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The Harvard Undergraduate Rural League launched as the University’s only rural student affinity group last semester — and now, the club hopes to tackle rural issues facing both its members and their hometowns.
The club, which now boasts more than 100 members, was one of several groups that officially registered with the Office of Student Engagement after the Dean of Students Office lifted a yearlong freeze on the club approval process last fall.
Co-founder Taylor A. Zediker ’25, hopes the organization can clear up “miscommunications and misrepresentations of what rural people are like” on campus.
“If you’re coming from the rural south or the rural Midwest, you’re gonna get some aggressive comments about what that means and whether you hate the community,” Zediker said. “For many people, you do not hate your hometown community, and a lot of it’s just misunderstandings.”
Co-President Justin J. Black ’27 said the club’s initiatives this semester will focus on building awareness for education, medicine, and agriculture in rural areas.
He plans for the club to work with Harvard’s admissions office to promote recruitment and outreach for rural students. During Zediker’s application cycle, she said she was not aware that she could apply to Harvard before a “shot in the dark” application.
“People don’t realize how little of this information is being trickled down,” Zediker said.
Black also hopes the club can provide mentoring for prospective high school students to show students that “it’s possible to come from a hometown where nobody has ever gone to Harvard.”
HURL seeks to partner with the Harvard Mignone Center for Career Success to encourage pre-med students to consider a career in rural medicine and separately aims to engage students in agricultural technology.
Apart from its advocacy work, HURL intends to foster connections between rural students, such as through a mentorship program and speaker events.
Black believes that the group will provide a “built-in support network” for rural students, which he struggled to find during his freshman year. He said the shared experiences of rural students can provide opportunities for meaningful relationships on campus.
“Whether it’s missing the stars from all the light pollution in Cambridge, or driving around town aimlessly as a medium of fun, or having to learn to use public transit because that never existed in your hometown,” he said.
The organization also plans to host trips to rural parts of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, or Vermont similar to members’ hometowns to get them “out of the urban bubble.”
The club has so far received enthusiastic reception from rural students. Kaden T. Gillum ’28, who first heard about HURL through an email list, said he is excited to connect with a group of students similar to him.
“It’s just great being in the community of people that also come from a rural background,” Gillum said. “Having a group that’s able to help people out that are from rural backgrounds, and have those connections, I think is really helpful.”
Black emphasized that students are welcome to engage with the group in whatever capacity they can, whether it be attending Saturday college football watch parties or leading advocacy efforts, emphasizing that “there isn’t one clear definition of rural.”
“If you think you’re rural, if you think you’re from a small town, then that’s good by our means,” Black said. “The last thing we want is people to feel like they’re not rural enough to join HURL.”
In September, the organization hosted its first event since becoming a recognized group with a mixer, which Black said ran out of food in the first five minutes.
“Either we didn’t order enough food, or there’s a lot of demand for HURL on campus,” Black said.
“I like to think it's the latter,” he added.
—Staff writer Sophia Y King can be reached at sophia.king@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @sophia_kingg.
—Staff writer Anneliese S. Mattox can be reached at anneliese.mattox@thecrimson.com.
