After meeting with students for about six hours Thursday, President Geoffrey S. Mearns went to Cornerstone Center for the Arts to discuss how campus can interact with Muncie's economy.
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The panelists joining Mearns were Delaina Boyd, Ball State’s interim associate vice president of community engagement; Chris Caldwell, Mutual Bank’s senior vice president of commercial and business banking; Traci Lutton, Muncie-Delaware County Economic Development Alliance’s vice president of economic development; and David Terrell, Ball State’s director of the Rural Policy Research Institute and co-director of the Indiana Communities Institute.
The first question posed was about the Village — the strip of businesses and apartments lying just southeast of campus on University Avenue — and how Ball State can support it.
“[The Village] is very important to fostering energy and vitality on our campus,” Mearns said.
However, Mearns said more can be done to support the Village, and Ball State has already started.
The future Health Professions Building on Riverside Avenue is just one effort by the university, and will attract faculty, students and staff to the Village to shop because of proximity, Mearns said.
There’s also the vacant lot at the northeast corner of McKinley and University avenues. The lot is owned by the university, but according to Mearns, there aren't plans for it yet, but it is something he wants to ask both the campus and the Muncie community about.
Another issue within the Muncie community was students who graduate from Ball State and leave without contributing to the community in which they were educated.
This perception, according to Mearns, is somewhat inaccurate. Seventy-five percent of full-time faculty and staff at Ball State live in Delaware County, according to university data.
However, newer faculty are less inclined to live in Delaware County, and Boyd, interim associate vice president of community engagement, said this can be aided by onboarding partners connecting them to the community.
Mearns recognized, however, that the debt of Muncie Community Schools does not keep recent graduates in Muncie.
"The current financial situation in Muncie Schools is an impediment to young professionals living there," Mearns said. "We have to address the Muncie Public School system. We have to address those problems."
With how intertwined financial support is with campus and Muncie, Lutton, vice president of economic development for Muncie-Delaware County Economic Development Alliance, said that's a point of pride.
“We absolutely refer to ourselves as a college town. Ball State is one of the biggest assets we have,” Lutton said.
Mearns isn’t planning more public forums in the near future.
“The next step for me is to digest all of the information that I’ve received. I’m going to meet with some of the people on our campus over the next few weeks and then begin communicating, ‘What are the specific steps we could take?’ in response to [the forums]," Mearns said.
Contact Sara Barker with comments at slbarker3@bsu.edu or on Twitter at @sarabarker326.
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