Good Fences Make Good Neighbors?

The phrase, “good fences make good neighbors” is one we have all heard. Some would remember it as a phrase from a Robert Frost poem published in 1914 titled “Mending Wall.” Some might connect it with livestock law and know that in claims over livestock ownership that good fences do make it much easier to prevent such disputes. Some might consider it just good common sense.

In my own mind, when it comes to the relationship between a university and its community, I think “good fences do not make good neighbors.” A university and its community ought to be inextricably entwined, both engaged with and benefiting from the other.

For the university, the community is a place rich in opportunities for its students– a place for valuable internships and experiential learning, a place to examine effective leadership and citizenship in action, a place to partake of commercial, service, and religious organizations.

For the community, a university should be a resource for its citizens, its businesses, and its leadership. Its grounds, its library, its theater, its meeting rooms can be a place of dialogue and discourse. The university can be the place where the community comes together to resolve issues that matter to it. The university’s faculty and staff can be resources to the community, lending their knowledge and expertise to matters of community importance.

The nexus between university and community can be a setting to explore new partnerships that utilize the assets of both in ways that have yet to be explored—a community center or recreation center that legitimately serves both, a job skills development center, or a center for conservation and environmental education that is a learning center for all.

Opportunities abound when examined from the perspective of constructive engagement rather than isolation.