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The Campus as Hometown
By David Boren,
The Chronicle of Higher Education, March 14, 2008
When David Boren, president of the University of Oklahoma, was a child, the adults in his small community would look after all the children—not just their own. Sunday lunches with his large extended family of aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents were a constant in his life. As Boren describes in his recent Chronicle of Higher Education opinion piece, when he relates these stories to students in his classes, the reaction is most often, “I wish I could have had a childhood like yours.”
Boren’s response is a call to make the campus into a kind of hometown. For some students, Boren writes, college is their first opportunity to live in a real community. The goal for administrators should be to build or strengthen a sense of community and civility on campus. Every decision, from designing outdoor public spaces to renovating dormitories, should be made with this goal in mind. Boren calls for faculty families to live on campus, where they can develop intergenerational friendships with students and invite discussion. Academic buildings should be designed with shared interdisciplinary spaces, and there must be a central place on campus to “fill the functions of the small-town drugstore or favorite local café, where everyone passes through each day to visit and find out what is going on in the community.”
Boren argues that racial and class stereotypes break down when students get to know one another as individuals who have a stake in the community and a responsibility to take care of each other. The nation reflects the values we actively teach, Boren writes. Civility and community for our nation must start on our campuses.
Chronicle of Higher Education subscribers may read the entire article here. Nonsubscribers may read the article here for five days; after that, a subscription may be required.
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