The relationship between universities and their host communities are ones full of complexity and myriad potential. Referred to as “Town and Gown,” the relations between the two are often explored in terms of overcoming contention or ameliorating unfulfilled potential between the two. The purpose of our study was to explore town-gown relations and the extent to which universities act as a “social anchor” within a community context. Moreover, we chose to examine the contribution of a college or university’s athletics programs upon the town-gown relationship. To do this, we explored the extent to which team identification mediated the relationship between community identity and affective commitment in a Division III athletics setting.
Method:
Subjects were obtained from five purposefully-sampled institutions and their communities from the Midwestern and Northeastern regions of the United States. These five institutions were chosen to offer a full spectrum of Division III membership. Thus, the five consist of both private and public institutions, both rural and urban locations, highly selective and less selective, plus a combination of athletically successful and considerably less success. In all, a total of 1,464 individuals were compiled for a total subject list representing all five of the chosen schools.
Analysis/Results:
Analyses suggest that the Division III athletics programs show very little social anchoring potential within their respective communities. Of the social anchor components, only overall community identity was predicted by team identity (β = .10, p < .05). Conversely, university identity showed strong potential as a social anchor – one that suggests a healthy town-gown relationship. Of the three social anchoring components, community identity displayed significant prediction of bonding social capital (β = .23, p < .001), bridging social capital (β = .36, p < .001), and community identity (β = .53, p < .001). In terms of the impact of athletics programs, results suggest that team identification partially mediated the relationship between community identity and affective commitment.
Conclusions:
This study provides insight into the existence of the town-gown relationship between Division III institutions and their surrounding communities. By comparing the affect of the town-gown relationship between students and community members, it became clear that the athletics programs did play a role in the college students identifying with their communities. Lacking the large alumni presence and budgets of many larger Division I institutions, Division III athletics may be one of the few conduits into connecting with the local community.