Understanding and Measuring Optimal
Campus-Community Relationships
©2014 The Optimal College Town
Assessment (OCTA)
Webinar Agenda
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A starting point: For better or for worse?
The 4X4 Town-Gown typology
Piloting the OCTA/Main findings
Further development of the OCTA
platform
• The Mobilization Cycle
• Implications
©2014 The Optimal College Town
Assessment (OCTA)
Where it All Started
Is the Town-Gown Glass Half Empty
or Half Full?
“For better or for worse…”
©2014 The Optimal College Town
Assessment (OCTA)
The Glass is Half Empty
“Historically, town-gown relations have
been a source of difficulty, frustration, and
annoyance for both the town and the
university”
Bruning, McGrew, and Cooper (2006)
©2014 The Optimal College Town
Assessment (OCTA)
The Glass is Half Full
“There is an important need to identify
common issues and approaches…
associated with having the college or
university present. Communities without a
post-secondary institution simply do not
have this as a factor in their galaxy of
community issues, wants, needs, and
opportunities. Most wish they did!”
Fox (2014)
©2014 The Optimal College Town
Assessment (OCTA)
The Main Objective
Taking the Guesswork out of Understanding and
Measuring Town-Gown Relationship Quality
©2014 The Optimal College Town
Assessment (OCTA)
The 4X4 Typology
Based on a recent Gavazzi, Fox, and Martin
(2014) article in the journal
Innovative Higher Education
©2014 The Optimal College Town
Assessment (OCTA)
4X4 Typology of Town-Gown Relationships
• Lower effort,
lower
comfort
• Higher effort,
lower
comfort
Devitalized
Conflicted
Traditional
Harmonious
• Lower effort,
higher
comfort
• Higher effort,
higher
comfort
©2014 The Optimal College Town
Assessment (OCTA)
©2014 The Optimal College Town
Assessment (OCTA)
©2014 The Optimal College Town
Assessment (OCTA)
Piloting the Optimal College Town
Assessment (OCTA)
Based on a second article written by
Gavazzi and Fox (2015) in the journal
Innovative Higher Education
©2014 The Optimal College Town
Assessment (OCTA)
Finding #1
Effort and comfort levels were
significantly and positively associated
with one another
– Indicates that greater contact between
campus and community members will
increase relationship contentment.
©2014 The Optimal College Town
Assessment (OCTA)
Finding #2
Community member comfort levels are
highest with students
– Provides evidence that students serve as a
key connecting point between the campus
and the community.
©2014 The Optimal College Town
Assessment (OCTA)
Finding #3
The closest municipality reported the highest
levels of effort and comfort, followed by the
second and third closest towns
The First Law of Geography
“everything is related to everything else, but
near things are more related than distant
things” (Tobler, 1970)
©2014 The Optimal College Town
Assessment (OCTA)
Finding #4
Perceived comfort levels were highest among
business owners, followed by non-profit
leaders, and then educators
Discriminating the relationships between and
among different community members really
matters!
©2014 The Optimal College Town
Assessment (OCTA)
Further Development of the OCTA
Building a more complete web-based data
capture tool
©2014 The Optimal College Town
Assessment (OCTA)
New Features
GEOMAPPING
• Zip code information on residence and
place of employment help you geolocate your participants while mapping
pockets of strengths and limitations
within the community
©2014 The Optimal College Town
Assessment (OCTA)
New Features
ALUMNI DEVELOPMENT
• Information on coursework taken and
degrees earned provides valuable insight
into the role that alumni play in the
development of town-gown
relationships
©2014 The Optimal College Town
Assessment (OCTA)
New Features
MULTIPLE PERSPECTIVES
– Community participants can be further
subdivided into smaller reference groups
©2014 The Optimal College Town
Assessment (OCTA)
New Features
MULTIPLE PERSPECTIVES
– Similarly, campus participants also can be
further subdivided into smaller reference
groups
©2014 The Optimal College Town
Assessment (OCTA)
New Features
PUBLIC SAFETY
• Specific information can be captured
about relationships with elected and
appointed government employees, as
well as police and other public safety
officials
©2014 The Optimal College Town
Assessment (OCTA)
New Features
EXPECTATIONS
• Perceptions of current and ideal
relationships provide an indication of
how closely aligned campus and
community expectations are of one
another
New Features
CHALLENGES
• Perceptions about concerns such as
student misbehavior, economic
investment, educational access and
affordability, public relations, and
volunteerism and visibility in the
community
©2014 The Optimal College Town
Assessment (OCTA)
New Features
OVERALL PROFILE:
• Accumulated information about activity
and comfort levels generates a picture of
the campus-community relationship that
can range from the very healthy
“harmonious” type to more challenging
forms associated with conflict and
disappointment
©2014 The Optimal College Town
Assessment (OCTA)
Implications
Where do we go from here?
©2014 The Optimal College Town
Assessment (OCTA)
The Town-Gown Relationship
Mobilization Cycle
Awareness
Raising
Evidence
Based Action
Interpreting
Information
Coalition
Building
Data
Gathering
©2014 The Optimal College Town
Assessment (OCTA)
Employing the OCTA
• UNIVERSITY ADMINISTRATION
Application materials for the Carnegie
Community Engagement Classification
and Campus Compact initiatives
• TOWN/CITY MANAGERS
Comprehensive planning documents for
municipal management
©2014 The Optimal College Town
Assessment (OCTA)
Employing the OCTA
• DEVELOPMENT OFFICERS
Feasibility studies prior to Capital
Campaign launches
• STUDENT LIFE/OFF-CAMPUS HOUSING
Signaling a significant shift in efforts to
improve campus-community
relationships
©2014 The Optimal College Town
Assessment (OCTA)
Employing the OCTA
• CITY COUNCIL/BOARD OF TRUSTEES
Planning for leadership changes in city
government and university
administration
Thank You!
• For more information about OCTA:
– Collegetownassessment.com
• Follow the action on Twitter:
– @CollegeTownGown
©2014 The Optimal College Town
Assessment (OCTA)