Tieken advocates for colleges to rethink how they support rural students once they arrive on campuses far from their homes, not just in terms of miles, but in cultural markers. “We don’t have that vocabulary for how geography matters,” Tieken told .

In a June 11 Education Week story headlined “,” Tieken said, “The assumption is just so baked into the logic of closure decisions that it’s assumed closures will save money, so it can be really hard for leaders to combat that thinking. This is a really important piece of evidence as districts navigate these conversations and decisions.”

Associate Professor of Education Mara Tieken recently offered a sand a in The Daily Yonder, a national news outlet dedicated to reporting on rural people and places. Tieken, who studies rural education and previously worked as a third grade teacher in rural Tennessee, detailed how school closures and consolidations harm students and their communities. “Every year, hundreds of thousands of children are displaced when their schools are permanently shuttered,” Tieken writes.