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Read UB Neighbor

Read UB Downtown

By JIM BISCO

Published: December 9, 2009

Fostering an important communication link between the university and community was the intention of UB Neighbor when the UB newsletter first appeared in the mailboxes of 16,000 households in neighborhoods that surround the South Campus in fall 2006.

Three years later, neighbors look forward to new issues three times a year and the university this fall launched a second newsletter, UB Downtown, to build relationships with neighbors at 7,000 addresses in the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus, Fruit Belt, Allentown and Cold Springs neighborhoods surrounding UB’s Downtown Campus.

The birth of UB Neighbor was a natural extension of the UB 2020 initiative and recommendations of the presidential community engagement task force that the university increase its focus on community outreach, according to Ryan McPherson, associate vice president for government and community relations in UB’s Division of External Affairs. Both newsletters are published by the Office of Government and Community Relations and produced by the Newsletters Unit of the Office of University Communications.

Residents in neighborhoods that share borders with the South Campus and provide off-campus housing for hundreds of UB students were the target audience for the university’s first community newsletter, McPherson says. “We wanted to use UB Neighbor to really open up the university to its neighborhood and to provide a window for our neighbors into what’s happening on campus. The concept was to frame out in a two-way dialogue,” he says.

Vincent Clark, director of the Office of Community Relations and a University Heights resident, said response to the newsletter “has been overwhelmingly positive, particularly for those who have directly benefited from it.”

“It’s not just a piece for the university; we’ve also used it as a vehicle to make neighbors aware of other activities in the neighborhood, including new business openings, community volunteer leadership in the neighborhood and community- organizing activities that neighbors can participate in,” Clark notes. “It helps to create a more collaborative, communicative environment between the university and its various neighborhood stakeholders.”

Clark says the newsletter has done more than help improve communication between the university and surrounding neighborhoods. “It’s increased awareness of the university’s impact on the neighborhood and some of the resources that are available on campus to residents—from cultural events to clinics to academic opportunities to recreational facilities.”

UB Neighbor has addressed such significant neighborhood developments as off-campus programs that boost neighborhood businesses, partnerships that help bolster the safety and security of the community, the Home Loan Guaranty Program that helps UB employees buy homes in South Campus neighborhoods, and campus events and activities like UB on the Green and the University Community Farmers Market.

A survey of South Campus neighborhood readers has shown UB Neighbor to be well received and their main source of information about the university, according to Clark.

Fred Brace, president of the University Heights Community Development Association and housing court liaison to Judge Henry J. Nowak for the University District, praises UB Neighbor.

“I think it really reaches out to the South Campus neighborhood,” he notes. “It’s one of the few communications vehicles in the neighborhood. It’s mentioned from time to time, people quote from it. It’s a good publicity tool for the university, the new cops on the beat, the joint patrols on Main Street, South Campus investment and for fund-raising events. Close to $30,000 has been raised in two years for the Gloria J. Parks Community Center programs with UB’s support and sponsorship. The newsletter strikes the right chord.”

McPherson says that in addition to greater engagement with and input from stakeholder groups in the community, such positive feedback also has helped with UB faculty’s engagement in the community and research done within the community, as well as aligning UB’s community relations programming.

“Our hopes with the inaugural edition of UB Downtown are exactly the same: That we will embrace the four neighborhoods that make up the area and achieve those same goals, both understanding what is on their minds in relation to the university and also communicating from our perspective how the university is working with its many community partners there,” he adds.

Clark says UB Downtown is one way in which the university is responding to requests for improved communication among residents and stakeholders around the campus.

“We want to see the downtown newsletter evolve into a kind of neighborhood paper that has neighborhood residents and stakeholders submitting articles and pieces, and taking co-ownership of it and really viewing it as a shared resource,” he says.

The premiere issue of UB Downtown focused on UB’s long-term plans for its Downtown Campus, information on programs for Buffalo Public School students and some of the business and cultural entities that are boosting quality of life in the neighborhood.

Clark feels it’s too early to measure the impact of the newly introduced UB Downtown; plans are under way to solicit feedback from recipients.

With the two newsletters fostering relationships in the community, McPherson says, “it becomes a lot easier to create a much stronger coalition for our collective goals of fully implementing UB 2020, creating an innovation economy and increasing quality of life here in Buffalo Niagara. That then becomes a strong force in creating positive change here in this region, in Albany and New York State.”