University of Michigan focuses on low-income students, but fewer enroll
News - 7 Jun 2008
... ANN ARBOR, MI - The university is trying to make the path to U-M easier for students like Moore, but the percentage of undergraduates coming from low-income families dropped in recent years - despite stepped-up recruiting and new scholarships focused on increasing socio-economic diversity.

Similarly, U-M has seen a drop in the percentage of freshmen who make up another group of students the university says it wants to attract: students who are the first in their families to attend college.

Of the undergraduates who went to U-M this past school year, just 12.3 percent received the Pell Grant, the federal grant for the neediest undergraduates. That was a decline from 13.5 percent in the 2004-05 school year ...

Suffolk U. Agrees to Substantial Restrictions to Build Around Beacon Hill
Chronicle - 6 Jun 2008
... BOSTON, MA - One of Boston’s “deepest town-gown quarrels” — that between Suffolk University and the Beacon Hill neighborhood — has seen a breakthrough, thanks to some unusual and substantial restrictions that the university has agreed to.

The Boston Globe reports that a “nonexpansion zone” has been enlarged around the neighborhood. The university will also freeze its enrollment at 5,000 full-time undergraduates for 10 years to limit its growth and remove classrooms from some parts of the neighborhood.

In return, the neighborhood will not oppose the university’s plan to build a 10-story academic building and developments in three other locations ...

Letter: Help remove 1,900 cars from Chico
Enterprise-Record - 6 Jun 2008
... CHICO, CA - Imagine on your way to work or dropping kids off at school, that there were 1,900 fewer cars on our city's streets. That parking downtown to shop was no longer a hassle and parking in front of your own home did not necessitate the purchase of a parking permit. We could all enjoy such benefits without a monetary cost to Chico's taxpayers by the simple cooperation between the city of Chico and Chico State University.

Contact President Paul Zingg today and ask him to follow the decades-old model of other California campuses by not allowing CSUC's 2008 freshmen staying in university housing to bring their cars to the campus. Chico's citizens can form a united voice to eliminate 1,900 polluting cars and their inexperienced drivers from our city. And in doing so, we can craft a relationship with our university that values sustainability and neighborliness. Contact President Zingg and Mayor Andy Holcombe today with a clear message of the kind of immediate partnership we expect ...

Focus on property in Oxford
This great university city has both magnificent architecture and great institution
Times - 6 Jun 2008
... OXFORD, UK - For many people, it is all about the university. Formal teaching began here in 1096 and the town's importance grew after 1167 when Anglo-Norman students were expelled from the Sorbonne and came to Oxford. From the beginning tensions brewed between the locals and students, with violent exchanges that led to one group of students leaving in 1209 to create Cambridge university. Today, tourists flock here in the summer for the architecture, museums and Englishness of the city ...

College life hits the stage: “COLLEGE: The Musical” premieres Friday
Alligator - 5 Jun 2008
... GAINESVILLE, FL - Weekday parties, drunken mistakes, hangovers and the resulting truancy come to Gainesville this summer, and they’re not just on campus ...

Cheeky humor and catchy musical numbers highlight the play along with the occasional reference to UF. It shows the characters dealing with the loneliness of college and the anxiety of life after graduation through adolescent apathy and the occasional beer in glorious dorm squalor ...

Like You Haven't: Co-ed dorm rooms sweeping through Ohio
Post - 5 Jun 2008
... ATHENS, OH - You asked for it and you may soon be getting it: The co-ed college dorm room. Yes, a trend of boys and girls cohabitating is sweeping select college campuses on the east coast and it’s moving due west. I, for one, am in favor.

Imagine: One guy and one girl living in one tiny dorm room on two agonizingly small twin extra-long beds. Our Awkward Evaders are trembling in their stiletto-outfitted shoes at the probability for gauche moments. You’d think it would be impossible for a guy and a girl to live together without feelings developing into something more. Since cohabitation happens in off-campus housing situations like houses and apartments, why can’t we practice while we’re young and still living in the dorms? ...

Random Notes
Free Press - 5 Jun 2008
... MIDDLEBURY, VT - Despite being a college town, Middlebury has had a tough time keeping a live-music venue thriving. The 6-year-old Two Brothers Tavern is making a strong go of it, though, and at 9 p.m. June 6 presents New York City Americana-rocker JJ Appleton and his acoustic trio ...

