Understanding Campus and Community
Relationships through Marriage and
Family Metaphors: A Town-Gown
Typology
Stephen M. Gavazzi, Michael Fox & Jeff
Martin
Innovative Higher Education
ISSN 0742-5627
Volume 39
Number 5
Innov High Educ (2014) 39:361-374
DOI 10.1007/s10755-014-9288-1
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Author's personal copy
Innov High Educ (2014) 39:361–374
DOI 10.1007/s10755-014-9288-1
Understanding Campus and Community Relationships
through Marriage and Family Metaphors: A Town-Gown
Typology
Stephen M. Gavazzi & Michael Fox & Jeff Martin
Published online: 5 March 2014
# Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014
Abstract In this article we argue that the scholarship on marriages and families provides
invaluable insights into town-gown relationships. Marital typologies are used to generate
insights into what happens between campus and community relationships over time, and a
line of family scholarship provides some additional illumination about the ways in which
institutions and municipalities can strike a healthy balance between meeting their idiosyncratic
needs and pursuing shared goals and objectives. We use four case examples to illustrate the
application of the typological structure, and these examples are followed by a discussion of
implications for leadership on both sides of the town-gown relationship.
Stephen M. Gavazzi is Dean and Director of The Ohio State University at Mansfield campus, and is a Professor
in the College of Education and Human Ecology on The Ohio State University’s Columbus campus. He received
his Master’s degree in Marriage and Family Therapy and his Ph.D. in Family Studies from the University of
Connecticut. His interests in the realm of higher education include both town-gown relationships and leadership
issues that factor into the relative health of an academic discipline.
Michael Fox is a Professor in the Department of Geography and Environment at Mount Allison University, New
Brunswick, Canada. He holds a Hon. B.A. and M.A. in Geography from Western University, as well as a
Teaching Diploma and a Ph.D in Geography from McGill University. He has been involved with universitycommunity relations for 35 years, serving at different universities as a University Ombudsman and Dean of
Students, Vice President (Student Affairs) and Vice President (Academic & Research).
Jeff Martin is Executive Director of the Conference Center and Inn and Adjunct Professor of Parks, Recreation
and Tourism Management at Clemson University. He received his Ph.D. in Educational Leadership from
Clemson University. His scholarly interests include town-gown relationships, organizational theory and customer
service in hospitality management.
S. M. Gavazzi (*)
Human Development and Family Science, The Ohio State University at Mansfield, 1760 University Dr.
Mansfield, Ohio 44906-1599, USA
e-mail: gavazzi.1@osu.edu
M. Fox
Department of Geography and Environment, Mount Allison University, Sackville, New Brunswick, Canada
e-mail: mfox@mta.ca
J. Martin
Clemson University, Clemson, SC, USA
e-mail: jeffm@clemson.edu
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Keywords Town-gown . Marital typologies . Campus . Community
Background and the Town-Gown Relationship Literature
Attention to the relationships between campuses and the communities that surround
them – invariably discussed as town-gown relationships – has waxed and waned over
the years. More recent contributions seem to indicate that interest is again on the rise.
Such contributions include Gumprecht’s (2008) treatise on the American college town,
Kemp’s (2013) edited volume on best practices in town-gown relationships, and Fox’s
(2014) guide to creating positive relationships between higher education institutions
and municipalities.
At first glance, however, much of the literature on campus-community relationships can
appear to be anything but optimistic. “Historically,” Bruning, McGrew, and Cooper (2006)
wrote, “town-gown relations have been a source of difficulty, frustration, and annoyance for
both the town and the university” (p. 125). The thought behind this quote is not a starting point
for the faint of heart. Campus and community interactions can often be portrayed as a struggle,
and an exasperating one at that. What is at the root of this stress and strain? Brockliss (2000)
provided descriptions of scholars who took great pains to keep their students shielded from the
“immorality” of city life at and near the birth of the first universities in the twelfth century. This
was largely an attempt by medieval university personnel with strong religious affiliations to
create a spiritual and intellectual sense of separateness, however, and not as much a corporal
one. With few early exceptions, including most notably Oxford and Cambridge, university
students largely slept, ate, and otherwise carried out the mundane tasks of living outside of the
university walls.
From the early 1800s forward, by contrast, Brockliss (2000) asserted that a number of
factors led to a more complete merging of town and gown sensibilities throughout
Europe, thus lessening both the psychological and physical divisions between campuses
and communities. This integration included the general lack of available contiguous land
around universities that demanded a more de-centered approach to the construction of
new classrooms and other collegiate buildings. In addition, the rise in importance of
medicine and other science-based research efforts within the academy helped to create
stronger symbiotic relationships between campuses and communities through the provision of health care to residents and empirical assistance through business and industry
sponsors.
