May 13, 2005

Universities and Cities Need to Rethink Their Relationships

By RICHARD M. FREELAND

As president of a major urban university, I believe that academic institutions have much to offer their communities. Too often, however, longstanding suspicions on both sides of the relationship impede constructive collaboration. We need to change the way universities think about their cities and the way cities think about their campuses.

Three kinds of interactions have historically characterized universities' relationships with their surrounding communities. First are what I call