1
Move Out Madness Building bridges to manage
year end waste

• Lesley McRae, M.A.

2
Town Gown

• What does it mean?
• The relationship between a municipality (town)
  and the higher education institution residing
  there (gown)
• Historical relationships
• Higher ed. historically isolated (location
  building structure)
• Shift from government to governance
• Why is it important?

3
Innovative University-Community Partnerships

• Some types of innovation
• Service learning
• Service provision
• Faculty involvement
• Student volunteerism
• Community in the classroom
• Applied research
• Major institutional change

Martin, L., Smith, H., Phillips, W. (2003).
Bridging town and gown through innovative
university-community partnerships. The Innovation
Journal The Public Sector Innovation Journal,
10(2), 2 16
4
Setting the scene

• University of Guelph
• approx. 18,000 students
• 13,000 living off-campus
• Distribution
• Many older neighbourhoods with climbing numbers
  of student residents
• Large concentrations of students in south end
  developments and newer subdivisions
• Not many high density housing options

5
Neighbourhood Relations?

• Created in 2003
• Goals
• To support off-campus students, landlords,
  community residents
• To address community concerns and field PR issues
• To liaise with community organizations
• Merged with Off-campus Housing in 2007
• Rental housing listings

6
Move Out Madness

• Goals
• Environmental
• Community alliance benefits
• Charitable support
• Stakeholders
• Neighbourhood Relations Off-Campus Housing
• Guelph Students for Environmental Change
• University of Guelph Meal Exchange
• University of Guelph Sustainability (Physical
  Resources)
• City of Guelph (Solid Waste Resources)
• Guelph Freecycle.org
• Budget Rent A Car

7
Stuff Swap

• Details
• Located in University Centre courtyard
• April 2 20 (week prior to exams end of exam
  period)
• Almost 100 turnover/day
• Sign-ups for BIP located here
• Wet/Dry bags available
• Remaining items donated
• to salvation army

8
Clear the Shelves

• Details
• April 9 20 in residence halls UC courtyard
• Primary partner - University of Guelph Meal
  Exchange
• Bins placed in residence halls to collect ONLY
  non-perishable food clothing
• Guelph Foodbank arranged pick-ups from bins
• Paired with bins for stuff swap

9
Bulky Item Pick-up

• Details
• Sign-ups _at_ stuff swap
• 55 participants, over 200 items collected
• 2 streams dump quality reusable
• City of Guelph partnered to pick-up dump items
• Neighbourhood Relations Coordinator volunteers
  organized pick-ups of reusable items to be stored
  in container donated by University Sustainability
• Guelph freecycle.org offered as alternative

10
Goods Exchange Weekend

• Details
• Second weekend in September
• Portable storage unit opened and furniture given
  away to students community members
• Advertised as taking place from 9 am 5 pm
• All items taken by 10 am!
• Offered delivery with rental Budget van at
  nominal cost (5 per item)

11
Talking results!

• Demographics
• 0 first year
• 7 second year
• 10 third year
• 65.5 fourth year
• 17 fifth year up

12
Results Marketing

• How did they hear about it?
• 55 E-mail
• 45 Display at the stuff swap
• 17 word of mouth
• 6.9 ad in student paper
• 3.5 poster

13
Results Content of items

• What were they getting rid of?
• 52 Couch or sofa
• 41 desk/shelves
• 28 tables
• 17 armchairs recliners
• 14 large appliances
• 10 beds mattresses

14
Results Why?

• Why did they need the service?
• 72 no longer needed the item
• 41 had no way to transport the item
• 24 because the item was poor or garbage

15
Results - Effectiveness

• How useful was the program to students?
• 93.3 very useful
• How useful was the reminder telephone call?
• 96 very useful

16
Results Cost

• Would students be willing to pay for the service?
• 89 would pay a nominal fee (between 1-10)
• 34.5 would pay a fee of 5

17
Results Impact

• What would they have done without the program?
• 65.5 would have abandoned their items at the
  curbside!
• Complaint calls to NR went down from
  approximately 7 calls during the month to 0!

18
Excerpts from feedback

• It's a valuable program that saved a lot of
  headache for graduating students during exams.
• I was very appreciative to have my unwanted
  items taken away for free, thank you very
  much!!!
• I think this is an excellent program that
  diverts a lot of garbage from being abandoned at
  the curb. It is easy to use.
• Great idea, helpful for those of us who don't
  have transportation. keep up the good work.

19
Barriers to positive town gown relationships

• Small group discussion
• What conflicts have you come across?
• How did you work to
• overcome them, or
• what strategies can
• you think of that would
• improve the situation?

20
Compromise no ones happy?

• How can we overcome preconceived relationships?
• Imagine a community resident has contacted you
  regarding a publication sent out by the
  institution asking for support from the community
  during new student move in. The resident is
  disgruntled and expresses their opinion that
  students dont belong in the community and
  therefore shouldnt get any support.
• What are some possible underlying issues?
• How would you respond?
• What strategies would you employ in the long term?

21
Resources Links

• Town Gown Assoc. of Ontario www.tgao.ca
• Neighbourhood Relations Off-campus Housing
  www.studentlife.uoguelph.ca/neighbourhood

22
Questions?

• Lesley McRae
• Student Success Coordinator, Centennial College
• lmcrae_at_centennialcollege.ca