Each year, hundreds of Johns Hopkins students move into
apartments, houses and residence halls located in the
neighborhoods surrounding the Homewood campus. Most will be
upstanding citizens, but, as in any university community,
there are some who will be — intentionally or
unintentionally — inconsiderate of their
neighbors.
With that in mind, the university has focused
significant effort in the past two years to have students
polish up their good-neighbor skills and to find ways to
create more harmonious student-resident relations.
Johns Hopkins conducted a survey earlier this year to
view the progress of its efforts and assess the current
state of student-community relations. Nearly 250 residents
living within a one-mile radius of Homewood were randomly
contacted by Homewood Student Affairs staff and asked a
series of questions regarding their relationship with JHU
students.
"Specifically, we were eager to know if our perception
of improvement matches that of community members," said
Paula Burger, dean of undergraduate
education and chair of the Neighborhood Relations Task
Force (formed in 2004 and including JHU staff and students
and neighborhood residents). "We also wanted to know if
there were specific problems that we haven't been
addressing, or communication gaps."
The survey, designed by researchers in the Institute for Policy Studies and
conducted between Feb. 22 and March 29, found that while
most residents characterized student-community relations as
good to excellent, a quarter still viewed relations as fair
to bad. A quarter of the respondents reported that they had
experienced a student-related problem within the past year.
Mirroring previous concerns, they cited nighttime noise
(assumed to come from parties) and poor property
maintenance as the most severe student-related problems.
The university has already begun to address such
issues. The Neighborhood Relations Task Force issued a
report last year that called for a revision of the Johns
Hopkins Student Conduct Code, which now features stronger
penalties for infractions, new protocols for the reporting
of noise violations, enhancement of education and outreach
initiatives that promote proper behavior, the creation of a
new fraternity alcohol policy and the development of a
series of programs and events that foster more positive
interaction between Johns Hopkins students and community
members.
The university also created the position of community
liaison and compliance officer, whose job is to proactively
monitor neighborhoods where groups of Johns Hopkins
students reside and to intervene when problem behavior
occurs. That position, which reports to the dean of student
life, has been filled since August 2005 by Carrie Bennett,
formerly a campus security officer.
When asked if they were aware of any actions JHU has
taken to reduce student-related problems, 135 survey
respondents said they didn't know of any, 106 said they
were aware of actions, and 11 said they felt that no action
had been taken. A majority of respondents said that
student-community relations have remained the same over the
past year, while 49 out of 244 said that relations have
improved. Only six said they felt that relations have
deteriorated.
Burger said that survey results show that
student-community relations are generally healthy but that
the university needs to continue to be vigilant about the
most common sources of problems: noise and property upkeep.
Communications efforts need to be enhanced, too, Burger
said, both about concerns and about opportunities for
community members to take advantage of Johns Hopkins'
programs and educational, cultural and recreational
resources.
In terms of the positive developments, Burger
applauded the efforts of Dorothy Sheppard, associate dean
of students; Salem Reiner, director of community affairs;
and Bennett, the compliance officer, whose actions have
been "critical in JHU's ability to make progress."
"So, too, have been the good will and citizenship of
the majority of our students and a spirit of cooperation of
most of our neighbors," she said. As an example, Burger
pointed to the Homewood Student Association, a group that
was recently formed by off-campus students to represent
their perspectives and to be more proactive with the
community. HSA held a Community Action Day on April 15 in
which 160 students and a group of residents combined for a
successful cleanup effort in five neighboring communities.
Burger said that while there is room for optimism, the
university fully realizes that much more needs to be done
on the community relations front.
"When we began in earnest to address these matters, I
would have to say that some members of the community were
giving us a failing grade due to some individual problems
in their particular neighborhood. Overall, I would now say
we are passing, but I won't be happy until we make dean's
list," she said. "Community-university relations are always
works in progress, particularly with regard to student
issues, since we have a new group of students living in the
community every year. We fully intend to keep ourselves 'on
probation' even if we really think we are now in good
standing."