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Office making progress fostering town-gown relations
In its first year of operations, Off-Campus Student Services has made great progress in fostering a sense of community in neighborhoods surrounding the university, Dan Ryan, director of the office, told the Faculty Senate Executive Committee at its Wednesday meeting.
Programs such as a Neighbors Day Block Party and Safety Fair on the South Campus and an online incident-tracking form that enables residents to enter information about worrisome student behavior are helping to build trust between UB and area homeowners, Ryan said.
Activities such as tenants’ rights workshops educate students on how to stay safe. Ryan’s office has encouraged Sub-Board 1, a student-owned corporation that maintains a database of rental properties, to be selective in listing buildings, taking safety and health concerns into consideration.
Ryan views Off-Campus Student Services, established in September 2008, as a “connector” between UB and its surrounding communities, with a focus on University Heights, which borders the South Campus and houses a large concentration of students.
“The university’s been engaged in that neighborhood for a long time,” Ryan said. “Most of what we were doing, however, I would term as reactive. Neighbors would complain about something, and we would respond…We’re trying to put a program in place so we could perhaps be a little more proactive.”
The majority of UB’s off-campus efforts now involve engagement and education, rather than reaction, Ryan said. His office has hosted meetings of Bailey Avenue and Main Street store owners, published a directory of local businesses and attended meetings of resident groups, such as the University Heights Collaborative.
With safety a major concern for all stakeholders in the area, tragedies such as the killing last year of a UB graduate near the South Campus “take the wind out of your sails,” Ryan said. He called the murder “heartbreaking.”
But, he added, he believes the university is helping to change its surrounding environment. UB projects that help keep the area safe include the purchase and installation of security cameras at some intersections; joint patrols by University and Buffalo Police along Main Street, begun last summer; and UB Neighbor, a newsletter for the South Campus neighborhood that keeps local residents up to date on the university’s initiatives and events.
Off-Campus Student Services continues to serve as a link between students and other residents, recently adding mediation to its arsenal of methods for resolving conflicts, he said.
Preventing problems from occurring in the first place is key, Ryan noted, citing a noticeable drop in the number of complaints about parties as one sign of progress.
Staff members scan Facebook and Twitter to identify students planning parties in the neighborhood, and reach out to those hosts with tips on keeping their events under control, as well as information on the ramifications of violating university regulations.
Activities such as Midnight Movie Madness at the Amherst Theatre, featuring free admission for the first UB students who show up, provide a late-night alternative to partying, Ryan added.
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