creating balanced communities through effective town and gown cooperation

Posted by Optimal College Town Assessment on July 31, 2017

We had a great turnout for our July webinar with Dr. Stephen Gavazzi to talk about how the Optimal College Town Assessment takes the guesswork out of town and gown relations so we decided to offer another webinar in August. I hope you will join us!

Mark your calendars: August 17 at 12:00 noon EST

Join Dr. Michael Fox, author of Town and Gown: From Conflict to Cooperation, from Mount Allison University, who will share with us the topic: “So much more than noisy parties: creating balanced communities through effective town and gown cooperation”

http://www.itga.org/TownandGown

The presentation reflects on Michael’s 2012 book that argues that, in order for communities that are home to colleges and universities to move toward becoming harmonious places to live, work and learn, they will have to forge new and innovative partnerships with these institutions and engage in a much greater strategic governance approach. It is no longer helpful for these places to take the traditional “us vs. them” approach and ad hoc management approaches to university-community relations. Much of the emerging work on community governance and studentification focuses on creating strategies for success in creating places of belonging, rather than isolated ghettoes with little connection to the larger community . Cities and towns with universities have the opportunity to create truly innovative and successful relationships that can rise above petty differences and contribute to a more prosperous and sustainable community; however, it takes on-going research, planning and open communications to achieve this type of relationship.

Please RSVP to receive the link by contacting me at [email protected].

If you would like to learn more about OCTA, please let me know and I would be happy to help you invest in your town-gown relationships.