161 rental units in plan
Rezoning sought on E. Madison St.
News - 5 Jun 2008
... ANN ARBOR, MI - Another tall apartment building is being proposed in Ann Arbor - but this 14-story structure south of downtown plans to target young professionals, and not students.

Dubbed The Madison, the 161-unit building would replace seven rentals and an industrial building on East Madison Street between South Fourth and South Fifth avenues, across from Fingerle Lumber Co. Developer Jeff Helminski of Moravian Cos. in Ferndale said he and a group of investors have an option to buy the land there from three private owners ...

Clemson could get 'town-gown' center
News - 4 Jun 2008
... CLEMSON -- Clemson is poised to headquarter a national "town-gown" association that would help universities and their surrounding communities work together effectively toward common goals.
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"It is an idea whose time has come," said Clemson Mayor Larry Abernathy as City Council unanimously approved the plan.

The proposal comes as a growing number of alumni return to their college towns to retire, and as universities and municipalities seek creative ways to find relief from tight budgets ...

Athens' bid for bio lab supported
Times-Union - 3 Jun 2008
... ATHENS, GA - The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is considering Athens' bid to build a $451 million lab, nicknamed NBAF, for the study of deadly diseases affecting animals. Athens is one of five cities competing to replace an aging facility located on a 840-acre island in New York's Long Island Sound.

Some local activists have opposed the Athens site, arguing the risk to humans living nearby would be too great, but the University of Georgia and local government officials support the site ...

Editorial: City Council Endorsements
Sue Greenwald, Cecilia Escamilla-Greenwald, Stephen Souza
California Aggie - 3 Jun 2008
... DAVIS, CA - Davis is one of the last true college towns remaining in California, and its uniqueness and charm are treasured by virtually everyone who lives here. No other candidate has demonstrated such a resolute commitment to preserving that character.

This does not mean she is anti-growth. She understands there is a severe lack of housing in Davis for many segments of the community, especially students. She is the only candidate who has actively sought to pressure the university to provide more on-campus housing for students, which is a fundamental part of the solution ...

Brunner: Ready to be next Oshkosh city manager
Northwestern - 3 Jun 2003
... OSHKOSH, WI - Brunner said his experience with St. Norbert's College in De Pere and with the University of Wisconsin campus in Whitewater would help him work well with the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh.

"I really like the college town. I think it's really intellectually stimulating being in a college town," he said. "I think there's challenges too. There's issues germane to college towns that might not be a big issue in other communities. Like what we have in the community is a lot of rental housing … and it creates this conflict in traditional single-family neighborhoods."

Brunner has set up a community group that includes members of the student body, to create a plan to deal with local student housing problems such as building code violations ...

Mercer University's President Underwood
Macon.tv - 3 Jun 2008
... MACON, GA - President Underwood, like other college presidents, sees Macon's potential to become a real college town, offering students an array of products, services, recreational and entertainment opportunities.

"An important next step in community development is really developing a student friendly corridor between the campus and downtown. We're calling it the College Hill Corridor. It's designed to provide retail development that's attractive to students and will continue to help us attract bright and talented young people into the community." ...

New Student Housing in Works Near ASU
Campus Acquisitions, Nelson Companies Developing Complex in Tempe
CoStar - 3 Jun 2008
... TEMP, AZ - Champaign, IL-based Campus Acquisitions LLC acquired 1.5 acres just east of Rural Road and Apache Blvd. in Tempe, AZ, for $5.25 million, or $3.5 million per acre, from Iowa-based Nelson Companies.

The buyer and seller plan a joint venture to develop and construct campus housing for students of nearby Arizona State University ...

More than the bare necessities: Plush apartments for UNC students planned
Tribune - 3 Jun 2008
... GREELEY, CO - A new apartment complex looks to go beyond the bare necessities for a college student.

A new set of high-class apartments geared toward students at the University of Northern Colorado is slated to be built on a nine-acre site at 11th Avenue and 30th Street in Evans. Bear Village, as the development would be called, would be the second upper-end apartment complex catering to UNC students to be built in Evans ...

A record number of MU freshmen push limits of campus housing
Missourian - 2 Jun 2008
... COLUMBIA, MO — With a 20 percent increase in freshman enrollment, MU Residential Life is experiencing a shortage in on-campus housing for the fall semester.

