Confidential Discussion Draft – Not for Quotation or Attribution without Author’s Consent 1

Bridging Town and Gown: Best Practice?

Dating back to the Middle Ages, universities and cities have co-existed awkwardly.

Town-gown relations have too often been strained, sometimes by miscommunication but

even more often by conflicting agendas. A city that wants to build useful, productive

bridges to its academic community needs to understand how those agendas differ and

how they can be nudged into better alignment. The same is true for universities who wish

to truly engage with their community and to do so productively and honorably. Top-down

support is critical; the “bully pulpit” always is. However, virtually all successful

partnerings came bottom-up from empassioned faculty, city employees, even students!

(Often making a „pain‟ of themselves to their home institution.) On the other hand, the

one single overwhelming predictor of failure was an insistence on “amateur night.”

To paraphrase an old joke, town and gown are divided by a seemingly common agenda.

Cities want to perceive universities as a resource; universities perceive their host cities as

a support system for them. Yet, the potential to be realized from genuine collaboration is

enormous – everything from enhanced workforce development to job creation to terrific

student learning to… favorable attention from state legislatures. In other states we are

seeing these results and more. And the cost can be low for both sides – remarkably low.

So Why Collaborate? What are the Payoffs from True Collaboration?

Research and experience both show three potentially huge payoffs for both „town‟ and

„gown‟ – each is a key component in developing a sustainable, health community:

* Creating Innovation

* Creating Jobs

* Creating Community

The “Ivory Tower” Is Real

It‟s hard for universities to be both an elite intellectual institution and be a genuine

partner to their communities. For example, cities tend to be driven by on-the-ground

practicalities and by various political pressures. Meanwhile, universities are driven by a

mission that tends to favor theory (and are buffeted by their own political crosscurrents).

Yet, if one side does not honor, even cherish what the other is seeking, it becomes

difficult to work together.

However, it is far from impossible. While we see many pathologies, we also see many

great partnerships forged on a “bottom-up” basis by people who really bring world-class

expertise. Build on those first.

Essentially, both sides must have an obsession with finding out what each other wants

(not telling them what they should “need”). There must be an equal obsession with not

letting politics prevent either from delivering genuine value. Value propositions are from

the customers‟ perspective, not the sellers‟. Too often, cities fail the process by not seeing

the opportunities of genuine collaboration. Too often, universities fail the process by

sending „amateurs‟ – enthusiastic as they might be – instead of sending people with

actual training and experience. Please, please use the people who‟ve paid their dues.

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The Good News

“College towns” are too often dominated so much by the school that everyone loses sight

of the value provided by true partnering; Boise (and Idaho) has avoided that imbalance.

We have leadership at both BSU and the City of Boise that sees community economic

development as not just the most productive arena for true partnering, rather it is a

necessary area of collaboration. Most important, BSU has in its employ several

individuals who have the training, experience and passion to deliver value in community

development (e.g., several BSU-affiliated personnel are already active in statewide

economic development and stand ready to expanding engagement with communities.)

Some Key Principles

(1) Proactive Delivery of Genuine Value: Deliver proven value… only then get

paid: From either side, there must be an urgent need to emphasize results first. The city

may want productive results (such as an improved program or fully-functioning software)

while the university may focus instead on opportunities for faculty research publication

or simply money. This disconnect can lead to distrust and hostility, but it also offers

terrific opportunities for productive exchange. In particular, there is great potential for

supporting economic development.

However, this will require both sides – both of which tend to be highly

bureaucratic – to move visibly and willfully from what we call “product orientation” to a

“market orientation”. That is, our strategy and tactics have to focus on what delivers

genuine value to the other partner – in their eyes, not ours. While universities and their

faculty are notorious for the “trust me, I have a Ph.D.” mentality, cities can also insist that

they know what is best for universities in their midst.

(2) Understand What the Partner Truly Wants: Leadership is important, especially

to make sure that the best people are encouraged and the amateurs are discouraged. For

example, this means finding ways to prevent your best people from being too overloaded.

