Professors discuss fostering campus and community connection

Home City News Professors discuss fostering campus and community connection

An audience of students and faculty gained ideas for connecting Hillsdale’s college and city during a conversation between Associate Professor of English Patricia Bart and Professor of Political Economy Gary Wolfram Thursday.

The unscripted dialogue, held in the formal lounge, was the second in the Honors Program’s series “The Conversation.” The topic was Bridging the Town Gown Divide: A Conversation about Hospitality, Membership, and Community. True to its philosophy, “The Conversation” event allowed the audience to learn by witnessing loves in conversation. Both Bart and Wolfram have a passion for what Wolfram called making Hillsdale “a college town as opposed to a town with a college.”

The two believe campus members should also be meaningful town members. Without this integration, they believe the academic community cannot fully reap the benefits of Hillsdale’s unique, small-town atmosphere.

“From just being up at the college, you don’t realize what a nice community you have,” Wolfram said. “You have to be nice to people because the next day, you might be standing in line at the Kroger’s with them. That’s the beauty of Hillsdale.”

Wolfram also believes bridging the gap between town-and -gown influences the city’s economic success.

“It’s a chicken-and-the-egg kind of thing,” he said. “If nobody goes downtown, there’s no retail downtown for you guys to go to.”

Bart and Wolfram commended students already connecting with the town, including campus volunteer groups. They encouraged students to spend time at community businesses, get to know local residents, and show hospitality to townspeople.

Both professors inspired students to do these things with examples from their own lives.

Bart hosts dinners for Hillsdale residents at her home, allowing her to befriend people she might otherwise never meet.

“I invite some of the neighbors that do seem to be upstanding,” Bart said. “And then invite them to invite somebody else.”

She stressed the simplicity of hospitality, saying it isn’t always a difficult feat.

“Maybe entertaining is,” she said. “But hospitality isn’t.”

“Part of it is just getting a group of people that you can say, ‘Hey, let’s go to Broad Street Market,’” Wolfram said. “You don’t even have to do it in your house.”

He suggested inviting community members to a Hillsdale play or musical performance.

“How would you like it if you came out onto the stage and there was standing room only?” he asked. “If you got 15 or 25 people to come up from the town, that would happen.”

Christina Lambert, Honors Program co-president, organized the event. She believes the question of how to live as members of a community not only pertains to students’ college years, but to the rest of their lives.