The housing crunch caused by the record-sized freshman class has forced the Office of Residential Life to find a creative solution: housing students in two apartment complexes close to campus. MU freshmen will occupy apartments in Campus View and Campus Lodge; the student apartment blocks will be known as Tiger Diggs and Mizzou Quads, respectively ...

On the campus: forty years later
Huffington Post - 2 Jun 2008
... USA - A 1968 issue of the New York Times magazine carries a picture of yours truly waving a finger at a mass of students at Columbia University. The picture accompanies an article I wrote on my experience, called "confessions of a professor caught in a revolution." ...

Kent officials hope Vegas trip pays off Directors market city to help develop economy
Record-Courier - 2 Jun 2008
... KENT, OH - Smith said he and Locke were primarily marketing four areas -- Fairmount's project, the former Tops location, University Plaza and Brimfield Crossings near Interstate 76 -- as retail investment opportunities for corporate retailers.

"If ever there was a time for the city to go down there and participate, this was it," Smith said. "With Fairmount, Buxton and the city all attending at one time. Working the floor, the big theme of what we tried to do down there was college town. We talked with hundreds of people. Forty or 50 we had serious conversations with about the city of Kent and the college town opportunities." ...

Developer plans Target for Oxford
Target: no information about new store
Daily Missippian - 2 Jun 2008
... OXFORD, MS - Despite rumors that Oxford will soon be getting its own Target store, it does not seem to be coming anytime soon.

According to its offical Web site, Trezevant Realty Corporation, which is located in Germantown, Tenn., has suggested putting in a Target as an anchor store for a building project that will be located on Hwy 6 across from Wal-Mart.

The building project known as Oxford Crossing is scheduled to open in spring 2011. It will include several new stores and a new hospital, according to the Web site ...

CAMPUS APARTMENTS UNVEILS LUXURY LIVING INSIDE THE HISTORIC LANDMARK SENECA HOTEL
BusinessWire - 2 Jun 2008
... COLUMBUS, OH - Campus Apartments has completed the transformation of the once proud Seneca Hotel building into 77 luxury one- and two-bedroom units. Standing at the southeast corner of Broad Street and Grant Avenue in the heart of downtown Columbus, the Seneca will remain a vibrant landmark for a community that is home to thousands of college students and young professionals. To honor the Seneca Hotel’s 91-year history and toast to the future of the restored landmark ...

$17M student housing proposal ignites debate
YSU and Stambaugh Auditorium oppose the project.
Vindicator - 2 Jun 2008
...YOUNGSTOWN — But YSU strongly opposes the proposal because, YSU officials say, say its location poses a danger for students and Place Properties has declined to work with the university, said Hunter Morrison, the university’s executive director of the office of campus planning and community partnerships.

“We expect developers of student housing to work with us,” he said. “... They didn’t bother to see how their plan fits with ours.”

Also, the location “puts students at risk,” ...

Finding art, action and a little magic in Ann Arbor
Daily Herald - 1 Jun 2008
... ANN ARBOR, MI - Walking along the street in Ann Arbor, Mich., on a recent getaway, I glanced down about shin-level to see a small, tidy front door in the side of a building -- very small, say 6 inches high. There was a tiny basket on the stoop.

"Oh, that's a fairy door," said my friend and local, Nick, with a straight face, as if every city has them. We walked on, and not far away we came to a gaily painted fire hydrant that looked as if it might step into the street to join a parade at any moment. Two shops we stopped at had doggy "doormen" who greeted patrons with a wag of the tail, and later we found a museum where we were invited to step into a giant bubble.

You might have heard that old wives' tale about Midwestern towns being dull -- not Ann Arbor.

College Town
Gone global
Telegram - 1 Jun 2008
... WORCESTER, MA - A greater understanding of what’s happening with the faltering economy can be found in Clark University’s required summer reading for the class of 2012: “The Travels of a T-Shirt in a Global Economy: An Economist Examines the Markets, Power and Politics of World Trade.” During a 1999 protest of the World Trade Organization, Pietra Rivoli, an economics professor at Georgetown University, looked on as an activist seized the microphone and demanded, “Who made your T-shirt?”

