The Guest

Melissa Emerson is community liaison at Colorado State University's Off-Campus Student Services and the City of Fort Collins's Neighborhood Services office. Ms. Emerson's post at Colorado State, which is jointly financed by the university and the city, was created in 2001. Last year Colorado State and Fort Collins sponsored a Best Practices in Building University/City Relations conference. Since then the university has started an online Town & Gown Network, designed to give college and city officials a way to keep sharing information about how to improve town-gown relations in their respective communities. The second annual Best Practices conference, with about 120 people in attendance, was held in June and sponsored by the University of Florida, Santa Fe Community College (Fla.), and the City of Gainesville, Fla. She will respond to questions and comments about these issues on Thursday, September 6, at 12 noon, U.S. Eastern time. Readers are welcome to post questions and comments now.