College Town News
is taking some time off to tour a number of communities. News updates will resume July 7.

A Place For Literary Events
Courant - 14 Jun 2008
... MANSFIELD, CT - We at the UConn Co-op agree with The Courant and Gov. M. Jodi Rell that a first-rate university should have "a place for community gatherings and literary events" [editorial, June 9, "A Real College Town"]. We have worked hard to fill that role for more than three decades.

As the local independent booksellers on campus, we pride ourselves on our literary offerings to the university and the surrounding communities. We bring in authors of wide repute and host readings for local and faculty writers. We collaborate on many literary events with various university departments, most notably on the Connecticut Children's Book Fair, considered by many to be one of the two best fairs of its type in the nation ...

Leadership Kentucky learns about Murray
Ledger & Times - 14 Jun 2008
... MURRAY, KY - “It worked great to come to this community because you have both. You have a wonderful educational institution plus wonderful natural areas of Land Between the Lakes,” said Leadership Kentucky President Diana Ratliff during a luncheon by the Murray Convention & Visitors Bureau at Murray State University.

The group made stops at Murray Middle School and Murray State University Thursday and heard various speakers and panel discussions on Kentucky education. The agenda today is to hear presentations about Kentucky's natural history before traveling to Land Between the Lakes and touring key aspects of the recreational area ...

UNC buying Granville Towers, University Square for $46M
Business Journal - 14 Jun 2008
... CHAPEL HILL, NC - The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill will spend nearly $46 million to buy a key piece of downtown real estate, it said Friday.

The university's foundation is buying the University Square-Granville Towers complex, located at the corner of Franklin and Columbia streets just off the main campus. The complex currently is home to UNC student housing, retail storefronts, office space and parking ...

East Hill Notes: Fellowship program builds town-gown relationships
Journal - 14 Jun 2008
... ITHACA, NY - The Cornell Public Service Center is accepting applications through June 20 for 2008-09 Cornell Civic Leaders Fellowship Program. The initiative is designed to build collaborative town-gown relationships, with $5,000 awards offered for two selected fellows. The program enables area residents interested in stewardship and community problem-solving to study (and do a little teaching, too) on the Cornell campus for an academic year ...

Consumers shouldn’t dictate book prices
Edward Miller, 4LS
Alligator - 14 Jun 2008
... GAINESVILLE, FL - In Tuesday’s Alligator, the editorial board called for an investigation into the pricing practices of textbook publishers and asked for lawmakers to place regulations on textbook pricing and buyback policies. I see where the editorial board is coming from — it feels screwed and wants the government to step in.

But something needs to be asked of the editors and all of those who advocate similar government regulation of prices and profits: What right do you, as the consumer, have to the textbooks being sold? ...

[Editor's Note: Edward, there aren't real free market forces at play in the textbook market. That may be why students are frustrated by prices - you think?]

Tornadoes Rip Through Manhattan
KSU Damage Totals More Than $20 Million
KCTV - 13 Jun 2008
MANHATTAN, Kan. -- Tornadoes tore through Kansas overnight, leaving two people dead in Chapman and Soldier.

At Kansas State University in Manhattan, storm damage was estimated to exceed $20 million, according to Tom Rawson, the university's vice president for administration and finance. Thursday's classes were canceled.

"The damage on campus is extensive," Rawson said. "Roofs have been damaged or torn off, windows have been blown out in many buildings."

Off of campus, the Sigma Alpha Epsilon house was heavily damaged, but all residents were safe and no injuries were reported ...

City: Make bars' punishment fit
Urges state Liquor Authority to apply suspensions during college term
Daily Star - 13 Jun 2008
... ONEONTA, NY - City officials are encouraging the Liquor Authority to not give the bar owners a slap on the wrist.

One of their main concerns is ensuring that if the bars have their liquor licenses suspended, the Liquor Authority will mandate that any suspension be served while area colleges are in session.

Several city aldermen, Mayor John Nader and police Chief Joseph Redmond said suspensions of college bars outside the traditional academic year is not much of a punishment because students, the main source of income for the bars, are not in Oneonta ...

How I Lived in Million Dollar Homes for Free
SavingAdvice - 13 Jun 2008
... USA - For nine years I lived in million dollar homes for free and it is something that anyone who is neat and conscientious can easily do. My junior year in college, a professor who I had assisted received a year long sabbatical to live in a foreign country. During that time, he needed someone to housesit his house and asked me if I would be willing to do it. I paid no rent although I did need to pay for utilities. All that was required of me was to do some basic house and garden maintenance and keep the place clean ...

