Boston-area colleges and universities are pondering an alliance that would increase cooperative efforts and strive to maintain the area as a premier knowledge community.
The idea of the alliance came out of two and half years of discussions between the region's schools, local businesses, civic organizations, public officials and regular citizens as part of the Carol R. Goldberg Seminar. The Seminar is series of projects that aim to raise awareness on civic issues in the Boston area and make policy recommendations.
The findings were released in a report issued by the Boston Foundation and the University College of Citizenship and Public Service (UCCPS).
The foundation is a local non-profit group which provided the funding for the seminar. Tufts plays a leading role in the partnership. The Seminar was founded in conjunction with Robert Hollister, now the dean of UCCPS.
The most recent seminar was dedicated to discussing how the region is impacted by its colleges and universities. This was the fifth Goldberg Seminar in the past 25 years.
One thing that was immediately clear is that the impact of universities on Boston is large. According to the report, eight major universities in Boston have an economic impact of more than $7 billion. The 75 colleges and universities in the area employ over 50,000 faculty and staff.
Boston Foundation spokesperson David Trueblood said Boston is the preeminent region in the country for higher education. "Boston is the golden standard," of the knowledge community, he said.
The problem, Trueblood said, is that cities are vulnerable where their strengths lie because they take them for granted. The focus of the Seminar was the role and impact of higher education institutions in Boston on their host communities.
The Seminar began with a gathering of information regarding where communities and colleges stood in their relationships. Working groups focusing on government, higher education, civic factors, neighborhood factors and businesses met to research specific areas of impacts between the community and universities.
"Part of the power of this seminar is working very hard to make sure that a lot of voices get included," Trueblood said.
From the many voices included, there came a number of different ideas.
"We realized we were in a period of significant ferment and innovation," Hollister said.
The report found reason for optimism. Over the past ten years, there has been a 75 percent increase in public service programs on campuses. Local colleges and universities have given out over $150 million in scholarships to graduates of the Boston public schools system in the past 20 years.
According to the report, "The Seminar documented a promising pattern of new partnerships among colleges and universities and local businesses, civic, and government institutions over the past decade." It goes on to say that "town-gown" relationships have evolved from often negative, contentious ones, to more productive cooperative relations in recent years.
Hollister emphasized the theme of partnership in the dialogue, and the opportunity to increase collaborative effort in the region, both in the communication between institutions and between institutions and communities.
The starting point, Hollister said, was a "realization that many people were stuck in an old-school town-gown view of the world," in which there was often an adversarial stance. In fact, he said, universities and colleges have tremendous resources that they can share with communities.
Hollister said colleges and communities could "creatively and responsibly merge the differences of opinion" that exist between them. Sources of discord, such as campus expansion, rowdy student behavior, and town attempts to collect money from colleges in lieu of taxes are all unfortunate conflicts that can block the potential for deep, beneficial cooperation.
Trueblood said University President Lawrence Bacow was a "key player" in this effort. Bacow has taken a proactive stance in promoting positive community relations.
The University agreed last year to pay $1.25 million to the cities Medford and Somerville over ten years. It will also invest $300,000 in need-based grant aid for local students attending the University.
"He reached out to me before I was even sworn in," Somerville Mayor Joseph Curtatone told the Daily last year. "I can only speak positive things about Larry Bacow [and his staff]."
According to Trueblood, institutions now have an opportunity to form a regional alliance, a non-profit organization that will link the schools and allow for coordination, communication, and a better forum for expressing interests and concerns.
"There has never been an opportunity for all of those [schools] to create a regional agenda at the highest level [until now]," Trueblood said.
Universities have united in the past for small deals - such as discounts on paper and fuel - but not on a grand scale. The report calls for a new organization, "A New Boston Metropolitan Alliance of College and University Presidents," with the goal of increasing partnerships between schools and form a regional agenda.
This alliance would "promote the visibility and impact on the higher education industry on the region and advance the collective agenda of member institutions," according to the report. It would also "facilitate civic building and economic development partnerships," and build a "spirit of partnership."
Hollister said the next step "is to make sure that that happens."
In the meantime, Trueblood is not worried about Boston's knowledge community. "I don't think in any way that Boston is losing its dominance," he said. "We have this extraordinary selection of institutions here. There is nothing like it anywhere else in the world."
Boston's schools must not take this for granted and must push forward with the reforms suggested in this report.
"We need to keep it [the preeminence] there. We need to avoid complacency. We need to have a thought-through agenda of policy. We need to start now when things are good," he said.
