby Midland and Big Spring.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s never been more competitive to be a homegrown student,\u201d Harris said during a recent reception for the West Texas interns.<\/p>\n
At the museum, Crowder worked on several marketing and research projects. She even helped curate an exhibition.<\/p>\n
Megan Baeza, director of internships and employer relations at UT-Permian Basin, said these internships are a boon for rural communities with limited access to a deep talent pool.<\/p>\n
Sheila Perry, the executive director of Ellen No\u00ebl, said having summer interns reinvigorates her faith in the future.<\/p>\n
\u201cKatelan taught us to have a fresh perspective,\u201d Perry said.<\/p>\n
UT-Austin\u2019s program has included more placements in the state\u2019s largest cities, but Harris said he hopes the success in Odessa, Midland and Big Spring will inspire other smaller cities and towns.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe idea of return migration has been around for a long time,\u201d said Josh Wyner, executive director of the college excellence program at the Aspen Institute, a nonprofit think tank that works across various sectors including education, health and business.<\/p>\n
To keep students in their hometowns, colleges and businesses need a strong relationship that produces relevant coursework during the fall and spring semesters and practical on-the-job training during the summer, Wyner said.<\/p>\n
Wyner stressed for return migration to work, business leaders must take an active role in partnerships with higher education institutions.<\/p>\n
\u201cEmployers have to lead,\u201d Wyner said.<\/p>\n
The formula UT-Austin and the Permian Basin businesses have established appears to be working. Several of the students who returned home this summer said they\u2019re seeing their hometowns in a new way and are considering returning full-time after earning their degrees.<\/p>\n
In Big Spring, William Cole interned this summer at the city attorney\u2019s office. He\u2019d never have the same up-close experience at a big-city law firm, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt really opened my eyes on being deadset about coming back,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Elizabeth Aguilar was offered a window into work-from-home life. She spent the summer living in her hometown of Midland but working on a project for the Initiative for Law, Societies, and Justice, a project based at UT-Austin studying different issues affecting Texans, including the criminal legal system and the mental health field.<\/p>\n
Aguilar learned about available mental health providers in the Permian Basin by compiling information on the region\u2019s hospitals and treatment centers.<\/p>\n
Aguilar and her family moved to Midland in 2012. Like Crowder in Odessa, Aguilar grew up thinking there would be no professional opportunities after college. Now she wants to help break the stereotypes of the Permian Basin.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis internship caught me by surprise,\u201d Aguilar said. \u201cI want to help build a place \u2018little me\u2019 would want to grow up in.\u201d<\/p>\n
Still, area business leaders admit they need to do more to make coming home inviting.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere needs to be more to do,\u201d said Debbye ValVerde, executive director of the Big Spring Area Chamber of Commerce. \u201cA lot of rural communities may not have what they want to do in life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rene\u00e9 Earls, president of the Odessa Chamber of Commerce, said cities, especially those like Odessa, known widely for a singular industry, must reinvent themselves.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can\u2019t do what we\u2019ve always done. We want people invested here,\u201d she said. \u201cThe saying in Odessa is that there\u2019s nothing to do, and that\u2019s just not the case.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at texastribune.org.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Katelan Crowder woke up in her childhood bedroom. Her dog, Daisy, was still snoring. A year had passed since she graduated from high school, and the University of Texas student returned to her West Texas home for an unexpected reason: a summer internship. The rising sophomore\u2019s passion for design could have kept her in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":713023,"menu_order":0,"template":"","categories":[190],"tags":[6210,4763,974,5668],"series":[],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the74million.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article\/713022"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the74million.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the74million.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/article"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.the74million.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article\/713022\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":713030,"href":"https:\/\/www.the74million.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article\/713022\/revisions\/713030"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the74million.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/713023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the74million.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=713022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the74million.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=713022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the74million.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=713022"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the74million.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=713022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}