A 'WorldWise' blog post at The Chronicle regarding the University of Arizona's support of its larger community earlier this month, and similar roles that other institutions play around the world in times of crisis:

I just couldn’t bring myself to grips with all that has happened in Tucson surrounding the shootings, without the university and its reinforced role as “glue” for the community. Crises that are due to a natural disaster, a pandemic, or the one which has recently taken place in Tucson provide good examples of the transcendent role that higher-education institutions can and must play. Fortunately, there have been many examples from around the world of this type of additional critical role that higher-education institutions and their leaders assume. That’s what happened on the island of Penang, Malaysia, when the Universiti Sains-Malaysia provided expertise and volunteer work for the reconstruction efforts after the tsunami devastated the region, or what happened in Mexico during the confusion generated by the H1N1 virus outbreak during which the Autonomous University of San Luis Potosi served as a trusted source of information for the community, or what happened in Chile when the few buildings which remained standing at the University of Talca or those at University of Bio-Bio became community shelter centers. The list goes on and on.

Many institutions have found it useful to publish a "Community Impact Statement," by one name or another. The statements attempt to make clear the value of the campus to its surrounding community and region. SCUP has begun a collection of links to such statements. You can view the current collection here and you can add additional links to more community impact statements at this easy to use online form.

We have links to community impact reports from North Carolina A&T State University, Missouri Western State University, Nicholls State University, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell University, University of Texas at San Antonio, State University of New York at Oswego, Smith College, and Southeastern Louisiana University.

Please share yours.

What used to be Greentree Gazette is now "Today's Campus" and we think you'll enjoy this brief review of the book, The American College Town, by Blake Gumprecht, which is available on Today's Campus' website (you can purchase the book here):

For example, Harvard and Oxford both situated themselves far from city dwellers, all the better for faculty and students to concentrate on their academic pursuits. Of course, enterprising businessmen then set up taverns nearby to distract them from those pursuits.

Many colleges are located where they are because they were paid to do so. Perhaps it was a land grant, or a straightforward cash payment, but the city fathers wanted a college in their town, filling their shops and restaurants with a dependable stream of customers.

According to Dr. Gumprecht, college towns are quite stable economically. They have relatively lower unemployment and higher prices than other town of comparable size. Though higher prices might not sound attractive, they might now be a factor keeping local businesses afloat. By phone Dr. Gumprecht told me, “Most people living in college towns know what they’re in for.”

From the January–February–March 2009 issue of Planning for Higher Education, this "SCUP Links Blog" post provides an opportunity for you to share comments or additional resources/links about the focus of the article, Students in May Backyard: Housing at the Campus Edge and Other Emerging Trends in Residential Development, v37n1, pp. 34–43 by John Martin and Mark Allen. You can read the entire article here [LINK TO COME], in Planning for Higher Education.

The article "blurb" reads: Where is the campus edge? Is it becoming more defined or disappearing?

[ABSTRACT TO COME]

Note that this issue of Planning is the second of a two-part themed volume with the overall title, Student Life. The first part was published in October 2008. Assembled, the two parts will be available later in 2009 for purchase as a single PDF document for your quick and easy reference.

Joining the wonderful College Town Life website, this new Canada-based resource is all about "town and gown planning from around the world." Editor Rob Payne is producing an excellent resource and he has a strong focus on planning issues. For example, one page asks the question: Collaborative university/community planning. Does it exist? On that page are articles about this topic from the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States.

This resource is well worth a bookmark in your Web browser, and a visit back from time to time in order to see how it grows.

Ford Fessendon, in The New York Times, provides us with one more reason why we love living in college towns:

As the inner cities, along with much of Florida and the interior of California, face the prospect of a foreclosure meltdown, American college towns appear to be islands of stability.
The list of metropolitan areas with the smallest percentage of high-cost home loans is dominated by small cities with big colleges, including Ithaca, N.Y.; Iowa City; Madison, Wis.; Morgantown, W.V.; and State College, Pa.