American Campus completes its biggest acquisition
Statesman - 13 Jun 2008
... USA - Student housing developer American Campus Communities Inc. completed its acquisition of GHM Communities Trust.

The $1.4 billion transaction almost doubles American Campus' market capitalization to $2.5 billion, the company said.

American Campus also formed a joint venture with Fidelity Real Estate Group and transferred 15 GMH student housing properties to the venture. The properties have an estimated value of $326 million ...

Marcus & Millichap lists Michigan student housing portfolio
CRE Feed - 13 Jun 2008
... KALAMAZOO, MI - Marcus & Millichap has been hired to market and sell the Western Michigan University Student Housing Portfolio in Kalamazoo, Mich., with an asking price of $7.5 million, or $31,780 per unit ...

The new university protest at UW-Milwaukee
UWM neighbors protest the expansion of the university on the East Side, citing noise, crime and other disturbances.
OnMilwaukee - 12 Jun 2008
... MILWAUKEE, WI -Residents organized a picket line to press a message to the regents that UWM should cap its enrollment, not expand into the soon-to-be-vacant Columbia Hospital. They also asked for a crackdown on off-campus rowdy behavior. In essence, they tire of the university as their neighbor. Never mind the Wisconsin Idea or the fact that UWM is the only urban four-year campus in the state.

According to a statement issued by the Mariners Neighborhood Association: "The neighborhoods adjacent to UWM are the only ones in Milwaukee to experience a rise in absentee ownership over the past decade. Properties have deteriorated, neighborhoods declined, and crime increased. Scarce crime fighting resources needed in more dangerous neighborhoods are diverted to control illegal student parties which have turned increasingly violent in recent years." ...

How are you living? Big question in college recruiting
Especially important to female athletes, Illinois' answer is like it's in the 1960s
Star - 12 Jun 2008
... CHAMPAIGN, IL - Student housing has become the latest recruiting tool, said Illinois women's basketball coach Jolette Law. While some schools have dormitories with apartment-style living and air conditioning, Illinois students live in residence halls built in the 1960s or earlier.

"If I'm recruiting the top kids in the country, that's the main question that's coming up with women," Law said. "When they go to one school, they look at the dorm and it's not upgraded as the next school and you're neck-and-neck in recruiting with them, females weigh that heavily ...

Ann Arbor's University Village becomes 601 Forest, up for approval
MetroMode - 12 Jun 2008
... ANN ARBOR, MI - University Village has gone through a number of changes, including a new name of 601 Forest. But the project looks like its well on it way to becoming reality soon ...

The size of what once was University Village project at the University of Michigan has gone up and down but now seems to be on the ascension as the student-housing development bucks for city approval.

Before doing that the developers changed the name to 601 Forest and refined the design to an L-shaped layout that stands 26 stories tall at its highest peak ...

Alcohol intoxication kills Cold Spring Harbor teen
Newsday - 12 Jun 2008
... Evanston, IL - A Cold Spring Harbor teen died of alcohol intoxication in his dorm room at Northwestern University, the Cook County medical examiner's office said yesterday.

Matthew Sunshine, 19, was to return to his home next week to begin an internship at a Manhattan law firm.

The Northwestern University freshman in the school of education and social policy had recently told his parents he enjoyed school and loved the leafy suburban Evanston, Ill., campus, neighbors said.

Iowans try to contain floodwaters
USA Today - 11 Jun 2008
... IOWA CITY, IA - Students piled sandbags along the Iowa River on Tuesday to spare their university campus from floods that threaten to be worse than the devastating flooding that struck the Plains states 15 years ago.

Sandbag and concrete barriers along the Iowa River were all that stood between the water and the University of Iowa in Iowa City.

"It's truckload after truckload of sandbags," university groundskeeper Joel Bishop said. "Dump trucks, cement trucks, you name it. We're working quickly." ...

Morris must look forward
Sun Tribune - 11 Jun 2008
... MORRIS, MN - When the University of Minnesota established its Morris campus in 1960, many in the Morris area believed Morris would grow by leaps and bounds.

As we know, that has not happened. In fact, if the college students were not counted, and if no annexation had taken place, Morris would have lost a lot more people ...

Waterloo Landlords invited to Information Session
Exchange - 10 Jun 2008
... WATERLOO, ON - Landlords in the City of Waterloo are being offered an opportunity to brush-up on government legislation and other important information that affects their business and tenants.

