Last week the university announced that Melinda Haines would be serving as the Assistant to the Dean for Community Engagement of the College of Visual and Performing Arts. She will be overseeing much of the community outreach and programs that the college runs in the Fort Wayne community.
According to Vice Chancellor of Financial Affairs Walter Branson, the university has worked hard to build a connection between the campus and the community.
“Overall, IPFW is involved in the community more than any other institution I’ve seen,” he said.
And yet, many students still believe that IPFW is its own community floating unconnected within the larger Fort Wayne community.
“I feel there is little campus connection to the community, very little interaction or involvement. I don’t see connections. I see us as a separate identity – We are IPFW and we’re isolated. Fort Wayne isn’t a university town,” said sophomore Mike Bachle.
IPFW has partnerships with organizations like the Fort Wayne Philharmonic and other non-profits, and runs venues downtown such as the Continuum Gallery, and while the university believes that being a resource to the community is enough of a connection, students aren’t feeling it.
“You’re not going to see a connection to the community until you can get people excited about being here. At colleges that have a big sense of community, the rallying factor is usually sports. When the basketball games are held at the Coliseum and we don’t have a football team or any big events that draw people here, they can’t expect a connection with the community, especially if we don’t feel a connection to the college,” said elementary education major Becca Amstutz.
“It may be that a lot of the connections we have are really involving faculty and staff. We don’t require in our majors community activities or service learning which would involve more of the community,” said Branson in response to the idea that students and faculty aren’t seeing eye to eye on campus-community connectivity.
He believes that much of the connections to the community don’t directly affect students, therefore giving them the idea that there is no connectivity.
And if this is the case, it seems that there needs to be more of a connection between the students and the administrators.
Students who don’t feel that IPFW is connected to the surrounding community need to speak up and be willing to offer their ideas on how this disconnect can be fixed. The university needs to take into account that students are like the troops on the ground – we’re living between the two different spheres, and getting our feedback can only benefit attempts at community outreach.
