At a glance
1. Provide child care service.

2. Outreach to elementary schools (outreach to middle schools is too late).

3. Take steps to make it appealing for Ball State graduates to remain in Muncie.

4. Provide job-training mentoring to adults to help fill numerous local job openings.

5. Support early-childhood education initiatives like the BY5 kindergarten-readiness effort.

6. Help make neighborhoods attractive places to live.

7. Incentivize BSU faculty/staff to live where they work rather than in Fishers, Noblesville, Carmel, etc.

8. Connect Ball State students with middle school students.

9.  Communicate college financial aid programs to high schoolers.

10. Continue dialogue between town and gown at forums and events like the one Monday night  and the recent Community Campus Experience day on campus.

11. Offer free Ball State education for Central High School graduates.

12. Provide more wellness programs for the community.

13. Expand the "BSU Buddies" program.

14. Increase Ball State faculty, student and staff awareness of south Muncie.

Monday night's event was part of Ball State's strategic planning process. It's not too late to share your big ideas. Take the university's "Spreading Our Wings" community survey at https://cms.bsu.edu/about/strategic-plan.
MUNCIE — Ball State University officials on Monday night asked more than 100 community members what the institution could do to help Muncie.

But first, President Geoffrey S. Mearns reminded the audience at the Horizon Convention Center that BSU commands "a small army of volunteers." 

More than 3,000 students volunteered at 130 or so local agencies in 2016-17, providing 57,762 hours of labor. And 45 Ball State departments engaged in community outreach and engagement projects.

Mearns also spoke about Muncie's biggest problems: very high rates of poverty and drug addiction. Overdose ambulance runs and deaths are up. One in four babies born at IU Health Ball Memorial Hospital have been exposed to narcotics. Seventeen percent of the population is food insecure. And too many kids are not kindergarten ready or proficient at reading by third grade, an indicator they will eventually drop out of school.

Sue Hodges Moore, who was hired as Ball State's first chief strategy officer in March, then asked the crowd to "help us think big picture." What programs, initiatives or partnerships should the university undertake? Which current programs should be strengthened or expanded?
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