Closing the Gap Between Town and Gown

Thursday, September 6, at 12 noon, U.S. Eastern time

Melissa Emerson is community liaison at Colorado State University's Off-Campus Student Services and the City of Fort Collins's Neighborhood Services office. Ms. Emerson's post at Colorado State, which is jointly financed by the university and the city, was created in 2001. Last year Colorado State and Fort Collins sponsored a Best Practices in Building University/City Relations conference. Since then the university has started an online Town & Gown Network, designed to give college and city officials a way to keep sharing information about how to improve town-gown relations in their respective communities. The second annual Best Practices conference, with about 120 people in attendance, was held in June and sponsored by the University of Florida, Santa Fe Community College (Fla.), and the City of Gainesville, Fla.

A transcript of the chat follows.

Audrey Williams June (Moderator):
    Hello. I'm Audrey June, a reporter at The Chronicle who has written more than a few town-gown stories during my six-year tenure at the paper. Welcome to today's Brown Bag discussion on town-gown relations. Our guest today is Melissa Emerson whose full-time job is to help close town-gift rifts between Colorado State University and the city of Fort Collins. Thanks Ms. Emerson for being with us today to take questions about the relationships between colleges and their communities.

Melissa Emerson:
    Greetings! I am so excited to have the opportunity to chat with folks interested in town/gown-related topics. With the influx of students coming back to town in August, I've been busy dealing with issues such as: parties, landlord/tenant conflicts, parking, etc. We've also had quite a few educational initiatives going on in the first few weeks of class. Our goal is to educate students about their responsibilities living off campus and in the neighborhoods of Fort Collins. I am looking forward to hearing from you & would like to know more about the types of issues you are dealing with in your college town.

Question from Paul Fain, reporter, Chronicle of Higher Education:
    I just read a newspaper article about how the president of St. Cloud State University spent a Saturday before school started knocking on doors of houses near campus to talk about being a good neighbor. How important is it for college administrators to be visible in the community?

Melissa Emerson:
    We have a similar initiative here in Fort Collins called the Community Welcome event. During the first week of class, teams (comprised of police, students, long-term residents, city staff, and university staff) go out knocking on doors close to campus. The goal is to welcome students back to town and provide them with handouts about how to be "good neighbors" off campus. We outline information about codes and ordinances & provide tips as to how to host a party so that the police don't get called. We visited nearly 2000 homes in one evening and also distributed pamphlets at apartment complexes and in the residence halls. I think this is a great way to show the community that the university & city are working together.

Question from Audrey June, reporter, Chronicle of Higher Education:
    Many times when people think about town-gown issues, they tend to focus on non student residents having to grapple with partying students. But what are some other town-gown issues that colleges and community officials are coming to the table to talk about that people may not even think of?

Melissa Emerson:
    Yes I agree that typically party issues come to the forefront but other conversations have included:

1) Parking both in neighborhoods and around campus

2) Single family neighborhoods transition from owner occupied to student rental properties

3) Currently we have a group called UniverCity Connections where stakeholders from across town are discussing ways for the university, city and business owners to collaborate on such things as: transportation, housing developments, joint facilities, arts & education, etc.

Question from Randy, urban university in the Mid-Atlantic:
    Urban colleges often have to deal with local news media outlets using their campuses as landmarks in their reporting of off-campus crimes or other mischief that isn't caused by students. What can be done about this problem?

Melissa Emerson:
    Media and how media coverage portrays town/gown relations and/or initiatives is a very interesting topic. Perhaps even a brown bag discussion in the future completely dedicated to this topic would be a good idea.

We are continuously working with local media to promote greater understanding of our programmings and highlight positive outcomes. We have varying degrees of success with this approach.

We do not currently have a local tv station in our community so we haven't experienced this particular issue.

Question from Goldie Blumenstyk, Chronicle of Higher Education:
    Aside from payments-in-lieu of taxes, where colleges provide funds to their communities to offset costs for things like fire protection, are there one or two particularly creative arrangements between colleges and their hometowns to deal with these very real costs?