Leaders bring the power of the bully pulpit that is so valuable in managing change. For

example, leaders can help both the city and the university to celebrate the “small wins”

that keep us moving forward. The people who are already actively involved know what

the real wants are for their partners – so use them.

(3) Market (Customer)-Driven: Again, both partners (and representatives) must

keep in mind that the value proposition must be from the customer‟s perspective, not

their own. A recent study found the success of interdisciplinary academic centers hinged

simply on whether this was someone‟s clever “wouldn‟t it be cool” idea or something

external stakeholders were begging for (the latter is imperative).

Test: Did the partnering arise from: (a) “We have this cool idea” or (b) someone

asking “How can we help?” Universities have difficulty believing that (b) is correct.

(4) Focus on Distinctive Competence, not Core Competence: One way to address

this is also a sound principle of strategic management, that of “distinctive competence.”

Focusing on distinctive competence requires asking the question: Where are you actually

creating value (from the partner‟s perspective)? You want to assign those people and

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resources wherever they can do the most for the partner. That‟s a challenge because what

you do best (or what you most want to do) may not actually offer much benefit to the

customer-partner, but the bottom line is that “best” must be defined by the partner.

(Again, those who‟ve already been engaged with the community in positive, productive

ways are almost always delivering on distinctive competence.)

Example: I want to be the expert on Chaucer but even though I lack the expertise,

if I have the political „juice‟ I can claim that „turf‟ even when the school has genuine

experts on Chaucer. What a disservice to the community. What university would really

want to send a „wannabe‟ as its representative?

Example: A recent study assessed the key differences between successful and

unsuccessful joint centers at universities and found one specific difference. A center for

economic psychology (bringing together economists and psychologists) will succeed if

there is strong, pre-existing demand for it in the community broadly defined (demand

from the academic community is rarely sufficient). If such a center arose from a

“wouldn‟t it be cool if we…” motivation, the odds of success are slim. Again, market

orientation utterly trumps product orientation (an attitude that is very difficult for

universities to embrace at times, thus cities need to help by insisting on that market

orientation – and modeling it themselves.

This can become a huge problem if town-gown collaboration becomes highly

desirable politically. Much as the „wrong‟ people will seek to get involved if it looks like

a money-maker, we must be extra careful to get only the „right‟ people involved if there‟s

political capital to be gained.

(5) Cherish Our Differences: While there‟s an obvious trap in thinking that both

town and gown are on the same page. For example, “college towns” are too often

dominated so much by the school that everyone loses sight of the value provided by true

partnering. However, even in towns with no such domination (e.g., Boise) there is no

substitute for healthy communication about what we each really want.

(6) Beware “Charisma”: Both partners are vulnerable to glib presentations. Be

relentless is asking about formal training and hands-on experience. Also, if a university

sends someone who is a political favorite, that is always a major red flag. As one wag

put it, “better a curmudgeon than a charmer.”

(7) Avoid “Amateur Night” at All Costs: Top management must demand that the

right people are in the right spots, starting with administrators – as difficult as it is to do

in a bureaucracy, politics have to be kept out of the picture. Build on your existing

successes, not on “wannabes.” Keep asking what “dues” have they paid!

The ‘Bolivian Architecture’ Problem: For example, in the academic world,

anyone can claim they are an expert on pretty much any topic. If I assert myself to be an

expert on Bolivian architecture, how dare you constrain my academic freedom by

pointing out that I have neither skills nor experience!

(8) “Dance With The One Who Brung Ya”: Any city and university have

partnerings already underway. Identify partnerings that arose from “How can we help?”

questions. That means they‟ve identified a distinctive competence. Why? That means that

both sides have figured out what their partner genuinely wants. Build on those first.

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So How Can Cities Find the Right People for Partnering? The „Con‟ Game?