In Waterloo, student housing continues to be an important consideration for students, landlords and permanent residents, alike. Explains Kaye Crawford, Manager, Community Relations, “It’s critical that we have landlords who are knowledgeable. We hope this information session provides an opportunity for our Waterloo landlords to learn more about the rules and standards that are in place to ensure the safety of their tenants.” ...

Eugene, Ore., like a dream
Mercury - 10 Jun 2008
... EUGENE, OR - It could be that I have died and gone to heaven -- a runner's version of heaven.

On the weekend I had run mountain trails in the rain, beside moss-draped trees, along the banks of a big, wild, protected river, up the side of a canyon, into alpine meadows ...

Piscataway won't challenge tax-free status of Rutgers housing
Courier News - 10 Jun 2008
... PISCATAWAY, NJ —The township has agreed not to challenge the tax-free status of Rutgers University housing, which results in graduate students sending their children to township schools at taxpayers' expense.

It costs upwards of $600,000 per year to educate the children of graduate students who do not pay property taxes.

The agreement comes less than a month before the university is scheduled to appear in state Tax Court, where the Board of Education is challenging the tax-exempt status of the housing ...

Mythbusters: Is Jacksonville only a "College Town"?
Big Cat Country - 10 Jun 2008
... JACKSONVILLE, FL - College Town: the two words that are required to be mentioned in the first three sentences of any national coverage of the Jacksonville Jaguars. The city of Jacksonville, according to this myth, is unable to maintain a relationship with the Jaguars because their focus is on the college game of the University of Florida and Florida State University, with a little bit of University of Georgia and University of Miami tossed in for flavor. Further explanations of this myth clam that people who are college football fans first and foremost cannot appreciate the Jaguars style of play because they are used to high scoring one-sided games. Another twist on the myth implies that "college town" fans expect college type seasons of 10-1 or 11-0, rather than the realistic 10-6, 9-7 of a good NFL team ...

Landlord wants more of Greensburg opened to student housing
Tribune Review - 10 Jun 2008
... GREENSBURG, PA - A landlord suggested Monday to Greensburg Council that sections of the city that have numerous apartment buildings be opened up to college student housing.

Dennis Fellers, who lost two zoning hearing board appeals on student housing issues earlier this year, spoke at council's regular meeting last night ...

DEAL OF THE DAY: Prime Property Investors Acquires Student Housing Near Notre Dame for Over $10M
MultiHousing News - 10 Jun 2008
... SOUTH BEND, IN - Prime Property Investors Ltd. recently completed the acquisition of Clover Ridge Apartments, a 100 percent occupied student housing complex located in South Bend, Ind., for $ 10,250,000.

The multi-building complex is situated within three blocks of the main campus of the University of Notre Dame and features one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments, ranging in rent from $795 to $1,250 ...

Syracuse city panel OKs new South Campus student housing complex
Syracuse.com - 9 Jun 2008
... SYRACUSE, NY - The Syracuse city planning commission tonight unanimously approved a developer's application to build a 120-unit student housing complex on Syracuse University's South Campus.

The two- and four-bedroom apartments will be spread among five three-story buildings along East Colvin Street near Slocum Drive. A one-story clubhouse with a small movie theater, fitness center and conference rooms will serve as many as 432 residents.

The project has caused controversy among university-area residents. Many who live close to South Campus oppose the $25 million complex ...

A Real College Town
Courant - 9 Jun 2008
... MANSFIELD, CT - It used to be a joke among students heading out to shop near the University of Connecticut campus that they were going to beautiful downtown Storrs. What made that funny was that the rural section of Mansfield doesn't have a downtown. It has a couple of strip malls and a hodgepodge of commercial buildings.

That eclectic look, to be kind, is about to change. After years of planning between the university and the town, countless public meetings and an array of approvals, the Storrs Center project, a mostly privately funded enterprise, is closer to reality. If all goes as planned, the estimated $220 million development will get started next year and eventually result in a real college town ...

U. unveils bold new master plan
At least 40 new buildings and a more intimate, pedestrian-friendly campus are planned for 2025
Tribune - 9 Jun 2008
... SALT LAKE CITY - In the 90 years since the University of Utah's first building boom, the enclave of 13 buildings has sprawled into a 1,400-acre network of classroom buildings, parking lots, labs, medical facilities, offices and arenas, while the student population has grown 11-fold.

