Campus and Community Relations Prosper
The City of Kent is a growing college town. Over the last 100 years, the city has developed a relationship with the campus known as a “town and gown.”
The term “town and gown” describes the relationship in a university town between the residents of the town and the university. Town in the term representing the non academic community and gown representing the university community.
[pullquote]”Its the community and the town, its cute but also gorgeous. And how downtown got renovated, makes me love Kent.” – Jade Dieringer, Kent State Student.[/pullquote]
Jade Dieringer, Kent State Student
In the past the term “town and gown” sometimes had a negative connotation to it. In towns where the town and gown didn’t see eye-to-eye universities and their host towns wanted nothing to do with one another. Often because the town resented the fact that the university was tax-exempt, physically encroaching and brought noisy students to the population
The town and gown relations here at Kent State reached their peak of negativity in May, 1970, the students of Kent State University were protesting the war in Vietnam. The protests began as peaceful demonstrations but eventually led to violent altercations and eventually the ROTC building being burnt down. Kent Mayor Leroy Satrom called in the national guard to help control the protests. But on May 4th, during an anti-war rally the National Guard tried to disperse the crowd of students protesting and eventually fired upon the students killing four and injuring nine.
Winds of Change
But over the last two decades that mentality has changed and the town and gown relationship has become a positive one
In Kent the university and the city have focused on making the relationship between the two better. The culmination of this relationship can be seen in the creation of the Esplanade. The Lester A. Lefton Esplanade, named after Kent State University’s 11th president, Connects the university and the city and encourages the the populations of the two to flow freely between one another. The Esplanade physically and symbolically connects the town and gown and is named in his honor.
Graphic showing the Lester A. Lefton Esplanade. From http://www.kent.edu/maps
The University and town relationship is a key economic power in most college towns. Often times the university is the largest employer for an area, and in return, largest source of income tax.
What is the town and gown relationship here in Kent?
Dave Ruller, the City Manager of Kent, Ohio, says “The City and the University have enjoyed an unprecedented decade of collaboration and partnership.As a result of the success of our joint efforts we’ve come to see that we do our best work when we work together.” [pullquote] “As a result of the success of our joint efforts we’ve come to see that we do our best work when we work together.”- Dave Ruller, City Manager of Kent, Ohio[/pullquote]
These efforts were rewarded in 2013 when Kent was awarded with the International Town Gown Larry Abernathy Award. This award recognizes the best example of town/gown collaborations.
As far as the monetary relationship between the university and the city goes the two parties are good partners and share the costs. Ruller says that “We always look to allocate the costs fairly and appropriately but both organizations have been willing to invest in those things that are important to the partnership”
Kent State University is the largest employer in the city of Kent. the income tax collections received from the University make up for about 36% of the total income tax receipts.
Tensions still remain though
The Tensions between the City and University haven’t completely vanished though. Students living in off campus housing can still be a nuisance to the city. Look at the number of Underage Drinking and noise complaints from August 31 to September 22.
In the City of Kent between the dates of 8/31/15- 9/22/15 the number of unlawful noise charges was 10. The Number of underage consumption was 21 charges.