If this phenomenon can arise in esoteric fields like Chaucer, can you imagine the

problems in areas where everyone seems to have an opinion? In my own field of

entrepreneurship studies, I can attest that it drives entrepreneurs nuts to hear academics

claiming expertise, despite having neither actual entrepreneurial experience nor

professional academic training.

Fortunately, experts like the Kauffman Foundation have identified three critical

success factors in this arena. From the city‟s perspective, they must ask this of anyone

who offers to help (and definitely ask of anyone seeking resources from the city):

1) Content knowledge: Can they demonstrate expertise in the limited domain of

the project? If a city seeks IT help, shouldn‟t the help come from truly qualified

providers? This is necessary but hardly sufficient for a successful partnering.

2) Context: In the case of economic development, does the potential advisor truly

understand the „big picture‟ and what the dominant best practices are? Cities (and

universities) need to work with people who have more than narrow expertise.

Again, „amateur night‟ remains the bane of many attempted partnerships. These

partnerships are not a vehicle for on-the-job training of an expert. Especially in

economic development.

3) Conscience: Truly critical. The city must ensure that this is not some vehicle

to another end, rather the project is intrinsically important to the key people

involved. The university‟s first goal – by far- has to be delivering genuine value.

The U.S. Economic Development Administration commissioned studies to identify the

best practices in university-community partnering for community economic development.

As you will see, we are uniquely positioned to pursue all of these and each best practice

further suggests both near-term “slam dunk” (easy/cheap) options and also very

promising longer-term “big, hairy audacious opportunities (BHAO).”

Community Economic Development: The EDA‟s Six Best Practices

a) Economic Development as Core Mission

b) You Win with People

c) Partner with the Business Community

d) Encourage Technology Transfer

e) Create a Truly Entrepreneurial Ecosystem

f) Pay Attention to the State/Regional Context

The linchpin? Entrepreneurial (“21st-century”) economic development

1) Economic Development as Core Mission: Universities need to make it clear that

economic development is part of their core mission. Cities need to make sure

that the university walks the walk.

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What Can Go Wrong? Universities don‟t listen and/or cities don‟t articulate;

Universities only pay lip service to ED; universities choose to define ED in

selfish terms; “Amateur Night” – do not hire people who lack training and

experience in ED (this is NOT a time for on-the-job training, no matter how

motivated the faculty/staff people might be.) This can be disastrous where

administrators themselves are not experts and perhaps be swayed by

persuasiveness, not actual merit.

What Can Go Right? Universities need to send visible signals that they take

their ED commitments seriously; Clarity and frequency of communication are

strong; the right people are deployed. Deploy students and take advantage of

their skills and their passion!

How Cities Can Help the University: City provides opportunities for teaching

and research; unique opportunities for student learning; share city expertise

with university researchers and educators

How Universities Can Help the City: Intellectual resources deployed

responsibly; use of student projects (beyond mere „service learning‟ to actual

productive projects); Student-centric partnerships between departments and

city departments.

BHAO: Create a formal mechanism to jointly pursue ED projects and strategies –

a truly joint “town-gown” center (that‟s at arm‟s length from both). The

nascent TechConnect system could be exploited for this.

Slam Dunk Action Steps: Take advantage of existing efforts and existing entities

(e.g., TechConnect, TEAMS); for little money, create a dedicated ED project

class partnered by the city, university and the Idaho ED Association (Jeff

Jones has already volunteered to co-teach such a class with Dr. Krueger).

2) You Win with People: Universities need to grow, retain and attract the absolute

best and brightest people it can. Cities obviously share this important objective.

What Can Go Wrong? Universities fail to value the „best and brightest,‟ failing

to retain their best people; especially bad if they fail to put in charge those

people who offer significant value to the community; universities fail to get its

people (from students to staff to faculty to administrators) engaged in true

partnerships with the community. Cities can fail to demand that the

university‟s send their „best and brightest‟; likewise, cities may not send their

own „best & brightest‟.