The capacity to study in the “splendid isolation” (McGirr, Kull, & Enns, 2003) that
would be accompanied by a more distinct and physical separation of campus and
community came in more modern times and had a more distinctly North American
flavor. In the United States especially, the development and widespread adoption of the
“campus model” created extremely palpable town-gown divisions by building residences,
dining halls, recreational areas, and other student life facilities within the confines of the
institution’s boundaries. McGirr, Kull, and Enns (2003) have described this phenomenon
in terms of the “invisible wall” that often exists between the full service campus and the
community surrounding the institution.
The boundary between town and gown entities can have real and lasting consequences,
however, particularly in terms of land use and policy issues. Sungri-Eryilmaz (2009) has
created perhaps the most extensive review to date regarding these sorts of property concerns.
Noting that “land use and development processes at the campus edge will repeatedly put towngown relations to the test” (p. 6), this author outlined the many and varied issues that arise as
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the result of an institution’s land use activities. Those issues included social inequity issues
when longer-term, typically economically challenged residents are displaced by new construction, “spillover effects” that involve everything from new traffic snarls to upward pressures on
rental costs as a result of re-gentrification activities, the failure to include area stakeholders in
planning processes, and the impact of property tax losses that result from nonprofit status of
the university or college.
Porter and Grogan (2013) recently issued a call to action regarding new and renewed
collaborative activities between campus and community leaders on core economic issues.
They urged administrators, on the one hand, to invite community partners into “meaningful”
participation regarding the development of economic development strategies that are designed
to be mutually beneficial and sustainable over the long-term. On the other hand, mayors and
other municipal managers are asked to respond to this open invitation by establishing a liaison
office (or at least an officer) that would serve as the authorized point of contact on all towngown discussions as well as building the campus into their own economic development plans.
In turn, they encouraged business leaders and other community representatives to seek out
win-win partnerships that would further advance collaborative efforts in areas such as purchasing and supply needs, workforce expansion efforts, and research and incubation activities.
Introducing Marriage and Family Metaphors
The literature on town-gown topics has focused intensively on the quality of interactions that
occur between campus representatives and members of the community. Because of this
emphasis, the use of marriage as a metaphor for describing what happens between these
relationship partners may require a little stretch of the imagination on the part of readers here,
as the term “engagement” has been used to center attention on the efforts that campus leaders
can take in fostering healthy town-gown associations. The marriage metaphor has been applied
in a number of other contexts as well, including perhaps most notably in the business realm of
strategic alliances (Kanter, 1995). Although no diamond band is involved, the idea that some
sort of “courtship” might be implied within in the process of bringing campus and community
partners together should ring true to those who have participated in such efforts.
Within the marital literature, there has been long-standing interest in the development of
typologies of marriages. The earliest and perhaps best known effort to create such a classification scheme is that of Cuber and Harroff (1965). Based on a series of interviews that were
conducted with husbands and wives, these researchers identified five main types of marriages
that could be distinguished from the data they gathered. Importantly, a certain fluidity is
thought to exist within and among these categories, such that couples can and do move from
one type to another over the course of their relationship history.
Over the years, theorists, researchers, and practitioners have given a great deal of scholarly
attention to these marital typologies. In fact, an entire industry of premarital and marital
screening tools has arisen from this seminal work, offering help to couples who are interested
in better understanding and improving the quality of their relationship with one another. With
the same intention in mind for readers who are interested in appreciating the nuances of towngown associations, we offer in this article a slightly revised set of the five marital categories in
the approximate order of the satisfaction levels generated by these relationships: devitalized,
conflicted, traditional, harmonious, and vital.
The devitalized category describes relationships in which individuals are the least satisfied
with one another as relationship partners. Typically, there was some sort of stronger and more
positive attraction to each other at a previous point, a fact which contributes to the subsequent
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disappointment in the relationship. In essence, couples in this type of relationship have the
sense that something was “lost” along the way. Partners in a devitalized relationship might
long for a return to better times, but they have little hope that any sort of “relationship magic”
can be rekindled. One or both of the spouses has likely decided that they are on the road to
divorce proceedings.
Conflicted couples also report lower satisfaction levels, but individuals in this category can
still experience and report positive aspects about each other and about their relationship
overall. The main difficulty here is the fact that the couple is engaged in ongoing quarrels.
