International Town & Gown Association 
College Town Newsletter

January 26, 2017
Welcome to Dateline, a weekly newsletter
highlighting college town news around the world
In This Issue
Queen's, McMaster Move to Bolster Collaboration with City Governments 
Academia Group, by Staff Writers
Two Ontario universities are working to bolster collab-oration with the cities in which they are based. Queen's University and the City of Kingston City Council have reportedly created an MOU that will be put to Kingston City Council for their consideration. The agreement would see Queen's and Kingston work closely together to pursue opportunities in innovation,economic develop-ment, and the retention of more young people within Kingston. In Hamilton, McMaster University is working with the Xperience Annex program, an ini-tiative delivered with funding from the Local Proverty Reduction Fund, to help Hamilton youth between the ages of 18-29 with basic needs, employ-ment and education. The peer supporters work one-on-one with other Hamilton youth to help them navigate these opportunities, including oppor-tunities to pursue post-secondary education.  
NSCAD University Students Designing Greeting Cards for Inmates
CBCNews, by Paul Palmeter
Students at NSCAD University in Halifax have made dozens of greeting cards designed specifically for people in prison as part of a class project. "It's something very different from what they normally do," said professor May Chung. "This is a project about a need in society and designers can do things that can help bring about change in society." Chung and El Jones, Halifax's former poet laureate, have led the project. While Chung worked mostly on the de-sign side, Jones was responsible for getting quotes from family members of people who are incarcerated for the text on the cards.  Now that the cards have been designed, the hope is to get orders from companies that may be interested in purchasing large quantities of them. Jones said some orders have already been placed. She said if the cards are produced, all proceeds from the sales would go to programs for people in prison. 
Student Senate Aims to ease Off-Campus Housing Woes
Town-Gown Nation News
Minnesota Daily, by David Clarey
Efforts from the University Student Senate are easing the off-campus housing search for students. The task-force is pushing to revamp an often-unused University off-campus housing service by including landlord re-views. "I think the whole point is to reevaluate the resource for students with finding off-campus housing as new buildings and new places to live continue to pop up," said Henry Zurn, a senior who is working on the efforts. He pointed to the light rail, which allows students to live further from campus, and the growing volume of new apartments and landlords as factors that have made selecting housing more difficult. Currently, the Office of Housing and Residential Life has a listing service that lets students search for off-campus housing, but the  website does not have tenant feedback. He said the new service would include an option for previous tenants to leave feedback. 
Ga. College Security Initiative Protects Campus, City
Campus Safety Magazine, by Staff Writers
The college's security program in Savannah, G.A. aims to protect students by helping keep the city safe as well as the campus. The Savannah College of Art and Design launched a Community Patrol Officer initiative Jan. 4 to create a safer community, according to Savannah Now. "SACD is intertwined with the city," SCAD Vice President for University Safety John Bukovich says. "We have dorms and buildings all over the city. If we are able to make our campus safer, than we make Savannah safer." The school's campus includes resi-dence halls and buildings spread across Savannah's downtown and midtown areas. The community policing program involves officers conducting night-time patrols of the city in marked cars. The program also includes a student escort service, which allows students to request rides from SCAD buildings back to there homes in different areas of the city.  
Identifying, Treating Student Depression Through Mobile Devices
Academia Group, by Staff Writers
Mobile technology offers postsecondary institutions an unprecedented ability to scale their mental health supports for students, write Mi Zang, David Mohr, and Jingo Meng for The Conversation. The US-based re-searchers discuss how a new mobile phone technology is providing students with the ability to measure their wellbeing in real time by tracking their location, social activity, interaction with their phone, and exposure to ambient light. But perhaps an even greater feature, the authors add, is the technology's ability to send students targeted support messages when the software identifies certain patterns of depressive behaviour. The authors conclude that "by finding ways the many sensors on smartphones and smart watches can shed light on people's daily lives and habits, we can help college students stay healthier and reduce the workload on overtaxed professionals..."    
Mayor Emanuel and President Schapiro
Highlight Opening of New Site for Northwestern Academy
Northwestern, by Staff Writers
Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Northwestern University President Morton Schapiro Sunday attended the grand opening of a new state-of-the-art center to house the Northwestern Academy,  a program to support Chicago Public School students in preparing fro success at com-petitive colleges and universities. They were joined by students enrolled in the Northwestern Academy and their parents. The Academy will graduate its inaugural cohort of seniors this spring. "I want to thank Northwestern for this effort. What they're doing is leveling the playing field, so no student's experiences, opportunities and dreams are limited by their background, their zip code or their family's background," said Mayor Emanuel. The newly rehabbed center provides classrooms designed to foster collaboration between students, North-western teachers and staff, as well as families. 
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