The ITGA is seeking interactive and innovative proposals for the ITGA City & University Relations Conference, hosted by the Borough of State College and The Pennsylvania State University, May 19-22. Conference tracks include: Fabulous Flops: Sharing lessons learned when those innovations go wrong and adaptive strategies used to find success; Fraternity and Sorority Life-It's Complicated: Current trends, community effects and unintended impacts of fraternity and sorority life reform; Telling Your Own Story When You Hit the National News: Public safety, emergency management and public relations in the era of social media; Dissecting the Impacts of Alcohol and Other Drugs in our Communities: Strategies for harm reduction and negative community impacts. To see the full conference tracks and submission details, click here. To register at the early bird rate, click here. Visit www.itga.org for more information.

Last week, the Michigan State University Board of Trustees authorized the negotiation of a comprehensive public-private partnership (P3) agreement with the winning proposer for a planned expansion of the university's health and research facilities at the Grand Rapids campus. The decision marks one of the many recent success stories for higher-education P3s. We previously wrote about a recent judicial decision that facilitates P3s for student housing, and a P3 for off-campus student housing at Florida International University. This is consistent with a larger, national trend towards P3s for student housing. The University of California, Merced P3 is one of the best known examples-when UC Merced planned for a doubling of its student body in less than 10 years, it utilized a 1.3B P3 to comprehensively expand its campus. The National Law Review

The term "studentification" coined by the academic Darren Smith in 2002, refers to the impact student bodies have on the cities around them. For all the vibrancy a large influx brings to a local culture and economy, the indirect consequences can be profound: family homes make way for buy-to-let HMOs, bars and fast food outlets replace primary schools, and "street blight" takes hold as properties lie unkempt and deserted outside of term-time. Councils including Oxford, Birmingham and Leeds have acted to restrict HMOs, as have Nottingham and Bristol, both of which are planning more purpose-built student accommodation. Another method is to foster community cohesion. Nottingham University runs a Hello Neighbor campaign. In fact, the ITGA now has a UK arm, which last week held its biennial conference at Queen's University Belfast. The Guardian

There are several municipal departments throughout the country that accept college student volunteers, but Engine -3 Company, or E-3, stands out as an independent program. It averages 30 members divided into five squads and has its own officers, pump operators (drivers) and its own engine. Six of those members, usually the most senior, live at the North Station throughout the school year. To join, applicants must maintain a 2.5 GPA, be physically fit and have at least two years of college remaining. Training is a big investment of time, and the department would like to make the investment last. Engine-3 responds to every weeknight and weekend call to the UMass campus but also provides back-up to many other fire and medical calls in town. The Daily Hampshire Gazette

In the spring of 2014, the Office of Economic Development convened internal stakeholders at WSU around the idea of placemaking on campus. The steering committee that formed had conversations about how other cities and campuses have tested out "quick, light cheap" placemaking concepts. An initial strategy to meet these goals emerged from a Student Senate query: where could students eat? Upon researching area restaurants, Jeri Stroupe, Senior Project Administer, OED, and her team discovered an abundance of choices within one-and-a-half miles of campus. The placemaking committee decided to concentrate most signs on campus, pointing off campus to nearby amenities. The response of the signs has been largely positive. WSU Office of Economic Development