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CAMPUSES AS GOOD NEIGHBORS
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Local universities add to community revitalization.
By James Nicholson
Local universities, increasingly, are not merely
bastions of higher education. They are also neighbors cognizant of surrounding neighborhoods
and capable of devising highly creative programs to share their resources with neighboring communities.
 Leah Merrifield, Director of Community Relations, Washington University |
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Leah Merrifield, Washington University’s outgoing Director of Community Relations explains, “The University feels it is a member of the community and, as a not-for-profit organization, it has an obligation to guide how it impacts that community.” The University has a broad definition of community, which includes the region, the metropolitan area and “a really special relationship with the surrounding neighborhoods”.
Merrifield explains the University feels it has “a clear obligation to communicate with those neighborhoods and to mitigate any negative impact” on them. Washington University is particularly dedicated to the stabilization and betterment of the Skinker-DeBaliviere, Forest Park Southeast and Northeastern University City neighborhoods housing many of its students (both on the Hilltop and at the Med School). “Our (student) shuttle service provides these neighborhoods a sense that they are part of the area we serve”, Merrifield explains. “Our employer-assisted housing program (in these areas) allows faculty and staff easier access to the campus and, in a small way, also cuts down on the number of (University-related) cars (crowding those neighborhoods).
“Every semester,” Merrifield relates, “the University learns something new about the organic way things develop” when it comes to sharing its resources with the community. For instance, a Science Outreach Program (partnered with the Science Center and the Missouri Botanical Garden) for local schools has fostered connections with local science and math teachers, advanced teacher enrichment, spawned Science Clubs and provided a free (and downloadable) curriculum on Modern Genetics. A mobile science van (think of it as a Bookmobile for Science) can bring science activities directly to local schools. Moreover, the University’s Art School participates in a collaborative visual learning program with the Communications Department of University City High School.
“We participate in a literacy project,” Merrifield continues, “with three University City Schools. All of the schools read the same book and the project culminates in a field activity.” If possible, the authors or illustrators come to campus to meet with the students reading their books. The students, decidedly, visit campus. “Things happen,” Merrifield easily explains. “We (the University) try to think about what we can do to support projects that have legs and are sustainable. We try never to lose sight of the fact that we are a part of St. Louis. Our fortunes are tied to St. Louis and our desire is to continually impact the region in a positive manner.”
SLU’s Vice President for Community Relations Julius Hunter gives a presentation at
a local nursery school. |
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At Saint Louis University, according to Vice President for Community Relations, Julius Hunter, the mission as outlined by Father Biondi, the University’s president, is “to make sure we are part of the community and the community is part of us”. Saint Louis University’s definition of community is a large one stretching from the neighborhoods surrounding the campus to Djibouti, where, at the request of some American soldiers, Hunter’s office took exactly one week to collect and ship a vanload of sports equipment including Billiken and Cardinals T-shirts destined for use by thirty African orphans. If you’re counting, that’s 7,800 miles worth of community.
Hunter sees himself as a facilitator for connecting the University’s resources with parts of the community in need. “Father Biondi gave me the green light to cut through the red tape in becoming more involved in the community,” he explains. Armed with a palm pilot loaded with 1,100 contact numbers, Hunter daily brings a lifetime of connections to campus with him.
A safari through the University’s warehouses prompted a program he titled “Doing More with What’s in Store.” The redistribution campaign brought furniture to an unfurnished Cole School Kindergarten, paper products and stationery to three inner city schools and an after school program and 770 rolls of toilet paper to two local women’s shelters. More than 4,000 books destined for a SLU “Books for Africa” program were diverted to the Wellston and Normandy School Districts when an obvious lack of books was threatening their accreditation (SLU and Hunter are gathering more books for Africa). An outreach program with SLU’s Hispanic Students Organization resulted in 1,000 boxes of gently used clothing being shipped to an orphanage in Panama and the University’s “Make a Difference Day” sent nearly 2,000 committed students throughout the metropolitan area to do community work.
Anyone who remembers Saint Louis University’s former urbanscape of a campus in search of a semblance of cohesion realizes exactly how stunning a transformation the University has undergone in the past decade. Hunter points out that “When gates and fences go up, there is an impression of walling in the campus to keep the (local) community out” so Saint Louis University is giving a great deal of attention to “make the community welcome coming on campus”. University facilities are made available to local community groups at reasonable rates for everything from concerts, to fashion shows to town hall meetings (witness a scheduled forum on the SLU campus called by Congressman Lacey Clay to discuss Social Security). A Sunday evening event last semester sponsored by the University’s Black Student Alliance featuring activists Angela Davis and Danny Glover drew a record 16,000 people from the community.
(Left to right):
Tim Bauman, assistant
professor, anthropology department; Kay Gasen, program specialist, Public Policy Research Center; and Andrew Hurley, professor, history department—lead a team of people involved in the Old North Neighborhood Partnership. |
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Last year, members of the Saint Louis University community (faculty, staff, students and alums) contributed 758,000 hours to community service in more than 16,000 volunteer efforts.
