Colleges, in other words, are encountering heightened expectations for what they do, says Geoffrey S.

Many, including Ball State, have ramped up their community projects at lawmakers’ behest. Keep professors happy with prestigious research opportunities. Ball State hopes that boosting Muncie’s schools can both help fulfill its public mission and shore up a city whose reputation, fairly or not, keeps some employees and students away.Īs public colleges face mounting skepticism and wavering enrollments, they’ve sought to please many constituencies at once: Serve their communities. What has followed is a town-gown experiment of grand scale. The university replaced the five-member elected school board with seven of its own appointees, who took charge on July 1. In May 2018, it passed a controversial and unusual law that handed control over to Ball State. In 2017, in the face of immense financial strain, the state put the school district under emergency management. Muncie’s schools, meanwhile, were shedding money and students. Instead, he and his wife chose to live an hour’s drive from campus in Carmel, an affluent suburb north of Indianapolis with highly ranked schools. Ayalon, who later became chair of the faculty council, had always imagined a job where he could bike to his office in a few minutes. He was less thrilled about moving to Muncie, Ind. Though it wasn’t a wealthy institution, the college provided a supportive culture and the chance to teach students of modest means. Yaron Ayalon, a historian, was thrilled when Ball State University offered him a tenure-track job in 2013. Alex Williamson for The Chronicle original photos from Ball State U.

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