Determined to answer that question, she interviewed cotton farmers in Texas, factory workers in China, labor champions in the American South and used-clothing vendors in Tanzania. What she found were subsidized farmers and manufacturers and importers with tax breaks who succeed because they avoid the risks and competition of unprotected global trade. Those subsidies and tax breaks force poorer countries to lower their prices to below-subsistence levels in order to compete ...

For Princeton, with love
Hometown architect Michael Graves refashions an antiquated building into a bold new arts center
Star-Ledger - 1 Jun 2008
... PRINCETON, NJ - For most of living memory, the Witherspoon-Jackson neighborhood in Princeton, beginning just on the far side of the Princeton Public Library from the main gates of the university, has been the leafy college town's African-American district. The 1930's WPA building catty-corner from the library has been the "black YMCA."

On Thursday, the Arts Council of Princeton will christen an $8.5 million rehabilitation of the building, redesigned pro bono by world-renowned hometown architect Michael Graves, as The Paul Robeson Center for the Arts. The building will house art studios, ceramics kilns, digital art facilities and a state-of-the-art theater for dance, video, music and film programming ...

Students swarm to Mantua for off-campus housing
Triangle - 1 Jun 2008
... MANTUA, PA - The dimly-lit office was quiet and still, but remnants existed of the changing environment outside. The datebook on the desk was filled with meetings and reminders; post-it notes framed the computer monitor. On the wall hung a poster of an aspen forest with the word "synergize" printed on it. "Each tree draws strength from the others," the caption read. "The grove is more than the sum of its individual parts."

The office is owned by Rick Young, president and CEO of the Mantua Community Improvement Committee. The committee formed in 2002 to coordinate the needs of the Mantua community with the needs of its neighbors, such as the expanding university system to its south.

"As Drexel University continues to grow, we're seeing an increasing number of college-aged renters living north of Spring Garden Street," Young said. "The University now has a stake in the neighborhood. This is a chance to team up with each other to reach our goals." ...

Preliminary work begins on student apartments
Messenger - 1 Jun 2008
... ATHENS, OH - Preliminary site preparation work for the Summit of Coates Run has started, and the developer appears close to getting the final go-ahead from Athens officials to begin construction of the student apartments.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has approved relocation of part of Coates Run for the south-side project, and has set stipulations regarding two Indian mounds on the property ...

Suffolk University, neighborhood critics still feuding
Beacon Hill groups step up criticism of master plan in ad
Herald - 1 Jun 2008
... BOSTON, MA - The feud between Suffolk University and its neighborhood critics on Beacon Hill has escalated with a recent set of dueling full-page ads in The Beacon Hill Times over what the school’s institutional master plan portends for Beacon Hill.

Long one of Boston’s most contentious town-gown feuds, the school and its Beacon Hill neighbors are at odds over, among other things, what to do with the former state Metropolitan District Commmission building at 20 Somerset Street that Suffolk had hoped to replace with a dorm tower.

The university now wants to move its art school and classrooms from one of its Beacon Hill buildings into the MDC building, which would be revamped ...

Rediscovering heritage architecture in Manila’s U-Belt
Daily Inquirer - 1 Jun 2008
... MANILA, PH -URBAN PLANNERS, EDUCATORS and businessmen envision this part of Manila as “Asia’s answer to the academic boroughs of Paris, Hamburg and New York.”

Sadly, the Central University Belt or U-Belt -- where some of the country’s better known colleges and universities can be found -- has deteriorated over the years.

It has, in fact, been described by urban development researchers as “dirty, dangerous and disorganized.” They also noted that “esteros and canals have been converted into septic tanks; traffic in the area is considered among the worst in the National Capital Region. The area has also become notorious for its high crime rate.”

The situation prompted various sectors, like the Central U-Belt Stakeholders’ Group which includes longtime residents and city government officials, to come up with a plan they called “Recasting Heritage in Urban Renewal” that would help restore the U-Belt to its former glory ...

Graduate is ready to give back
She finishes Promise Scholars Program
BEE - 1 Jun 2008
... TURLOCK, CA - After placement into the foster care system at 18 months, rotating between more than a dozen homes and finding herself surrounded by negativity, Jessica Tacdol has found herself.

She graduated Saturday from California State University, Stanislaus, headed on the path to mentor others, repaying the support she has received from counselors over her 22 tumultuous years ...

Can we, like, banish that word?
Sun - 1 Jun 2008
... CHAMPAIGN, IL - I say "like." Like, a lot.