Gone are the days when the university president grazed his cattle on campus lawns and school-owned cows kept the dining halls in milk.

While campus expansion has put the U. at the forefront of scientific research and cultural life, growth has come at a cost. Past U. planners were more interested in accommodating automobiles than pedestrians and as a result, the U. setting is less lively than most major university campuses ...

Lessons in town-gown detente
Globe - 9 Jun 2008
... BOSTON, MA - UNIVERSITY OFFICIALS across Greater Boston could learn valuable lessons about institutional expansion from a tentative deal announced last week between Suffolk University and the Beacon Hill Civic Association. Permanent peace between town and gown is elusive, but the sides can achieve détente through good faith and planning ...

Suffolk and its Beacon Hill neighbors were locked in a long and bitter dispute over the university's original plan to house students on the Somerset Street site. Tensions eased when Suffolk vice president John Nucci and neighborhood leaders stopped focusing on individual building projects and concentrated instead on common goals. Both sides wanted to see fewer students in private housing on Beacon Hill. And each saw gains in shifting the university's center of gravity to less residential areas of downtown ...

Students help solve Indiana's problems
Star - 9 Jun 2008
... MUNCIE, IN - At Ball State University, we have made a bold commitment to extend our students' reach beyond our traditional classrooms into Indiana companies and communities. Their efforts build better communities and help our state's economy move forward.

Advancing our state and local communities requires new thinking. We have found a way to provide students with high-quality, relevant educational experiences while also helping to build a stronger Indiana. Though the Ball State campus, like other universities across the state, is a little quieter in the summer, we recognize the needs of Indiana do not take a vacation. That is why this summer Ball State students and faculty are working hard with communities and state agencies to develop real solutions to real problems ...

Students will make sustainable lifestyle a reality
The student-driven project will employ environmentally conscious living techniques in a residential situation
Daily Emerald - 9 Jun 2008
... EUGENE, OR - It's one thing to preach sustainability; it's another thing to live it. But that's what a small group of students at the University of Oregon are trying to do.

The Center for the Advancement of Sustainable Living is a relatively young student organization with the main goal of promoting sustainable living practices among the University community. If the group can gain final approval from the University administration, CASL's main project would offer students and community members an environmentally inspired educational opportunity unlike any other in Eugene.

The CASL House, located at 1801 Moss St., would teach community members how to live sustainably by employing environmentally conscious living techniques and then allowing people to tour the house and actually see how it's done ...

Joaquin Village nears start as last steps near completion
Daily Herald - 9 Jun 2008
... PROVO, UT - The building will house more than 900 Brigham Young University students in five floors. Working with BYU's Off-Campus Housing Office on winning the school's approval has also taken time and design revisions, Ross said. The school has stringent requirements for gender separation and other honor code issues, he said.

"It'll fit BYU's requirements probably better than any project. It's a true apartment complex designed to fit the BYU off-campus housing requirements," he said. "It'll be the premier student housing project in Provo, without a doubt." ...

Backyard chickens approved for Ann Arbor
Residents can have up to four hens, if neighbors approve
Michigan Daily - 9 Jun 2008
... ANN ARBOR, MI - Despite some residents' fears of noise, smelly manure, unsightly coops and the avian flu, Ann Arbor City Council voted 7-4 Tuesday to amend an ordinance that previously banned backyard chickens. When the amendment becomes effective in 60 days, Ann Arbor residents will be able to keep up to four hens in coops in their backyards with their neighbors' consent. Chickens could be kept as pets or for eggs.

"All the jokes are done with, and all the real sustainable living is now underway," said city Councilmember Stephen Kunselman (D-Ward 3), who owns a chicken and first sponsored the ordinance change last December. "It shows that community activism is still alive and well in Ann Arbor." ...

Housing dispute headed to court
Forum - 9 Jun 2008
... FARGO, ND - A rental house near North Dakota State University will soon be dwarfed by two larger neighbors. Owner William Rakowski isn’t happy...

A November 1999 letter lists the results of a third inspection of the property. Among more than 15 issues listed were basement wiring, handrails, windows and a kitchen sink that needed to be replaced.

A September 2000 inspection found five violations, including a back porch that needed repair and a cooking range that needed to be replaced.

Also in 2000, Rakowski was demoted from his job as a captain for the Fargo Fire department after being accused of violating the fire codes he was charged with enforcing. Housing inspectors and his fellow fire inspectors repeatedly warned him to repair his rental properties, according to Forum archives ...