Cuber and Harroff used the term “conflict habituated” in order to identify the degree to which
the relationship is defined by persistent fighting. Partners do not see themselves as being done
with one another, at least not at present; but the amount of energy needed to engage in these
enduring struggles can be quite stressful, especially if most or all of their communication with
one another is handled through shouting matches.
The next category is the traditional couple. Partners report modest levels of
satisfaction with one another, and the relationship is seen as quite stable. Labeled
“passive congenial” by Cuber and Harroff, this type of couple invariably is described
as being devoid of any sort of spark or energy. Partners may have very little actual
contact with one another and often lead very separate lives. This is a marriage of
convenience that reflects a philosophy of “live and let live,” one where “his” and
“hers” are much easier to define than what is “ours.”
Harmonious couples often as not reflect the same level of stability when compared to the
traditional couple, but typically report greater satisfaction levels. The main difference here lies
in the greater amount of shared activity that is present in the lives of partners in the harmonious
couple category. These are spouses who are working together in ways that define and enhance
their relationship with one another, and they derive pleasure from those shared activities. These
partners typically also are identified as a strong and healthy couple by others with whom they
interact in their social circles.
The last marital type, and the category that can generate the highest satisfaction levels
among partners, is the vitalized couple. Relationship partners in this category are similar to the
harmonious couples in certain aspects. However, the spouses seem to share virtually all aspects
of their existence with one another. Termed “total” by Cuber and Harroff, the distinguishing
feature here is each partner’s whole and complete commitment to the relationship itself.
Compared to the traditional couple, there is much that can be labeled “ours,” with much less
time spent on the identification of the “his” and “hers” aspects of their lives as individuals. In
addition to partners in this marital type reporting very high relationship satisfaction levels,
these unions are among the most stable marriages. After all, vitalized couples would find it
difficult if not impossible to imagine a scenario where they were not actively interacting with,
much less not married to, their beloved partner.
Balancing Individual and Common Goals
Before moving on to an application of these accepted categories in the attempt to understand
town-gown relationships better, another component of the marriage and family literature must
be introduced here. The comparison and contrast between harmonious and vitalized couples
might leave the casual reader with an impression that greater health in relationships is based on
the sublimation of one’s own individuality for the sake of a more satisfying sense of cohesion.
In fact, however, the literature on family distance regulation (cf., Day, Gavazzi, Miller, et al.,
2009) has asserted that this is decidedly not the case.
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A family can be thought of as a system that maintains physical and emotional distance
between and among its members through the regulation of interpersonal boundaries. The most
functional families have boundaries that are firm but flexible, allowing family members to
balance the sense of their own unique individuality with the simultaneous experience of being
strongly connected to their family. In turn, moderately functional families maintain boundaries
that sacrifice the individual’s sense of separateness for the greater good of a sense of belonging,
or vice versa. Finally, families that display the lowest functioning levels regulate boundaries in
ways that leave members with no sense of being connected to one another and without the
experience of respect for who they are as individuals.
Bringing this focus on family dynamics back together with the marital typology literature,
couples in the devitalized, conflicted, and traditional categories may all be seen as struggling to
find the proper balance between a sense of individuality and a sense of connectedness. By
comparison, partners in harmonious and vitalized relationships have been able to create a
healthy and functional equilibrium between their individual needs and those of their partner. In
essence, the healthiest relationships are based on the principle of a “fair give and take” between
partners, where the realization of symmetry is always the preferred path and outcome of their
interactions with one another. The only real difference between the harmonious and vitalized
couples is the number of activities that are shared between the partners.
Application to Town-Gown Relationships: The 4X4 Typology
The balancing of individual and relationship needs in the more functional marital types
would seem to fit well with the various descriptions of healthy town-gown relationships. For example, Sungri-Eryilmaz (2009) specifically highlighted the need to balance
university or college and community interests in tandem with the identification of
common town-gown goals as part of a best practices framework. Similarly, McGirr,
Kull, and Enns (2003) described how balanced planning and the simultaneous pursuit
of institutional and community goals was an important feature of highly effective towngown relationships .These writers also underscored the value of a differentiated approach to the community, highlighting the notion that individual neighborhoods surrounding a given campus might have distinctly different needs.
Of the two higher functioning marital categories, the description of the harmonious type
would seem to reflect best the descriptions of the most highly effective town-gown relationships. Significant effort is put into the pursuit of goals that are of shared benefit to the campus
and community, and yet clearly there are many objectives that also are the target of separation
actions taken by the institution and the community surrounding it. While perhaps an ideal to be
upheld as the ultimate in town-gown partnerships, the vitalized relationship type
would seem to represent a “bridge too far” for most campuses and communities to
cross. Unless the town is literally comprised of the university and affiliated resources,
the idea of only pursuing shared goals would seem to be unworkable in actual
practice. Hence, for all practical purposes we have designated the harmonious type
as the most desirable form of town-gown relationship.