At the University of Missouri-St. Louis, neighborhood outreach takes on an entirely new meaning. “As a public institution funded by tax dollars,” Andrew Hurley, Professor of History and Co-Director of Community History Research and Design Services, points out, “we have a sense of responsibility towards public outreach.” The University’s Public Policy Research Center has actively interpreted that responsibility as a means of neighborhood revitalization.
The University does not target neighborhoods. Neighborhoods, instead, come to the University seeking assistance. Talks ensue, goals are defined, consensus is reached—then the University becomes an active player in “using history as a tool for revitalization”.
Old North Saint Louis, thus far, has been the focus of the University’s biggest initiative. Working with the local residents in every part of a truly collaborative venture, UMSL worked to stabilize the existing built environment, cultivate a respect for the history of those structures, produce a booklet on the history of the neighborhood as well as a trail brochure for a tour of the neighborhood and conduct an archeological excavation of the neighborhood. The latter, explains
Tim Baumann, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, matched specific objects with names culled from census statistics and, thus, personalized both portions of the research.
Old North Saint Louis had an ethnically diverse (Irish immigrants, German immigrants and Freedmen) population and the inner-tensions of that population base were explicated and applied to current tensions between long-time residents and incoming rehabbers. Teacher workshops were held and a local history curriculum encouraging students to feel a renewed pride in the history of their neighborhood was provided to local schools. All along, UMSL students were actively engaged in field research activities.
Kay Gasen, the Director of Public Development at the University’s Public Policy Research Center points out that the University’s involvement continued even beyond that point. An environmental assessment was conducted of the area’s standing buildings and school nurses were provided workshops on lead paint-related conditions. Training workshops for both building maintenance and rehab were provided for current residents and rehabbers. As the University fulfilled its portion of the stated collaboration and withdrew, Old North Saint Louis was left with a renewed sense of identity and tangible neighborhood pride.
And that’s just the beginning of UMSL’s all-encompassing sense of public outreach. A program emphasizing oral histories and the neighborhood’s importance in breaking down local housing segregation barriers for Lewis Place is currently being wrapped up. An initiative for the Forest Park SE neighborhood is forthcoming. A group from Maplewood has approached the University for help in restoring and utilizing its Woodside House as a focal point for a renewed sense of Maplewood beyond that of new restaurants and shopping centers. An initiative to chart and restore the area’s original African-American (Father Dickson, Washington Park and Greenwood) cemeteries is ongoing.
While the approach of each university in its manner of community outreach follows its academic personality, each impacts the metropolitan area in ways and with goals that are subtle, beneficial and designed for far-reaching impact.
Your Neighborhood is My Neighborhood
(Su Vecindario es Mi Vecindario)
Although official University outreach programs obviously have a major impact on the community, sometimes the unofficial policies are quietly doing groundbreaking work.
For eight years now, Washington University’s Department of Romance Languages has been reaching out to St. Louis’ highly invisible constantly growing Hispanic population. Through its involvement with two non-profit agencies, the Southside Catholic Community Services program and the Accion Social Communitaria, it provides tutoring and mentoring programs for the 6 to 13 year
old and 14 to 19
year old age groups. Virginia Braxs, the Department’s Coordi-nator of Volunteer Programs, points out that the Washington University students “give a lot” while many of the children being mentored are “not really exposed to good role models” with the result that many of those children “now want to imitate us” while they are also educationally being eased in the transition from elementary school to middle school and high school to college.
At Accion Social’s La Clinica, Spanish major Pre-Med students, translate, help patients fill in forms, and enter medical data in computerized records Washington University and Saint Louis University Med School students donate their time and talents, while the Department’s Volunteer Program provides a brief training program for them all. Braxs points out the need for the volunteers to be “culturally proficient” while explaining that classical, text-book Spanish only appears in text books and La Clinica’s reality is that its patients speak any number of dialects.
The Department also has an unwritten agreement with Shriner’s Childrens Hospital to provide 24-hour support and language services for Hispanic patients from out of
the country who are often hospitalized for lengthy stays minus any form of family support system.
Through the Amigos Program, volunteers are provided for specific events—such as a Christmas Party for 400 children. (“That’s a lot of presents to wrap”, Braxs reflects, while noting that, Hispanic, but also Bosnian, Afghani and other children are included in the party.)
One of the pleasant benefits of the Department’s Outreach activities is that “we all become better human beings in the process”, notes Braxs. An added benefit is that success breeds the need for more programs. When the first teenager in the High School program announced he wanted to go to college, Braxs quickly devised a new program to help him prepare for the necessary tests, research financial aid and locate the proper program. His success blazed the trail for seven more. “These are the first in their families to even think of going to college,” Braxs says barely containing her enthusiasm. “We are really, really affecting lives in a positive way and seeing the results.” |
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