Leadership Exchange - Summer 2009

University of Florida students participated in the 2008 Gator Plunge, a day-long service event throughout the Gainesville community. Pictured, students planted trees and created a concrete game court at a local school.

conversations are not necessarily new, at least a segment of the audience changes annually.

Some positions on campuses across the nation are jointly funded by a university and the local community, such as Melissa Emerson’s position as assistant director of off-campus student services and community liaison at Colorado State University. Emerson frequently receives queries from other universities about her job description, and she maintains that such a position should remain neutral in the town–gown divide. “It’s a great way to be a bridge, and it’s important when there are differences of opinion to remain neutral and to remain credible,” she says.

Emerson’s mission is to bring all stakeholders together for dialogue and problem solving. “To do town–gown relationship building, you need to have all parties and players at the table, and this is the perfect forum to do that,” she explains, noting that most professional associations through universities or cities did not include all of the various entities.

Emerson organized the first best practices conference and hosts the Town–Gown Network website and online discussion board ( http://towngown.colostate.edu/). Articles posted on this website address recent news related to off-campus students, such as revisions to local ordinances about the number of unrelated individuals allowed to live in a single-family home and attempts to formalize party registration.

The city of Clemson, South Carolina, and Clemson University are widely considered to be national models for building and maintaining positive and mutually beneficial town–gown relations. The International Town Gown Association (ITGA), based at Clemson University, is striving to become the primary information resource for common issues between institutions of higher learning and the communities in which they reside. ITGA is a membership-based, non-government organization, managed by a board of directors with a full-time staff consisting of a director and administrative assistant.

Like many other areas in student affairs, off-campus life issues have coalesced into a specialty within the profession, and The Best Practices in Building University/City Relations Conference recently celebrated its fourth year. Organized through the Town–Gown Network and co-sponsored by Murray State University in Kentucky and the local community, the 2009 theme was “Teaming Across Campus and Community.” Its mission was to create an environment of deliberative dialogue among students, faculty, staff, elected officials, decisionmakers, and the public at large, and to empower the creative development and implementation of innovative solutions. The conference’s three primary tracks included: teaming across campus and community, civic

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engagement/service learning, and college and community as economic engines.

Town–Gown Coalitions and Stakeholders

Stakeholders in town–gown relationships are varied, but typically include students, faculty, staff, alumni, administrators, and parents on the academic side. On the town side, stakeholders include landlords, realtors, law enforcement, elected officials, neighbors, bars/nightclubs, and state liquor control, code enforcement, and fire protection personnel. To improve off-campus and community relationships, it is crucial to identify the local stakeholders and build relationships among them to resolve pressing issues. Many campuses have recurring task forces or coalitions to promote communication and to address town–gown issues and initiatives, usually with high-profile leaders as co-chairs.

Alcohol-related incidents and activities frequently dominate discussions. Many communities create coalitions on alcohol issues with both university and local leaders to promote behavior change in students within the community. In central Florida, the Orange County Underage Drinking Task Force combined the efforts of local government personnel with staff from the University of Central Florida (UCF) and Rollins College to affect change. Co-chaired by UCF President John Hitt and Orange County Mayor Richard Crotty, the task force succeeded in changing local ordinances in Winter Park to limit operations for vendors who repeatedly sell alcohol to underage patrons and to create an ordinance to hold owners and landlords responsible for illegal open-house parties.

At the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL), the NU Directions task force focuses on alcohol issues and is co-chaired by Juan Franco, UNL’s vice chancellor for student affairs, and Tom Casady, chief of the Lincoln Police Department. Goals of NU Directions for the 2008-2009 academic year addressed alcohol environment issues on campus and in the community; drinking and driving among UNL students; high-risk drinking among Greek-affiliated students and specific non-Greek student populations; high-risk drinking associated with traditions, rituals, and celebrations; and creating a statewide coalition of campus–community environmental efforts.

A philosophical issue that separates many campuses is the decision to adjudicate off-campus offenses through university judicial systems if the actions violate the student conduct code. At the University of Florida, the university does not adjudicate off-campus violations except in the instance of a violent crime or if a student is convicted of driving under the influence off campus.