Melissa Emerson:
    This question is really out of my scope of expertise.

There have been opportunities in our college town where the university and city have collaborated on initiatives that have been mutually beneficial to both entities. For instance, the University recently built a new transit center in which the city was highly involved although I don't know the specifics.

Question from Marie Blakey, Mount St. Mary's College Los Angeles:
    Can you share any stories about how colleges have successfully mitigated traffic problems -- volume of traffic and bad driving by students, faculty and staff-- through local residential neighborhoods?

Melissa Emerson:
    In our town, students are encouraged to bus and bike to campus. Our office also hosted (in collaboration with entities across town) a SMART Fair that highlighted alternative modes of transportation.

As for residential parking, our city's new occupancy limit might be lessening the number of cars parked on the street.

This particular issue is more often addressed by the long-term neighbors. We provide neighbors with "Slow Down in our Neighborhood" signage and we encourage them to participate in our "Traffic Tamers" program. This initiative allows them to check out a camera radar and then courtesy letters are sent to those who were clocked speeding. Most recently we had a college student take the lead on implementing this program.

Question from Charles, A Florida Community College:
    I'm sure you will agree that community colleges are a different situation. However, are there issues of this initiative that bear on the community college?

Melissa Emerson:
     Sante Fe Community College (located in Gainesville) was a co-host at the recent "Best Practices in Building University/City Relations" conference held in Gainesville. They also see the importance of educating their students who live off campus. Recently, I met with our local community college administrators to discuss ways that I could share some of our educational initiatives with their students.

Question from Peter Englot, Syracuse University:
    How extensive would you say efforts are nationally through which colleges and universities engage in community partnerships intended to yield economic development benefits for the community?

Melissa Emerson:
    Based on three National conferences focusing on town/gown issues I would say that economic development is in fact a large focus area. At the Clemson Town/Gown Colloquium, numerous City Planners/Developers were in attendance.

Question from Jon Paulson, Buena Vista University:
    My Communication Research methods students are preparing to do a study of the communication channels between the University and Storm Lake (our town). If you could have basic research done on your town/gown communication, what questions would you want asked? What would you like to know that you don't know now?

Melissa Emerson:
    I am personally interested in finding out the climate in mixed neighborhoods. Typically we hear from more outspoken long-term residents but I am not sure that this is always a good representation of what is really going on in the neighborhoods. In this same mixed use area, I would be curious to know what is the best way to get information to those residents.

Communication between university & city government seems to be effective in our town based on our continuos efforts, quarterly meetings and having a position that is jointly funded by both entities.

Question from Rob, large university/small town:
    The Town Gown Network forum site is an interesting concept. However, I've noticed that although a fair number of people are signed up for it there is little response to posted questions (quite a few readers, not many responders). Do you have any thoughts about why that might be? I would think it would provide a great opportunity for open exchanges between people in a variety of university cities.

Melissa Emerson:
    After the Best Practices Conference in Colorado (2006) participants asked for a way to be able to continue to communicate with each other. They wanted an opportunity to post questions AND articles related to town gown issues. At the moment there seem to be more town/gown related articles posted than questions & answer exchanges. This forum is still a work in progress. We are going to start sending monthly reminders about the forum to past participants in hopes that this will bring more folks to the site. Often times folks will view the site and then followup with a phone call asking specific questions about initiatives discussed on the forum. I am totally open to suggestions and my hope is that one day the forum will be taken over & managed by a Town Gown Association.

Audrey Williams June (Moderator):
    We've got about 20 more minutes left in this chat, so please send your questions and comments.

Question from Aaron, Student Housing Developer:
    Melissa, What advice would you have for developers who are looking to build new projects near and/or adjacent to well established single-family residential areas, particularly ways to "soften the blow" for neighborhood residents, knowing that there will be a high level of opposition largely due to the reasons you have listed below?