In turn, the traditional martial type would seem to match the description of the conventional
town-gown relationship. Here, campus and community members tend to express modest if
somewhat tepid levels of satisfaction with the one another; and the relationship has been that
way for as long as anyone can remember. Lacking enthusiasm and typically having relatively
little contact with one another, university or college representatives and community stakeholders often as not simply ignore each other as they pursue their own individual goals.
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Perhaps the only fate worse than being unnoticed is to become the object of scorn or
disappointment, sentiments captured within the conflicted and devitalized types, respectively.
While all healthy relationships are accompanied by some amount of disagreement between
partners, the relative well-being of any couple is determined largely by how well that discord is
resolved. Those campuses and communities that cannot adequately settle their differences –
and thus likely have a history of unresolved issues from past clashes – can end up repeatedly
fighting old battles alongside efforts to handle new concerns that arise. As a result, town-gown
relationships can become habitually conflict-ridden over time, even when present circumstances might not indicate the need for hardline positions to be drawn.
Ongoing battles do connote some sort of ongoing interaction, even while running the risk of
becoming ever more destructive over time. The devitalized type, in contrast, indicates disenchantment amidst a lost sense of connectedness. Regarding town-gown relationships, this
means that there was at some point some sort of positive linkage between campus and
community, at least for a period of time. As a result, it seems axiomatic to state that all
devitalized relationships started out as a partnership best described by a different category.
Often these relationships are conflicted in orientation, such that, where there once was
something worth fighting for (and about), the cost of the war eventually became too great to
sustain by one or both parties. Alternatively, the devitalized relationship can arise out of the
repeatedly dashed hopes of budding harmonious relationships. In essence, there are only so
many chances that one gets to be the “right” relationship partner.
Therefore, in reality there are four types of town-gown relationships: devitalized, conflicted,
traditional, and harmonious. By utilizing the four-square schematic displayed in Figure 1, we
argue that two distinct dimensions can be discerned that matter most in terms of understanding
the different ways that campuses and communities relate to one another. The first of the two
dimensions surrounds the level of comfort that the current relationship holds for university or
college personnel and community stakeholders. The second dimension centers on the level of
effort that is required to maintain the present state of the town-gown relationship.
By default, the traditional relationship becomes the preferred state of affairs for most
campuses and communities. This town-gown category retains its desirable status if only
because it does not take much work to remain embedded in a moderately comfortable
relationship. For all intents and purposes, this category might well be labeled the “ignorance
• Lower effort,
lower
comfort
• Higher
effort, lower
comfort
Devitalized
Conflicted
Traditional
Harmonious
• Lower effort,
higher
comfort
Figure 1 A Four-Square Typology of Town-Gown Relationships
• Higher
effort, higher
comfort
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is bliss” typology, reflecting a philosophy that lends itself to maintenance of a status quo where
town and gown are largely disconnected from one another. However, at the same time this
relationship type might just as easily be described as the “nothing ventured, nothing gained”
modus operandi. Even further, however, the ongoing stresses and strains that exist on the edge
of campus properties across the country, especially in more urban locations, make such an
arrangement near impossible to maintain in practice.
Therefore, with the movement toward more intensive engagement between campuses and
communities becoming the norm, there is increased pressure on higher education representatives and community members to put more effort into fostering positive town-gown relationships. Whether or not the outcome of such effort is meaningful – resulting in a harmonious
relationship type – or more negative and less functional will depend on a variety of factors that
have been alluded to throughout this article.
We must also mention the flexibility of these typologies. Not unlike a marriage, the positive or
negative qualities of town-gown relationships can wax and wane over the passage of time. Hence,
at different points in the development of the relationship, campus personnel and community
stakeholders might exert significantly different degrees of effort to connect to one another; and
they might experience different degrees of comfort with how they find themselves linked together.
Four Real Examples
This last point should be well heeded in what follows next. We offer brief case examples that
illustrate the application of the 4X4 typological structure to specific town-gown relationships.
Each of these real examples has been selected because one of the authors held a deep
understanding of the present and historical associations between that campus and its community (even in situations where they did not retain an official affiliation with those entities). That
said, we believe that the situations chosen to represent each typology are snapshots of where a
given town-gown relationship exists at one moment in time. Changes in effort and comfort
levels can and will alter these associations, and thus the typologies they represent, over time.
