Comments

troyisgreat 477 days ago

I like this idea in relation to your original post about the city embracing the students.

As I mentioned in one of the ideas I posted, I believe RPI as a whole, should make Troy the flagship city of Tech Valley.

However, that is something that RPI must take the initiative to do.

On the other hand, I think that we as a community should think of ways in which we can draw the students into the community more, and get them involved in helping to improve the city.

We need to come up with creative ways to allow them to be involved, and then make those ways known to them.

We should be thinking about all the students, from RPI, SAGE, and Hudson Valley.

I would think there are some things in place now, maybe someone can comment?

alex 476 days ago

I think that students can be a tremendous resource, but the key thing is to actually get them to stay in Troy after they graduate. If they're just here for a few years, they won't have much interest in long-term efforts, and by the time you get them involved, they'll be leaving the following year.

At one of the early meetings for the Troy Food Co-op (http://www.troyfoodcoop.com/) there were a half-dozen people who introduced themselves as having come to Troy for school and stayed "for the people" (friends and community here). It's people like that who are getting involved in projects that contribute in a real way to the community.

Getting students involved in Troy projects can be helpful, but it should be thought of as another technique to get them to stay here after they graduate, not just as a source of transient volunteer labor.

troyisgreat 475 days ago

I agree completely Alex, you make some excellent points.

Thanks for the link to the Troy Food Co-op by the way. I had heard about it from some friends, but hadn't yet looked into it.

2ndStreet 402 days ago

As a landlord, I frequently hear that students are informed about how scary the Troy crime rate is. That may have been useful information 15 years ago, but it is bad information now. Students to who wander off the plantation to find out more about the town, are more than pleasantly surprised. As a result of their willing to take a chance on Troy, my tenants are also my good neighbors.

Who voted for this idea

Related Ideas

1. Relocate the Troy public library, RPI bookstore, and Sage bookstore to the Atrium
   
2. RPI should help make Troy the flagship city of Tech Valley!
   
3. Small Business Incubators--Low & High Tech
   
4. RPI Expansion