What Can Go Right? The potential synergies of having top experts from both

town and gown can provide growth opportunities for the city that could not be

matched remotely by either acting alone. Universities are a major source of

diversity, broadly defined: Diversity in ethnicity, to be sure but also diversity

of ideas. As such, universities can increase diversity across the community.

(In the case of Boise, where ethnic diversity seems minimal, this entails

retaining minority students in the community.)

How Cities Can Help the University: Cities can make a visible, intentional

effort to retain talented individuals, whether talented technologists, artists, or

diverse populations. (This cannot devolve into a “PC”-driven strategy of

“counting coups,” rather we need to cultivate a broad sense of welcome and

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community.) Visible support from a city department for faculty and staff who

provide genuine value can encourage the university to retain and reward them.

(On the other hand, the city should not be shy about discouraging „amateurs‟

and other non-helpers.)

How Universities Can Help the City: Universities can engage the community

more enthusiastically – as a true partner (a recurring theme). As part of that,

universities can do more to engage the public in sharing the different kinds of

knowledge resident at the school (e.g., public forums that showcase the top

scientists and other researchers.) In particular, the technological contributions

are critical.

Workforce development is an area where universities can add enormous

value but “vocation” must not be a dirty word. Yes, the two-year schools are a

great asset here but four-year schools need to be onboard. Similarly, we also

must not lose sight of citizen development. Too often, universities only offer

“ideological correctness.”

BHAO: Expand existing center(s) for workforce development to integrate state,

city and university/college efforts.

Slam Dunk Action Steps: Monthly “Meet the Scientist” forums; coordinate with

the city re workforce needs; identify ways to retain the university‟s graduates.

3) Partner with the Business Community: The business community is a critical stakeholder that universities do not

always understand (and it typically has multiple communities – the

entrepreneurial community often is very different than the „old guard‟). The

city can help a university identify who the most appropriate „players‟ are. The

university has to recognize that it isn‟t „selling out‟ to work closely with them.

What Can Go Wrong? From the city‟s perspective, it‟s critical that they help

universities to maintain that customer focus (if not obsession); modeling that

behavior visibly can be effective. Modeling the opposite behavior can destroy

even the best-laid plans. The „bully pulpit‟ always seems to make a difference.

Universities still have some difficulty with the notion that the business

community may know best and even more difficulty with the notion that they

have to prove themselves. “Dues-paying” must be demanded.

What Can Go Right? Again, if universities (and cities) maintain a very strong

customer focus (and embrace it as an integral part of their culture) we can

readily see many opportunities for mutual benefit: Better-trained students who

stick around to be better-trained employees (and entrepreneurs).

How Cities Can Help the University: City can broker contacts between

university and business. City provides opportunities for teaching and research;

unique opportunities for student learning; share city expertise with university

researchers and educators. Provide public forums where town and gown can

share ideas.

How Universities Can Help the City: Universities that embrace their central role

in the economic ecosystem (see below).

BHAO: Statewide center for entrepreneurial development with state, INEEL,

city, ED entities, ISBDC and all the universities & colleges as partners. As a

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partnership, it needs engagement by as many stakeholders as possible but

autonomy from them as well.

Slam Dunk Action Steps: Support current existing efforts to create a multi-

disciplinary, multi-university course to support job-creating growth

entrepreneurship.

4) Encourage Technology Transfer:

N.B.: “Technology” is not just science and engineering, university

produces useful knowledge of all kinds. For example, however, let us

focus here on novel scientific technology. The university needs to not

undervalue its technologies nor over-value them.

What Can Go Wrong? Universities can fail to generate intellectual property at

all. They can fail to generate technology that offers any value to its consumers

or, worse, has negative externalities. Find ways to be a “pain” and “rock the

boat.” One common roadblock is political correctness that might manifest

itself in excessive concerns over conflicts of interest in scientific research.

Cities can resist university efforts to create new knowledge or attempt to

punish a university for “rocking the boat”.

