How Can We Bridge the Gap between Universities and the Community it Surrounds?
By Jocelyn Hockaday
Philadelphia at 7am in the morning, while on the road. | Photo by Jocelyn Hockaday
Since the 1980s, there has been greater recognition that the fate of residential communities impacted the fate of higher education institutions.
Most of the literature today provides the perspective from the university’s point of view of what has been done to close the gap between residential communities and higher education institutions.
However, George W. Miller III, an Associate professor of journalism at Temple University, said most of the literature is from universities, but communities have a lot to say also. Miller presented highlights from his research in the communities surrounding Temple to a small group of students and professors at Annenberg Hall on Thursday, Oct. 6.
“There were some people who had positive interactions with the universities and many people were kind of upset,” Miller said.
Miller said most problems came down to miscommunication between the university, which wants to expand and ensure its students’ safety, and the community, who fear being displaced. Temple students said they also notice between the two sides.
“Yes, there is a gap and it’s gentrification,” said Kasey Evans Farkas, a sophomore majoring in gender, sexuality and women’s studies. “That’s the clear difference. The second you get off campus, it’s not as nice.”
Vaishnavi Ramachandran, a sophomore international business major, said the gap is prevalent due to universities being more funded and retaining more resources than the surrounding communities.
“The whole city is affected by this,” Ramachandran said. “We need to come together but I don't think that's happening.”
Miller said it has been difficult to build and maintain between the residential community and the university community.
“The community members don’t know who to talk to or where to go,” Miller said. “The university gets blamed for everything, regardless of their actual involvement. This is a lack of communication on both ends.”
The solutions to this issue in Miller’s study begins with building trust with the community again by increasing assessments with residential community members to see what needs to be changed and what is working.
As a part of his study, Miller went around Philadelphia and asked what the residents wanted from the university, in addition to his research of other university-residential community relationships.
“The community wants more workforce development, non-academic development, they need resources, and safety,” Miller said during his lecture.
According to Miller’s study, there should be more use of residential community members as local experts and more involvement as soon as possible.
He expands on this idea by describing that while solutions expand to applying knowledge in the community and not just research, it should also be applied in the classrooms by educating the students on the history of Philadelphia and applying community-based learning.
“There should be a chance for teaching majors that can go into residential schools and do tutoring and then the students could possibly get work study pay for their time,” Evans Farkas said.
Miller continues to expand on his solutions by illustrating once trust is built, the focus shifts to understanding the community's history and responses from the university.
Good communication between the two communities will build equity which can lead to more access to non-academic services including those that will help increase safety, building academic programming and preparedness.
“You have classes and centers and institutes on campus that are doing amazing things in terms of reaching out to the immediate residential community, and then even far beyond throughout Philadelphia, and even the region,” Miller said. “We've got people at all those levels doing really cool and amazing things. They're hard to find, you know.”
Miller proposed creating a centralized place where community members can visit to communicate questions and, concerns and receive answers and support from the university.