The Devitalized Type: The Ohio State University at Mansfield, Mansfield, Ohio, United States
Founded in 1959, The Ohio State University at Mansfield by design provides affordable access to
the state’s flagship research university for approximately 1,500 students who either are locationbound or need an alternative regional campus entry point when the selective admissions process to
the flagship campus does not tilt in their favor. Mansfield, Ohio is the county seat and former
manufacturing giant (top 10 in the United States during the 1950’s) with 47,000 current residents.
The city has experienced sharp economic decline over the last three decades as businesses moved
operations overseas. The 14 % baccalaureate completion rate in the county compares unfavorably to
the statewide average of 24 %, indicating a historical lack of reliance upon (and valuing of) higher
education as a pathway to career development and economic wealth. Simply put, until the last
quarter century residents could easily find well-paying jobs that did not require an advanced degree.
The historical decoupling of education and economic success has been further compounded
by the geographic location of the Ohio State Mansfield campus. Situated in a largely
undeveloped area of the city and on approximately 650 acres of woodlands and streams, town
residents often refer to the campus as “in the sticks.” In addition to this perceived physical
drawback, there is a history of psychological disappointments that have contributed to
discomfort and an increasingly devitalized relationship between campus and community over
time, despite the initial energy expended on making the relationship work.
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The earliest such hindrance to campus and community is documented in local newspaper
clippings from the late 1960s. Soon after the first building was constructed on the Mansfield
campus, there was an energetic yet unrealistic movement to have the city “take over” the
regional campus in order to create its own comprehensive institution of higher learning, to be
named “Mansfield State University.” This sense of ownership was a natural extension of the
community’s early investment in bringing the regional campus into existence, reflected in the
enthusiastic capital campaign run by local residents that resulted in the purchase of the land for
this regional campus. Despite exhortations from state representatives, the mayor, and city
council members, however, the central administration of The Ohio State University presumably was not about to let go of a campus that it had just started to develop. While the municipal
leadership eventually gave up on these acquisition attempts, perceptions that the University
lacked interest in the well-being and wishes of the community lingered. Similar to the marital
couple experiencing the first pangs of disappointment, the first seeds of a devitalized relationship were sown at that time. Energy levels dropped, and discomfort began to set in.
In the early 1970s, Ohio State leaders worked with the Ohio Board of Regents,
which is the governing body of higher education in Ohio, in order to bring technical
colleges to each of the four regional campuses that it operated; and in 1973 North
Central Technical College (NCTC) opened its doors as a partner on the Mansfield
campus. Minutes of the shared services committee – designed in large part to create
efficiencies by reducing duplication of services – from that period of time indicated that
NCTC administrators were interested in carving out their own unique identity on the
campus and in the community. As a result, a lengthy series of activities ensued that
created an increasingly adversarial relationship between the two administrations
which lasted for decades. To this day, townspeople speak bluntly about their disappointment that the two sides of the campus could not get along during this extended
time period.
One more recent contribution to this history of disenchantment occurred as a result of
interaction with the local hospital, which had run a nursing school for decades. Approximately
ten years, ago, the hospital reached out to Ohio State in order to explore the possibility of
becoming more connected programmatically. A plan was drawn up that would include the
hospital constructing a new building on the Ohio State Mansfield campus, opening its doors to
increased numbers of Ohio State and NCTC students wishing to become nurses while
maintaining administrative oversight. Internal documents and newspaper articles published
during this period of time indicate that this plan was perceived as an exciting three-way
partnership opportunity by all parties involved in the negotiations at that time.
Unfortunately, a few months into the planning process the hospital leadership team
unexpectedly made a unilateral decision to withdraw from the collaborative deal that had
been struck. Instead, their Board proposed that The Ohio State University take over the
program altogether and fold it into its existing College of Nursing. Despite a series of meetings
held with various university administrators to foster a positive response, no champion for this
substitute plan emerged within Ohio State’s central administration; and so the answer to the
hospital board was of the “thanks but no thanks” variety.
Soon after, a local private university was officially approached with a similar request to take
over the nursing program. An agreement was quickly formalized, and that institution immediately launched an aggressive capital campaign to raise funds for the new building. This was a
public relations nightmare for the Mansfield campus. Despite the fact that the hospital Board
had unilaterally changed the nature of the deal to be struck, all of the blame was placed on
Ohio State for failing to take over the nursing program. As many disillusioned residents tell the
story, this was simply one more example of high community expectations that were dashed on
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the shoals of the university, and thus one more reason to perceive the relationship as
devitalized.
