The citizens of Boston know all about the harmful effects of college students. Along with their counterparts at dozens of area schools, students at Boston University are apt to disrupt the peaceful streets of Allston with parties, riot whenever the Red Sox or Patriots win a championship and drive up the cost of housing by crowding into off-campus apartments.
What gets overlooked too often is the positive influence college students can have on their community — an influence well exemplified this week by a BU class project. On Monday afternoon, students in Community Relations, a course taught by College of Communication professor Jo O’Connor, unveiled the result of a semester of hard work: a refurbished recreation room for the West End House Boys and Girls Club in Allston. The 220 children who go to the West End House after school — most of whose families earn less than $25,000 per year — will now have a clean activity space and plenty of new toys to play with, thanks to the time spent and money raised by O’Connor’s class.
Of course, a single project does not compensate for the harm inflicted upon the city by its students; the grievances aired by “normal” Bostonians are real and need to be addressed. But the new recreation room underscores an important facet of Boston’s town-gown relations, sending a simple but powerful message to those who would denounce the evil students in their midst: Maybe those damn kids aren’t so bad after all.
More cynical Boston residents might respond by pointing out that this project was done for a class, so the kids had no choice but to perform a good deed. But such a position fails to account for the vast majority of community service done by area students. At BU, thousands participate in programs run by the school’s outstanding Community Service Center, whether helping immigrants learn English, delivering food to area shelters or mentoring children from Boston schools. Despite all the negative headlines, there are plenty of young men and women who voluntarily give of their time to make life a little better for the people of Boston.
Still, there’s much more that area students should be doing, not only to minimize the damage wrought by championship riots and raucous parties, but to go beyond their respective college bubbles and contribute to the wellbeing of their neighbors. For their part, university administrators at BU and elsewhere should try harder to improve relations between their students and the city at large. After all, one of the major points in BU’s new and highly-touted strategic plan is “to continue to foster the engagement of Boston University in the city and the world.”
This task would in large part be a matter of public relations — a concerted effort to contradict the likes of City Councilor Mike Ross when they scapegoat college students for all of the city’s ills. Perhaps, then, BU’s administrators can learn a little about the art of relating to the public from O’Connor — someone who certainly knows the value of a new recreation room in Allston.