What Can Go Right? Both town and gown can serve to “rock the boat” for each

other, continually challenging the other to push the envelope. A climate or

culture that is overtly and proactively friendly to innovative ideas offers value

far beyond economic returns. At the same time, though, embracing the new

need not require repudiating the past. Nonetheless, it is the rare university that

can ignore its responsibility to generate innovative knowledge.

How Cities Can Help the University: Cities can use the bully pulpit to support

the creation of new knowledge and new technologies. Sending clear,

unambiguous signals that, say, we want to see a lot more patents and

licensable technologies would encourage universities to increase support of

tech transfer. It also supports a climate or culture that cherishes innovation.

Meanwhile, cities have a natural advantage in helping assure that embracing

the new can peacefully coexist with honoring past traditions.

How Universities Can Help the City: Universities‟ core mission is to generate

and disseminate knowledge. As such, they should be a relentless engine for

innovation and innovative knowledge on all fronts. However, universities

should also have the cross-disciplinary expertise to make sure even rapid,

discontinuous change avoids unnecessary disruption of the social fabric. For

example, we often see schools that are major technology sources also offer a

multi-disciplinary program in technology studies.

BHAO: Support the State‟s formal Science & Technology Plan by expanding

tech transfer and tech commercialization; BSU & the City could create a

multidisciplinary “Technology Studies” program that would take advantage of

existing and future partnerships, especially the national lab (again, as long as

it‟s driven by competence, not politics).

Slam Dunk Action Steps: Endorse the existing TechConnect partnership as the

coordinating entity for technology development statewide; identify ways to

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support the State‟s new action plan (as developed by INEEL and

TechConnect). For both city and university, this is both free and powerful!

5) Create a Truly Entrepreneurial Ecosystem: In every booming local economy, we see a broad, rich interconnection of

stakeholders working together within a complex, dynamic economic ecosystem.

The key to a successful ecosystem is to identify each stakeholder‟s distinctive

competence. That is, where does an institution (or individual) provide the most

value. Distinctive competence is not what one does best (and is not what one

wants to do) rather it is what one does that creates the most value for the other

stakeholders. Consider the most successful such ecosystems (e.g., San Diego‟s

UCSD-Connect, Pennsylvania‟s Ben Franklin program, Ohio‟s Edison

Partnership); in each case, universities have found multiple roles in encouraging

novel economic activity (and job creation). Again, in each case, universities

have stifled petty internal politics to deploy their best and brightest, not political

favorites.

What Can Go Wrong? Turf wars have often been an issue, both on the local

level and on the regional or state level. It can be challenging to get

stakeholders to focus on where they add the most value (and cede turf where

they do not). It seems almost an inevitable consequence of bureaucracy that

holding or gaining turf becomes far more important than actually engaging in

activities that benefit the public.

What Can Go Right? However, successful „ecosystems‟ find ways to map

entrepreneurial needs onto the actual skill sets of the key stakeholders.

Redundancy turns out to be relatively benign (e.g., a Women‟s Business

Center may offer services identical to an SBDC or an SBA office but

prospective female entrepreneurs might find it less daunting.) Nonetheless, it

is imperative that key services be delivered by those who really know what

they are doing – and not by those who lack training and experience.

How Cities Can Help the University: Cities can demand that universities

involve only faculty who actually have domain-specific expertise and domain-

specific experience. A city must carefully vet all prospective faculty partners,

insisting on genuine, proven expertise and experience. At the same time, cities

need to engage the right people on their end. Even the best faculty partners are

at a severe disadvantage if working with city personnel who lack the

knowledge and/or authority to implement projects.

How Universities Can Help the City: Universities can find ways, as difficult as

it might be, to ensure that their “best and brightest” are working with the city,

not political favorites or those who seek to be involved in order to garner

money and other resources. Getting paid is certainly ok, but universities need

to send those who (a) have professional academic credentials and (b) tangible

professional experience and (c) committed passion to partners. Again,

universities need to deliver value first before seeking recompense.