The Conflicted Type: Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada
Without a doubt, the most infamous conflicted town and gown relationship in Canada involves
the City of Kingston, Ontario (population 123,000) and Queen’s University (full-time student
population of 21,000). Founded in 1841, the University has been engaged in what has been
described as a “history of conflict” (Stechyson, 2010) throughout much of its existence in
contemporary times. It provides comprehensive professional, graduate and undergraduate
programs, including a medical school, on a campus located in one of the most prestigious
neighborhoods of the city. In addition to dominating a substantial portion of the urban
environment, the University is a financial powerhouse in the community, contributing an
estimated $1 billion annually to the Kingston economy.
Over the years, student numbers have grown; and the campus has faced expansion
pressures that have leaked into the surrounding residential neighborhoods. As a result, ever
increasing numbers of students have been moving off campus and residing in larger, former,
single family homes that have been converted into rooming houses, fraternities, and sororities.
Research shows that the development of these “student ghettos” has a long history, stemming
as far back as the mid-1950s when the provincial government gave the University the right to
expropriate private homes for an expanded campus and off-campus housing sector. Many
argue that the relationship never recovered from decisions made at that time, thus setting up an
ongoing conflicted relationship between the campus and the community that typically is seen
in chronically bickering marital couples.
In recent years, near-campus student housing issues have received national media attention
during annual fall orientation and homecoming events. The most infamous case was in a
neighborhood just beyond the campus where estimates of 5,000 – 7,000 revelers took over a
two-block student ghetto during Homecoming 2005. National media attention highlighted the
drinking, noise, broken glass, an overturned car that was set ablaze, and hundreds of riot police
and other officers who had been ordered into the area, resulting in hundreds of arrests and
liquor and by-law violation tickets being issued (Fox, 2012). Continued escalation of this kind
of conflict resulted in the cancellation of events in 2008 in an attempt to find a temporary fix to
the situation involving the University, its students, and the community.
During these difficult times, there was significant change in leadership at the University and
the usual cycle of changes in municipal government leadership. Neighborhood associations
became active in expressing their animosity towards the activities, and citizens took it upon
themselves to pressure civic leaders and police to become more aggressive in their approach to
the problem (Fox, 2014). In spite of individual and coordinated efforts between town and
gown personnel, there seemed to be a continuing feeling of distrust and animosity and a sense
that there was little coordinated leadership between the two worlds of the city and the
University.
The on-going dissatisfaction levels between town and gown began to be more officially
addressed in 2007 when University and civic leaders – with direct involvement of the
University Principal and Vice-Principal, the Mayor and the Chief Administrative Officer for
the city, and both student organizations and local resident associations – identified the need for
a more comprehensive and strategic approach to the issues. Over the next three years,
significant funding, University and civic leadership efforts, and goodwill were invested in
attempting to strengthen the relationship, which generated the promising 2011-2014 City of
Kingston Town and Gown Strategic Plan.
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With this plan it was widely thought that an important first step had been taken to dampen
the discord and reduce the ongoing battles between campus and community. With an attitude
of celebration, the new Principal publicly proclaimed that he would work closely with the city
in forging a new town-gown relationship. In turn, a new Mayor was elected, who was a
Queen’s graduate and alumni association member. Both new leaders were perceived as having
the ability to forge a new and positive town-gown relationship.
Ominously, however, the Principal decided unilaterally to reinstate the Queen’s Fall
Homecoming events, much to the horror of city officials and local residents. At the early
October 2013 event, thousands of students and alumni returned to the neighborhoods surrounding the University. The Mayor went to the heart of the off-campus student housing area
late that Saturday night and sent out a tweet directed at the University Principal that stated: “I
have two words for you: NOT GOOD.” The hardline positions of town against gown had,
once again, been drawn.
The Traditional Type: Mount Allison University, Sackville, New Brunswick, Canada
Founded in 1839, Mount Allison University sits on the high ground in the center of Sackville,
New Brunswick, Canada (population 5,000); and it actually predates the town, which was
incorporated in 1903. The town and the University share a long history that includes the rise
and fall of various foundries as the economic heart of the community, paralleled by a steady
growth in student, faculty, and staff numbers. As Sackville lost its vitality as a factory town
over recent years, the population (5,500) and employment balance changed to favor its
educational mission.
Today, the University acts as the single largest employer in the community, with over 500
employees serving 2,600 students; and it has been ranked the #1 undergraduate university in
Canada by the country’s national news magazine, Maclean’s, for 17 of the past 23 years.
Mount Allison accommodates just over 1,000 of its students in traditional residences oncampus, with the balance living off-campus in a number of different neighborhoods. Over the
last 10 years, approximately 600 apartments and converted family homes have been constructed by private developers and landlords to accommodate the increased number of students
seeking off-campus housing.
