Town and Gown?

[Protagonist]

For those of you who are at university or college, I am curious as to what the relationship between the college/university and the surrounding city is. At my college, things have repeatedly turned violent between the college chaps (and 'pettes) and the "townies." People have been assaulted, and it is impossible to leave campus without being at least minorly heckled. I'm very concerned. What is it like at your place?

[materra]

This conflict has existed for centuries at every town that ever had a university or College. When I went to the University of Wisconsin in the 60's it was like that too. Very strange considering the town needs the schools for economic reasons but tends to hate them for the education they give to others. At any rate, we traveled in groups when going out to the town shops and bars. Mostly the town folks are worried for the usual reasons; their daughters, their community morals, and the ivory tower set teaching their kids to think differently than their parents do. Oh and competition for jobs when students work off campus. We survived just fine... and some of us actually remained in the towns and built bridges of understanding.

[BlueMoon13]

Not sure how it is now, but the town I went to college in was somewhat belligerant to the college kids in general.While I can't blame them for disliking large groups of hooligans drag racing through town,spitting,peeing and vomiting on their property during the late night and early morning hours,as usual, the good kids are "punished" along with the good. Two cars had an accident in front of me on the way to class one day, and I knocked at a door to ask the people to call an ambulance. (WAAAAY before cellphones, and no nearby payphones) I remember the lady looking out and seeing that it was college-aged kids involved and saying "That's the college's problem". :thumbsdow

[pawnman]

College I went to, something like 60% of the students WERE from town. We never had any of this "townie" nonsense.

[Faeawyn]

The college close to here was built before the town...and the town built around it....so it's pretty accepted. There are lots of little bars and pubs and coffee rooms that cater to the college set, so I think its all pretty cool :)

[*Rain*]

When I was at my University it was really bad. One in 3 of the population of the city was a student. It was an economically suppressed area and a University that attracted a large number of particularly affluent students. This caused a lot of resentment. There were certain nights we were advised not to go into town and places we were told not to go. Pubs where if you walked in through the door, you would leave via the window (I kid you not). Unfortunately while I was there one student was murdered by being pushed off the flyover onto a dual carriageway. In the few years previous one student had been blinded in one eye after a severe beating whilst walking home alone and there were the imfamous 'chain whippings', which had seen several students hunted down, stripped and whipped with lengths of chain. Unfortunately some youths in the city used to regularly entertain themselves by deliberately going out looking for students to beat up for a laugh.

The University worked really hard to improve relations with the town, but the hatred for students was too deeply ingrained. What a lot of them didn't see is that the local economy would completely collapse without the student population. I'm not saying that all of the locals were like that, but it was a place you had to watch your back.

[Romani Vixen]

So far as I know... not really. I just started PSU, the campus of which is downtown. It's a pretty big city... so most of those kinds of issues are random people (no particular subclass) or the street kids. I'm not aware of the college students being a source of strife more than any of the other random people that fill the city.

[paper_majic]

It's like that in Statesboro. You definitely see it in Wal-Mart. The people from here actaully avoid the kids, and go opposite directions from them. You can tell there's a lot of strain in the air. However, there's never been an assault that I know of from the townies on a student.

[OpenHands]

There are problems with violence and theft around my campus. The college is a small private school with mostly middle-upper class white kids. The campus sits right up against a lower class neighborhood that has a mostly black and hispanic population. There's quite a bit of racial and class tension. It's common to hear students who live off-campus partially joke that getting mugged is a rite of passage when you move into the student housing behind the school. Then again, groups of drunken students start quite a bit of trouble with the locals too.

It's not terribly bad, but I make sure to restrict my jogging to daylight hours and I don't venture into the not-so-nice parts of town when I can help it...especially alone. The students who wander around those streets in the early morning hours drunk, oy, I think they're nuts. You'd think nobody's ever gotten beaten, raped, or killed doing stupid things like that.

[gwendar]

Wow, it's not like that here at all!
I don't think people here care that lots of us aren't "townies." I've heard nothing of the sort of thing you mention going on here.
But Newfies are generally really nice people...

[mucgwyrt]

Oh my god, that's so horrifying!

My partner has just finished uni in bristol, and there's none of that here! I'm shocked, I really am!

[HPS_Mysta]

If Barnsley turned on the college the whole town would go bankrupt! They rely on us to sup their beer, to buy their food and use our free time shopping. They get bad with us we stop they got no income, they go bust. So they love us.

[banondraig]

For those of you who are at university or college, I am curious as to what the relationship between the college/university and the surrounding city is. At my college, things have repeatedly turned violent between the college chaps (and 'pettes) and the "townies." People have been assaulted, and it is impossible to leave campus without being at least minorly heckled. I'm very concerned. What is it like at your place?

yark! where do you go to school?

my college was in a tourist trap, so everyone made fun of the tourists, and the "townie" thing was fairly minor. there were even student/townie romantic relationships sometimes. *gasp* :lol:

[Etoile]

They university I went to had a good relationship with the town. In fact, if the university wasn't there, there wouldn't be a town. There have been instances here and there, but most of the time, everyone gets along.

[HeavensHope]

hm....well in Austin, it's pretty much a college city, seeing as how the biggest University sits at the heart of the city. Never had any problems with it, because most people who live there go to the main university there. You cant tell who's from there and who's not..like I said it's a college city (there's at least 3 other major Universities there, not including jr colleges). I go to school in Houston now and I havent noticed anything...yet. Except that some of the refugees from katrina that we took in are having issues with the 'locals'. Other then that...really not much else happens.