Land-grant universities were instrumental in transforming American agriculture by unlocking the full potential of the nation's natural resource base. What if these same institutions, and other higher education institutions, became equally committed to helping unlock the full potential of rural people and places? This special issue helps inform that vision.

Integrating the rural development mission of Cooperative Extension into the land grant university has long suffered from a clash of cultures. This article identifies design thinking as a potentially fertile common ground for the out-of-the-box thinking required to generate simultaneously both a rural renaissance and a higher education renaissance.

This article argues that dominant views of cooperative extension's purposes and work need to be reconsidered in ways that include attention to extension's human and community development roles. Previous examples of such reconsiderations are reviewed, followed by suggestions for how deliberations about extension's future can be approached.

This article lays out challenges for a healthy rural future and roles Cooperative Extension might play in achieving positive outcomes. Extension can build a stronger rural America through government efficiency, labor market information systems, health programs, and revitalized educational systems on targeted topics.

The urban-rural interface is a space of intense interaction that joins urban and rural communities, economies, and environments. We contend that Land Grant social scientists should increase their attention on issues at the urban-rural interface, that such studies are inherently multi-disciplinary, and that they should be translated into Cooperative Extension programming.