As in the traditional marriage relationship, there is a modest level of respect and satisfaction
between town and gown with only the occasional flare-up due to noisy parties and late-night
activity after the bars have closed. These issues have become a more noticeable point of
friction in the community over the years; however, to date there has been little official
recognition of the problem between the town government and the University administration.
This may indeed be part of the “live and let live” strategy similarly adopted by traditional
marital partners. In essence, there is a reasonable degree of comfort that matches the relatively
low degree of effort that is put into enhancing the town-gown relationship.
The most notable aspect of this traditional town and gown relationship is its stability,
especially that of the various actors and processes within the community. The Mayor of the
Town had previously worked for over forty years in the University facilities management
department, thirty of which had been spent at the hockey arena, a major facility shared by the
two entities. In turn, the University president is finishing his second five-year term and
represents an on-going line of presidents who have presided over steady budgets, sizable
endowments, no debt, and the prized top spot in the national university rankings.
Amidst these calm waters, however, the Mayor and the President and their administrations
have not met formally in years and have given almost no attention of note to shared
governance or community-based activities. There are separate but equal leadership roles
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established between the two administrations, and most everyone seems to understand that
things happen either “on campus” or “off campus.” There are no shared planning or housingrelated committees and no shared services or town and gown issues groups. Past mayors and
presidents have described the relationship as “two solitudes”, and “benign neglect” has been
offered as a slightly more negative characterization. In brief, each party has traditionally sought
to achieve its own goals and initiatives, in directions often unknown to one another.
The Harmonious Type: Clemson University, Clemson, South Carolina, United States
The City of Clemson (population 14,000) and Clemson University (17,000 undergraduate
students) is perhaps the ideal example for discussing what a harmonious town-gown relationship looks like. The Princeton Review has ranked Clemson as the number one public
institution in the nation in the category “Town-Gown Relations Are Great” for the past five
years. Clemson came to national prominence in 1964 when the South Carolina Legislature
formally recognized its expanded academic offerings and research pursuits.
The subsequent impact of that legislative act on both campus and community was pronounced and led to an immediate series of planning exercises that sought to establish a
collaborative response wherever and whenever possible. For example, the need to house
increasing numbers of faculty and staff members and students in the community brought
common issues to the forefront. As a result, while both entities wanted to maintain legal
independence, a variety of cost savings opportunities was employed such as the joint funding
of public amenities and needs such as fire protection and transit systems.
At that time, both entities were fortunate to have farsighted leaders who set the framework
for good communication and actions. The dedication and high degree of effort to pursue
common solutions to the challenges continued to develop over the years, resulting in an ever
increasing level of comfort between the partners as they worked together. In essence, this
search for shared goals and objectives was the initial phase in the development of what has
become an outstanding example of a harmonious town-gown relationship.
As effort and comfort continued to increase, the campus-community partnership became
more officially established by 1985, when the Joint City/University Advisory Board (JCUAB)
came into existence. Its membership is made up of an equal number of municipal and
University employees, and this Board is widely acknowledged as the first stop in dealing
with any and all town-gown issues that arise. In addition, the JCUAB was designed to serve as
an important programming agent that was tasked to create events and activities that would
bring the campus and community residents together throughout the year.
The mission of the JCUAB has evolved through a change process that is similar to how
partners in a harmonious marriage accommodate each other over time. Initially, it had been
defined as a “problem solving advisory group.” By 1990, however, its scope was broadened to
become the “official” body of representatives charged with studying and recommending action
on any matter of mutual concern. A Memorandum of Understanding signed by both entities at
that time listed the following areas of mutual concern that would be governed by the JCUAB:
1) planning and land-use, 2) student housing, 3) transportation and parking, 4) security and
public safety, 5) public works and utilities, and 6) fiscal responsibility and impact.
Looking to the future and reflecting upon the past, Clemson Mayor Larry Abernathy and
Clemson President Jim Barker offered reflections about this long-standing partnership. In 1990
Mayor Abernathy stated the following in a speech
We are inextricably linked, and we must enter the decade of the nineties with that in
mind. As we look forward we must look to the future –- not just one or two years ahead,
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but twenty. With a true sense of teamwork, we can ensure that our children have the
opportunity to live in a manner in which we have come to love and to enjoy.