Melissa Emerson:
    Great question! I think it is extremely important to include long-term residents at the very beginning of the process. I have seen some excellent examples of universities and cities asking for input from residents prior to building. Focus groups have been helpful. I also have seen one developer who created a website that was updated regularly and allowed for online input.

You can probably guess what most of their issues are going to be so I would encourage you to address parking, noise, trash, traffic flow issues up front.

Question from Sandy, small college, small budget:
    My college doesn't have a lot of money to do the kinds of things that much larger colleges can do when it comes to town/gown outreach and education. Do you have ideas on how my institution can get the most bang for its buck?

Melissa Emerson:
    Having a website with up to date information is helpful for both students and long-term residents and can be done at a minimal cost. Some community building events where students and non-student residents come together can also be cost-effective. We have done ice-cream socials, yard tours, focus groups/neighborhood dialogues, meet & greets, chili cook-offs, etc. We have also had success finding support through our Apartment Association, Alcohol Retailers Group, and local businesses.

Question from Bob, small town/big university, Midwest:
    K-12 partnerships seem to be one of the ways in which universities can link with their communities. The U of Penn's Penn Alexander School (PreK-8) is one such example - a school that turned a neighborhood adjacent to the university around.

Their children's education obviously is important to university faculty and staff (as it is to most parents) and can sway their decision whether or not to live in the university area. Are you aware of any other examples of a university helping to fund a nearby public elementary school?

Melissa Emerson:
    This is a great idea. While I don't know of other examples, our university does put a good number of volunteers into our K-12 district.

Question from Audrey June, reporter, Chronicle of Higher Education:
    You led a roundtable at the Best Practices in Building University/City Relations conference this summer that was about how colleges could avoid riots on their campus. I'm interested in what theories people came up with to explain why some college towns experience multiple riots and others never do. Also, what kind of work can be done on the front end to keep riots from happening in the first place?

Melissa Emerson:
    Our conversation didn't actually theorize on why some schools experience riots and others don't. With that being said, I continue to be fascinated by this topic. Are riots related to the culture of students? People have theorized that sports games, alcohol, percentage of students per city population, police/student relations are just some reasons why riots occur. We are doing a lot of work on the front end with riot prevention. This work includes party patrol, education of recent legislation, and our community welcome effort where we go door-to-door the first week of class.

Question from James, public university in the midwest:
    I'd like to hear more about how you split your time between the city and the university in the position that you have.

Melissa Emerson:
    My position is jointly funded and I actually have offices at both the city and the university. At the city, I am housed in the Neighborhood Services office and at the University I am located at Off-Campus Student Services which is part of the Division of Student Affairs at CSU.

I try to split my week between both locations but meetings sometimes cause me to go back & forth. Logistically I am lucky because the university and city office are only minutes apart.

Question from Zeke Freeman, Community Activist, Brooklyn NY:
    Melissa, We have a terrible time with roller skate gangs here in Brooklyn. Could you provide some insight as to how we can handle these miscreant students. They trash my flowers and the police don't take them seriously.

Melissa Emerson:
    Zeke, that sounds frustrating. We are always trying to bridge a gap between students, long-term residents like yourself, and the police. It takes effort on all three parts to resolve these issues. I don't have a fix for your particular situation but I would encourage you to continue to engage the university & police.

Question from Lucille, women's college in Mid-Atlantic:
    In your experience, how serious would you say students are about doing their part to be good neighbors in the community?

Melissa Emerson:
    In working with the student body government, I find these students to be highly committed to having a student body that is respected within the community.

For the general student population, good neighboring takes a certain amount of awareness and education.

Audrey Williams June (Moderator):
    Well, that's all the time we have for today. Thanks to all of you who took the time to send in your questions. And thanks again Ms. Emerson for being our guest today.

Melissa Emerson:
    Thanks for engaging in this discussion. For additional questions/comments, please feel free to email me at: melissa.emerson@colostate.edu

Good luck and have a great year. ~Melissa