Thousands attend Arts Fest
Annual event features 115 artists
Press-Citizen - 8 Jun 2008
... IOWA CITY, IA - Even though Iowa City's Iowa Arts Festival is a little bit smaller than the festivals Kate Skapyak is used to from living in the Minneapolis area, that isn't a bad thing.
Advertisement

"It's not as crowded, which is nice," said Skapyak, who moved to Coralville two months ago.

At Arts Fest, she and her family found several pieces to take home with them -- for her, a wild horse jasper pendant she already had on a necklace around her neck and a poster the kids talked her into with an amusement park and space design.

Thousands attended Arts Fest Saturday, enjoying food, music and art of all sizes, shapes and types. This year's event features 115 local and national artists chosen by this year's Juried Art Show, including 30 artists who are new to the event ...

Flint Journal Editorial: University Avenue points to city's future
Journal - 8 Jun 2008
... FLINNT, MI - Third Avenue's blandly neutral-sounding name does not communicate the importance of a stretch that connects two universities in this emerging "college town." ...

The Flint City Council on Monday is set to take up a proposal that would change the name of Third Avenue to University Avenue as more descriptive of its actual role. The two universities request this to acknowledge the 9,000 students they jointly enroll ...

UM-Flint and Kettering not only have invested heavily in Flint over many decades, but continue to do so to the present day and into the future: UM-Flint is nearing completion of its first on-campus student housing, while Kettering updates a master plan that could increase student density around its campus. The academic presence seems to grow stronger by the year, constituting one of Flint's saving assets ...

How Town Hurts Gown
If Boston doesn't do more to support higher ed, say goodbye to our position as America?s premier college city.
Globe - 8 Jun 2008
... BOSTON, MA - Higher education is Boston's golden goose, the linchpin of our high-tech, knowledge-based economy. It's a goose we often love to hate, kicking it around the barnyard when it annoys us and demanding things we wouldn't really ask of any other bird. And why not? It's not as if the goose is going anywhere, right? ...

No question, we do enjoy picking on higher ed. State legislators are talking about taxing colleges that have large endowments. In April, as it does almost every year, the Boston City Council targeted colleges' tax-exempt status, trying to force them to pay more into city coffers (churches and hospitals - also tax-exempt - were curiously unaffected by the measure). In March, the city imposed rules (now under court challenge) making it harder for college students to live off campus. At the same time, almost every proposal for a new dorm has met with fierce opposition, so much so that Boston has actually asked colleges to consider stopping growth and freezing enrollments. And then there is the insistent demand for "community benefits" whenever a school does expand. Harvard, for example, agreed to pay $25 million to be allowed to build a new science center in Allston ...

Input given to shape UNCC
Reducing student rental housing a major theme
Observer - 8 Jun 2008
... CHARLOTTE, NC - People who live and work near UNC Charlotte got a chance Thursday to shape the university's next master plan.

Among their top suggestions:

• Add many more sidewalks near the campus edges.

• Encourage alternatives to cars.

• Help reduce student rental housing in nearby neighborhoods.

"Students who are 18 to 21 years old really don't make the best neighbors," said Richmond Baker of the Wyndham Place neighborhood. "They are really disruptive to communities near school."

The Back Creek Church Road neighborhood is a two-mile drive from campus and has homes selling for as much as $250,000. Even so, Baker said, Wyndham Place and other neighborhoods near UNCC, including College Downs and Faires Farm, have many "frat houses" -- residents' nickname for rental homes occupied by several students.

Baker urged the university to partner with neighborhoods to find ways to reduce student rental housing. If it doesn't, Baker said, the university could end up surrounded by deteriorating neighborhoods dominated by low-income and student rental houses ...

The opponents had their chance
News-Democrat - 8 Jun 2008
... EDWARDSVILLE, IL - When you don't win, take them to court.

That seems to be the way to resolve disputes, rather than to admit you should have been better prepared, or that you were outmaneuvered, or that you didn't deserve to win.

Residents of the Steinmeyer neighborhood are asking a judge to help them now that Edwardsville leaders voted to allow a student housing project, called Timberland Place, to be built next to them. They feel cheated because two of their neighbors sold to the development and altered the outcome of the city vote.

The residents got just enough signatures on a petition to force the City Council on May 5 to vote at least 5-2 in favor of the project for it to pass. But just before the vote, two residents took their names off the petition because they were selling their land as a buffer between the student housing and neighbors ...

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