Need

Allegheny College wanted to overcome local misperceptions through several initiatives including an increased student presence in the city’s downtown district with the intent of increasing student spending at downtown businesses.

Approach

After identifying clear objectives and intended outcomes, Bull Moose began with a community engagement effort, interviewing and surveying over 120 stakeholders to include students, faculty, staff, business owners, and municipal leaders. The gathered feedback was organized to create an inventory of key, recurring issues to address. A SWOT analysis was also compiled as part of the process and similar programs in other rural locations were evaluated for best practices and benchmarking which were used to inform the final strategy.

Outcome

This engagement strategy reached every stage of the student life cycle and had some near immediate action steps. The strategy identified gaps, lack of awareness, and conflicts in information that confused students and discouraged their participation downtown. Mobility issues were also identified resulting in an interactive online map highlight relevant downtown businesses and bus routes students could ride for free. Experiential learning opportunities were outlined in addition to encouraging more downtown involvement from faculty and staff. 

The components of this strategy have since become the basis for a more comprehensive community impact program which has became a use case, leading to a grant-funded partnership program between the college and community. to build excitement while committees and structures were being created to continue the progress for years to come.