Rural citizens are often excluded from development due to less schooling, lack of access to resources and credit. Remote distance and substandard infrastructure further burden them. Most disadvantaged are women who suffer more from the urban bias precisely because they are women who have physical, cultural and political barriers to paid work. In her mission of generating and transmitting knowledge, a university in a developing country like the Philippines is required a greater sense of social responsibility. This paper weaves three themes together: rural women's contributions to development, action-research by a university as a development tool, as well as the search for an outcomes-based model for university interaction with grassroots people, particularly rural women based on respect and reciprocity.