I am a product of my times ...

The other day, I was waiting for a drink in my local university town smoothie shop. It is almost summer, things are slow and lazy, and most of the undergrads have left town. In their place are the incoming freshmen who come to tour campus and sign up for classes.

These poor kids are easy to spot. The look on their face lacks the confidence, dare I say cockiness, of the returning students. These fresh faces are almost always accompanied by their parents: an aloof dad checking out the Big Ten sportswear, a mom holding plastic bags full of textbooks, head swiveling from side to side, making a mental note to review the legal drinking age with her offspring ...

Get Rid of Your Sh*t! They Call It Treasure.
OTR - 1 Jun 2008
... COLUMBIA, MO - It's a hell of a hassle to actually have your own garage sale, but did you know that Mizzou has a huge one at the end of every year?

It's called Tiger Treasures, where students from the dorms, Greektown, and university-owned apartments can throw all their crap in one place to be pawned off to bargain-seekers. This year's sale took place on Saturday and amassed a crowd of at least 2,500 people! The proceeds all go to charity (last year, they raised about $10,000).

Hey - it's easy, and neighbors don't complain about stuff sitting out on the curb... something to keep in mind for next year, at least. The thing needs a new name though (Tiger Treasures? Sounds like a lame-ass souvenir shop in Lake of the Ozarks or something) ...

Official party pooper riles Seattle U. students
Times - 1 Jun 2008
... SEATTLE, WA - Four Seattle University seniors who tried to organize an off-campus party over Memorial Day weekend say it was supposed to be a last hurrah before graduation with a theme that pokes fun at fraternity and sorority types.

Women were to wear Victoria's Secret Pink-brand sweats or Abercrombie & Fitch clothing and talk constantly on their cellphones, according to the invitation on the social-networking site Facebook. Guys were to wear turned-up — "popped" — collars, aviator sunglasses and flip-flops. The event was dubbed the "Douchebag" party ...

Marijuana 'grow houses' are creating problems in Arcata, Calif.
LA Times - 1 Jun 2008
... ARCATA, CA - LaVina Collenberg thought she had ideal tenants for her tidy ranch-style home on the outskirts of this university town nestled in the redwoods of the North Coast. Then the 74-year-old widow received an urgent call last September from a neighbor, who said firefighters had descended on the house she had rented to a pleasant young man from Wisconsin.

Collenberg found her charred and sooty rental filled with grow lights and 3-foot-high marijuana plants. Seeds were germinating in the spa. Water from the growing operation had soaked through the carpeting and sub-flooring. Air vents had been cut into the new roof. A fan had fallen over, causing the fire ...

Picturesque villages now terror 'hot spots'
Al-Qaida suspected of moving cells into British countryside
WorldNetDaily - 1 Jun 2008
... LONDON, UK – The British intelligence service MI5 has redrawn its electronic map of Britain's "hot spots" terrorist targets – to include provincial university towns, colleges and picturesque villages close to high-security installations ...

A night in prison (it's really a hotel)
Times - 1 Jun 2008
... OXFORD, UK - I stayed a night in a prison cell, had Krispy Kremes in a castle, sang in a medieval church and, while carrying takeout tandoori chicken back to my room, passed the spot where three bishops were burned at the stake in the 16th century.

Just another day in Oxford, the ancient British university town.

It took me the advertised hour in my rented car to get from London's Heathrow Airport to the ring road that circles Oxford. Then I orbited, John Glenn style, for another 90 minutes before lucking upon the gravel drive of Oxford Castle, next to my hotel, the Malmaison ...

Consultant finds Collegetown land nearly as expensive as L.A., San Diego
Journal - 1 Jun 2008
... ITHACA, NY — Land in Collegetown is worth $4 million to $10 million per acre — that's comparable to downtown Los Angeles and San Diego, though not as expensive as Boston or Washington, D.C.
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Sarah Woodworth, a market and economic consultant with W-ZHA, reported to Common Council's planning and economic development committee Wednesday night that because land is so expensive, “there's actually a risk that there may be very little new development.”

The committee also voted in favor of requiring anyone doing work that requires a building permit to carry liability insurance beyond the standard included in most homeowner's policies.

Outside developers may be unlikely to come into Collegetown and build because costs are so high, Woodworth said. Rather, any new development will likely come from existing land owners, she said ...

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