BHAO: Make sure that any major center, whether entrepreneurship-themed,

technology-themed or rural-themed, be truly statewide in its ability to help

(even if located in Boise). Identify ways to get center‟s services decentralized

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even to small rural communities; identify ways to enhance formal and

informal communications across the state; extend the TEAMS project-based

model to an externship model where students work in rural areas to support

ED.

Slam Dunk Action Steps: Endorse the existing TechConnect partnership as the

coordinating entity for entrepreneurial development statewide.

6) Pay Attention to the State/Regional Context: Little of the foregoing occurs in a vacuum. Rather, both the city and the

university are irretrievably embedded in the broader context of their region

and state. Universities that productively engage local communities as true

partners will have allies before the state legislature; universities that proceed

in “business as usual” will lose that competitive edge.

What Can Go Wrong? Obviously, if either party fails to understand the broader

context in which development flourishes (or languishes), fruitful local efforts

can become problematic as our local efforts fail to connect with local efforts

elsewhere and with regional interdependencies.

What Can Go Right? However, if efforts can take advantage of regional

interdependencies, then local successes can spill over to other communities in

the region and everybody wins!

How Cities Can Help the University: The leadership of most cities are all too

aware of these interdependencies – for example, the economic and social

health of Caldwell and Nampa are hardly independent of the health of Boise.

If city leaders make it clear that “we‟re all in this together” then partnerships

can have payoffs much broader than just a local effect. It also increases the

odds that any beneficial changes will be sustainable. Cities can also demand

that job creation and tech transfer be shared across regions (e.g., not just Boise

but across the Treasure Valley and, indeed, across the state.)

How Universities Can Help the City: Similarly, universities have the ability to

assist cities in seeing the larger picture and using their own broader reach to

understand state/regional concerns that influence the city‟s concerns.

Universities are uniquely positioned to analyze these regional concerns on an

ongoing basis.

BHAO: Develop economic development as a true competency for the university

and make the city a “mecca” for ED experts; invite/recruit the leading ED

institutions to locate here. (Talk about a new wrinkle on recruitment!)

Slam Dunk Action Steps: Hold a regional conference on entrepreneurial

economic development under auspices of TechConnect, INEEL & TEAMS.

Joint hosting by the city & university would be a big splash.

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Questions for the Community to Ask the University:

1) Can you prove you are serious? Can you demonstrate a credible long-term

commitment? Not a committee or task force but sustained actual behavior?

2) Have the people deployed truly “paid their dues”?: On specific projects, are

you giving us the best possible person(s)? (Not who wants to do it, not a political

favorite, but the person(s) with the best professional credentials and the most

genuine hands-on experience…)

3) Are you willing to “bet the come”? Will you deliver results before you ask for

anything, especially money? Do you want the city to help acquire resources

before you actually do anything? As with #2, will those people who actually have

the skills and experience be the leaders – will those people who are actually

delivering value in advance – be the ones “driving the bus?”

4) Are you willing to ignore, even quash, those who seek to undermine the

partnership (e.g., for ideological reasons or for their own selfish purposes)?

5) Is this truly customer-driven? Entrepreneurs pay themselves last and so should

your university partners. Ask the people seeking to engage the community: What

are you sacrificing? What are you gaining? Most important: If there are people

better qualified than you, will you yield complete creative control -and take

orders from the experts?

Questions that the University Should Ask the Community:

1) Can you show us that your commitment will last beyond the next election?

2) Can you promise that good ideas won‟t get bogged down in bureaucratic

nonsense? (Can you demonstrate this?)

3) Will you communicate clearly and frequently what the city really needs and

wants? (Will you share minority/dissenting viewpoints?)

4) Will you communicate clearly and frequently with faculty and students who are

working on projects for/with the city?

5) Can you provide access to data, etc. for research? Will you commit to allowing

(even helping) city personnel to be co-investigators in action research and

participatory action research projects?

6) “Creative financing”? Are you willing to work to find ways to provide the

university‟s „best and brightest‟ with resources to compensate for their increased

workloads? (Would you permit city employees to teach or co-teach classes during

working hours?)