In 2013, Clemson President Barker fashioned the latest version of this concordant model by
stating:
Clemson is a relatively small public university in a very small city, and we do have
a strong family connection – both literally and figuratively. The Clemson family is
a very real thing, so the concept of a town-gown relationship as a harmonious
marriage is apt. We do work hard at creating and nurturing personal relationship
and in keeping lines of communication open. There are formal and informal ways
to make this happen. We have a strong JCUAB, but we also have social events that
bring people together. It is a high effort endeavor that is worthwhile. It reaps great
rewards for our students, our faculty and staff and our neighbors in the City of
Clemson (J. Barker, personal communication, 2013).
Discussion
The 4X4 typology we present in this article is meant to serve as a heuristic device for campus
and community partners who wish to examine their relationship with one another and perhaps
to investigate possible changes that might bring ever more harmonious tones to their collaborative work. To implement such action, an assessment would have to be conducted that
gauges the degree to which the various points of contact between the campus and the
community are mutually comfortable and satisfying, as well as evaluating the degree of effort
and energy that is being expended on the relationship itself.
Without a doubt, the leadership of both partners is an essential element. There is an old
adage about leadership which holds that a fish rots from its head down. Fashioning a different
sort of proverb, we might state that town-gown harmony is highly dependent on how well
campus and community leaders can carry a corresponding tune together.
In that regard, and perhaps most importantly, the desire and capacity of both partners to
build and maintain a coalition is a key ingredient in the development of harmonious relationships; and both aspiration and aptitude are extremely important. If a leader has no real ability to
produce and preserve mutually beneficial relationships, no amount of eagerness to build
partnerships will suffice. The converse is equally true. A gifted collaborator with little
motivation to move in unison with others makes for a lousy dance partner. After all, it does
indeed take two to tango. Or stated another way, there is very little that a skilled and motivated
coalition builder can do when faced with inept or uninterested companions. Effort is a nuanced
dimension of the four-square typology on both sides of the town-gown partnership, one that
involves both the desire to create and maintain relationships and the capacity to do so –.
In addition, campus and community leaders aspiring to harmonious relationships
also need to appreciate the historical perspective of the town-gown partnership. No
matter where you come into the storyline as a leader, there is a past that can either
help you or haunt you; and the relationship history can and does contain features that
are simultaneously both positive and negative. At the very least, university or college
officials and municipal authorities should have a shared understanding of the history
of the relationship and the level of comfort in the town-gown relationship.
There can be a “therapeutic” component to the monitoring of the historical information about
the relationship, especially when attempting to overcome conflicted and devitalized relationship
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histories. Borrowing from Howard Zehr’s (2002) work on restorative justice principles, there is
great usefulness in specifically identifying and calling attention to past troubles, which can be
especially helpful when undertaken within a context where there is both a willingness to take
responsibility for having created whatever damage might have been done to the town-gown
relationship and a desire to move forward. In essence, leaders who adopt this strategy initiate a
process of “healing the harm” that had often impeded positive working partnerships
Recommendation and Conclusion
Returning to the marriage and family framework, we encourage campus and community
leaders to focus on a numerically modest and yet psychologically significant set of issues that
can impact effort and comfort levels in ways that build agreeable partnerships over time. In
brief, the literature of the field suggests that more harmonious town-gown relationships
become possible when leaders balance the pursuit of shared goals with a healthy respect for
those individual objectives that are uniquely important to each partner. When disagreements do
arise, these same leaders would utilize conflict management strategies that promote an attitude
of fairness between the partners and eschew unilateral decision making processes that result in
zero-sum conclusions.
We also suggest that members of university and college governing boards should make it a
priority to retain leaders who have the capability to build coalitions and the motivation to favor
activities designed to achieve mutually beneficial objectives with community partners. In
particular, university and college presidents need to have town and gown experience added
to their list of job prerequisites, along with the experience and genuine desire to serve as a civic
leader. In turn, governing board members need to state explicitly that divorce or estrangement
from one’s community simply is not an option.
We concede that the marriage metaphor does not work for every situation, and we likewise
acknowledge that a harmonious relationship is not always possible or necessarily desirable.
Certainly, there are situations where the playing field between campus and community is far
from level, which reduces the sense that a fair give and take relationship is possible or
practical. Finally, we recognize that the town-gown relationship exists within a continually
changing context. However, we believe that there is great and mutual benefit in
working to enhance the town-gown relationship and to transform a traditional relationship structure from a rule-driven, top-down model to one of horizontally-linked
organizations (Fox, 2014). Central to this more positive relationship is the ability to
communicate shared ideas and concerns, to bring clarity to the issues and decisions
being made, and to make an on-going and credible commitment and investment in the
partnership. In the final analysis, this is a call for skilled performers with the talent to
sing duets as easily as solos.
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