How does a university contribute to its local community?
This article was originally published in the Spirit of Jefferson on Sep. 14, 2023
How do you visualize a university as a part of a community?
We can take it as given that any college or university has some economic impact on the community in which it educates students. But is there more to the impact than just the dollars and cents it contributes through jobs and retail trade?
The default job of all universities, of course, is education. It’s written into their mission statement and declared as part of their core values. Here’s the mission statement of Shepherd University, our bricks-and-mortar university in the Eastern Panhandle: “Shepherd University is a premier public university, grounded in the liberal arts and sciences, that prepares students for lifelong learning and success in their chosen pursuits and serves as a hub for academic, cultural and economic opportunity.”
West Virginia University, the state’s flagship university in Morgantown, in its mission statement also mentions in addition to education, health care, prosperity, research and engagement with the state and world as parts of its mission.
In respect to who specifically Shepherd serves, its vision statement includes its alumni, in addition to its student body, suggesting that its operations, when we look at them, will extend beyond the current year’s crop of students. Alumni, well prepared for life and successful because of their education, can become grateful and show their appreciation by endowing the university with the means to continue its mission across generations. Being good to your alumni can pay off, in other words.
Perhaps starting with the attention Shepherd gives to its former students, the university has gone further and extended its core values to the community as a whole. It states: “We treasure our ties to Shepherdstown and our surrounding communities, where we prioritize service, stewardship and citizenship.” By contrast, WVU, while remarking that Morgantown is an acknowledged “Best Place to Live” city and implying that it is importantly responsible, does not mention its services directly extend to the city’s residents.
This is so far an admittedly superficial “analysis” of how two universities in our state view themselves as active and contributing members of the communities outside their campus boundaries. What’s more important, though, is to look at the details of how a university’s programs and initiatives impact the lives of those outside the campus.
Consider as a mental exercise how we would envision the town of Shepherdstown without Shepherd University. The town still would likely attract the same volume of tourist traffic that crowds German Street every weekend. But would it attract the same number of retirees that have made it a kind of retirement magnet today? This is a hypothetical question that I don’t know has ever been explicitly researched.
What we do have direct evidence of, however, are a wealth of programs Shepherd makes available to draw in the community, including the Lifelong Learning program, the annual Contemporary American Theater Festival, many programs of the Center for Appalachian Studies and Communities, the annual Aging Well Workshop, and individual classes in which older adults and younger students work collaboratively.
In other words, Shepherd seems to live its core value to be a contributing member to its wider community. But is it doing all it can? To answer that question there was the recent announcement from the university that it has been designated as being age friendly. This award made by the Age-Friendly University Global Network (AFUGN) came about from an application the university submitted detailing its credentials.
The application effort was spearheaded by Heidi Dobish, an associate professor in the university’s psychology department. Dobish teaches courses related to general change and development, including the psychology of aging and lifespan development. She worked together with Karen Rice, who manages the Lifelong Learning Program and the Continuing Education Program, and Carolyn Rodis, a past president of the community-based Shepherdstown Area Independent Living (SAIL), a support and advocacy group for seniors, to submit the application.
Dobish, who is the designated “champion” of the initiative, explained that there are actually many enrolled students who fall under its “non-traditional” student category; that is, those older than 25. These people make up about 30 percent of the student body. This 30 percent, however, doesn’t include the participation of those over 25 who are not students enrolled for credit. These include course auditors and participants in lifelong learning. It also includes those participating in the formal continuing education program focused on supplementing or extending the skills of people still in the workforce, especially teachers who have to periodically recertify to maintain their credentials.
Dobish explained that the AFUGN designation doesn’t just acknowledge the current attention the university directs to older adults, but it also provides something of a road map to guide the university in broadening its reach. It is on this second point that Shepherd will be focusing its efforts before it comes up for review again in four years by the AFU Global Network overseers.
Mary Hendrix, Shepherd’s president, mentioned in an email that the university will be convening an advisory group to work with the age-friendly development team to put together a strategic plan and, as necessary, target funding sources to budget for new programs. Right now there is no budget to support these initiatives.
Dobish suggested that there would need to be greater integration and alignment of university and community interests to identify and expand the possibilities.
As an example, the town of Shepherdstown, independently of the university, has been designated an Age-Friendly Community (AFC), in large measure due to the efforts of SAIL members. The AFC activity is largely concerned with infrastructure issues that impact older adults in the town limits, including the university itself. (This story was reported in the Spirit in the Nov. 11, 2021, issue.) The university did respond to some of the concerns raised by the AFC and set an example of how an action initiated by the community brought about action in the university.
Dobish and I discussed other possible ways in which initiatives developed by older adults could guide university efforts at inclusion. For example, older adults, either individually or through organizations, could act as mentors in curriculum areas in which they have expertise. There are many retired teachers and university people in the wider community.
They could additionally offer adjunct programs or lecture-discussions in areas that the university does not now have courses available, possibly in a team-teaching format. They could also themselves be mentored in areas where students have expertise and they don’t. Or they could participate jointly with students in activities to increase opportunities for conversation and interaction between the generations. This might include encouraging older adults to audit regular university courses, an option that’s already available, though not often taken advantage of.
Karen Rice mentioned that Interactions don’t have to be centered only on the traditional undergraduate student and the retired older adult. There are a lot of people between the ages of 25 and 65 for whom the goals of the university can be increasingly focused. These are older adults already in the workforce or those looking to transition into new careers.
The pace of change in the work world is constantly ticking up, and working people face challenges in keeping up. This suggests that Shepherd can address those needs in its continuing education programs as another way to increase its age-friendly capacity. With faculty as overworked as they already are, there may be opportunities here also for older adults to contribute to building successful interventions in collaboration with the university.
In looking at the goals set up in Shepherd’s Strategic Plan, the current one of which is expiring this year, it seems inevitable that in developing its next five-year plan it will have to not entirely rely on, but build on the talent and availability of the wider community to maintain the high standards of its educational mission.
Even though this article has shied away from discussion of the finances needed to maintain those standards, the university cannot avoid factoring costs into its future planning. Since West Virginia universities, including Shepherd, cannot rely on the state to increase funding and likewise can’t rely on student tuition to shoulder more than it already does, it will be necessary for the community to assume some of the cost burden.
To the extent that community members continue to find value in the university, they will do so.