Frostburgs Fight For a Better Community

On Thursday November 1^st at 5:30pm, the Frostburg community and Frostburg students and faculty members came together for the second dialogue session of the 'Sustaining Campus Community Dialogue Series'. This forum allowed the Frostburg community, local government, and students on campus to come together in order to discuss issues that concern the Frostburg area. Dr. Elesha Ruminski, Chair and Associate Professor of Communication Studies, and alternative dispute resolution experts Drs. Marvin Johnson and Frank Dukes came together to establish this forum in order for people to discuss and develop action plans to make a change in the Frostburg community. It is a series of sessions and meeting that have occurred over the last 3 months and part of the previous spring semester in order to “keep the conversation going about constructive community initiatives and coalition building, with the aim of strengthening long-term and short-term resident relationships” (Department of Communication Studies).

The event occurred at the Frostburg Community Center, where Frostburg holds their monthly townhall meeting. There were six tables set up labeled with different topics: Off Campus Student Housing, Pride in Western Maryland, Pride in FSU and Frostburg, Managing Conflict and Preventing Violence, Race Relations in Western Md, and Building Relationships (Campus/Community). Frostburg residents, students and faculty were prompted to sit at any table that held any special interest to them. One topic that stood out was Pride in FSU and Frostburg. This group sat down and discussed the lack of pride and appreciation for the University in the Frostburg community. John Kirby, Frostburg's City Administrator, stated that 'the pride in the school is seriously lacking,” and that “driving down mainstreet you would have no idea that there was a university a few blocks over.” Over the last couple of years, Frostburg has aquired a bad rep due to the unfortunate deaths and the infamous 'party school' label. Doug Baer, Director of the Office of Leadership &Experiential Leaning, also stated that “the high school gets more attention than the university and that is just sad.” These men and women felt that in order for Frostburg to get back on stable footing, there needed to be a sense of unity between the community and the University.

Each group created an action plan and established committees in order to begin making a change in Frostburg. A few simple ideas that they thought of to show community pride were things like painting paw prints on the road leading into the Frostburg campus off of the highway, added FSU oriented decorations, and more distinct signs on the highway announcing Frostburg. Junior Alex Ziska brought up an interesting idea to get the Frostburg community and students involved: “We can pair with UPC and host an art contest for a personalized and completely unique flag or sign that cane be mass produced and placed around Frostburg.” This group thought of dozens of ideas and toward the end of the forum, each group gathered their ideas and presented it to the room with their action plan. This group plans on meeting again over the course of the next year, and they plan on making a difference in the community no matter what.

Dialogue Series Webpage