PROVIDING PUBLIC
SERVICE6.
1 October 1975 The first of a series of three "town meetings" on growth in the Perkiomen Valley area took place. Project director was assistant professor of history MARVIN E. REED. A $6,000 grant from the Public Committee for the Humanities in Pennsylvania funded the series in part. Reed planned the program in cooperation with representatives of local governments, civic and social organizations. Still rural in tone and infrastructure, the Perkiomen Valley was anticipating the impact that would come when highways and residential and corporate development moved westward from King of Prussia. It addressed these essential questions: (1) Will the quality of life decline in the region and the nation in the years ahead? (2) What are the decisions ahead for the Lower Perkiomen Valley--as we ourselves see them? The well-known urban planning expert Edmund Bacon of Philadelphia keynoted the town meetings. He planned the Penn Center complex that rejuvenated center city Philadelphia. Bacon discussed the impact of urbanization on the sense of community, on transportation systems, and on the policy-making process.
Other professional voices heard at the broad-based meetings were those of E. Digby Baltzell, professor of sociology at the University of Pennsylvania; Michael P. Conzen, assistant professor of geography at Boston University; and Robert Marler, director of the American Studies Program at Temple University.
From the standpoint of Ursinus, the impending development of the region would have both a negative and a positive effect in the years following the 1970-1976 period.
Threats to the security of students and college property would lead to a growing security staff and formal procedures unheard of in the bucolic past, when the eyes and ears of the campus community sufficed to maintain a safe place. Traffic in the area, especially on Main Street, would increase. Flashing caution signs and students standing in the middle of the street, waiting to leap frog the second lane of traffic to get onto the main campus from the residential village, would become commonplaces. Relations between the college staff and the growing police force in Collegeville would become more regularized, in need of constant tending to keep good will between town and gown.
On the positive side, the emergence of the Perkiomen Valley as a growth area would allow Ursinus to shed its image as a "country college." It would be able to capitalize on its easy access to the historical and cultural resources of Philadelphia. With the building nearby of shopping malls, the Route 422 bypass, and sprawling corporate campuses, the college would gain a familiar look for students and their parents from the mid-Atlantic megalopolis. Ursinus leaders would take active roles in the life of the region.
The awesome twin cooling towers of the Limerick nuclear generating station of PECO would hover on the horizon as visitors to campus coming from King of Prussia approached the exit lane to Route 29 marked "Collegeville-Phoenixville." These totemic towers would give pause to some. At the same time, they would come to symbolize the important role of the Perkiomen Valley in the development of Pennsylvania and the whole mid-Atlantic region.
Whatever the effect of regional development on the college, its officials would remain actively involved in the process.
BACK TO TOP, "PROVIDING PUBLIC SERVICE"
BACK TO CONTENTS PAGE, PART ONE, A CHRONICLE OF SELECTED EVENTS