Dan Canan is in the middle of his 10th year serving as Muncie mayor and continues to bridge the gap between the Muncie community and Ball State University.
Canan is the first Muncie mayor to serve three consecutive four-year terms, making him the longest serving mayor. He took time this summer for this face to face.
How would you describe the cities relationship with Ball State?
There's three levels of the relationship: the first one being the administration, the second one being the faculty and the third one being the students.
Taking them in that order, I think our relationship with the administration is strong. Dr. Gora, in my opinion, has been a strong advocate for university-community relations and she's very good at that.
In the case of the faculty the relationship's always been good. A lot Ball State faculty serve on different boards or commissions or special projects that are going on in the city. Since I've been mayor, and I'm sure it's lasted a long time before that, we've had a very good relationship with the faculty and the faculty is very giving to the community.
The hardest one is of course the students because they're here for shorter periods of time and even if they might live here for the four years, I think many of them consider themselves disconnected from the community. That's a little tougher and that's why we put together the [Mayor's] Commission. It is a gap that we want to do the best we can to bridge.
What does the city offer Ball State students?
The basics are obviously there, the places that they shop. But I think in addition to that our downtown is one place we tried to consider what the Ball State students want. One of the concerns I hear, and have always heard, is there's nothing to do in Muncie, so activities in our downtown area that have the Ball State students in mind is something very important, something we try to do.
Working with landlords, working with residents in neighborhoods around Ball State is another area that we're working hard with the Student Government Association trying to affect some change.
What do Ball State students offer the city?
I think they offer a lot, obviously they offer a lot of money when they're in town because they spent a lot of money in our community and we certainly appreciate that.
I think beyond that a lot of Ball State students do do a lot of volunteer work, whether it's at [Motivate Our Minds], the Boys and Girls Club, the community centers. They volunteer with special projects like clean-ups in the city. So there's a lot of things Ball State students do.
We've had a lot of class projects that have been initiated by professors. Some of the architecture classes have taken on projects which has allowed us to improve the city. The last one we did was a south side initiative.
This is your third term, how have you seen Muncie grow?
I've seen it grow in the development of our downtown area. Certainly the campus has changed quite a bit in 10 years, the biggest change is going on right now with the McKinley Avenue improvements.
But probably the biggest change has been a negative change, which has been the loss of manufacturing and the changing of the economy throughout the midwest.
What are you doing to develop the economic system?
The city and county have an economic development group, which really works out of the Chamber of Commerce, and their full time responsibility is working on economic development projects for our community. It is a tough tough business, probably every town of any size has a group similar to what we have, all going after those larger facilities. You have to keep casting your reel out and trying to catch something.
What else would you like to accomplish in the remainder of your term?
I think the number one goal is going back to jobs again. I would love to have a community in which everybody that wanted a decent paying job had the ability to acquire that job. And by a decent paying job I mean a job that allows them to own a home, have a vehicle and enjoy all the benefits that go along with that.
I think every mayors goal is to have an adequate number of decent paying jobs in your community that allow your residents to have a respectful lifestyle.
Do you feel a special connection to Ball State students, since your a graduate of the university?
I think because I am a graduate and also I've been in Muncie, I was born here, so I've been here all of my 51 years so far. So I would say yes I do feel closest to Ball State.
What are some of Muncie's best kept secrets?
I keep going back to the downtown, but there's a lot of things that go on downtown. There's the Friday Night Movies that go on downtown, we've got the end of summer jam coming up. Lynard Skynard is coming, that will bring a lot of people to our downtown.
The unique restaurants that are in the downtown area and also the south side of town. When you're on McGalliard, the majority of those are chain restaurants, you can go to the majority of those restaurants in any town that your in. But if you go to the south side of town you'll find places like Charles Street Cafe, MAC's Restaurant on the south side of town. Just a lot of unique areas, Gibson Skating rink, those are areas that haven't changed as much through the years as the north and west side of town has.
Ball State students tend to be disconnected and some even tend to have a negative feelings toward Muncie, how do you handle that?
Well, I don't have the answer to that, I mean I don't have it totally. If I did I could probably sell it to every community that had a college in it. But I think one of our responsibilities is to do the best we can to improve communications and make the students feel like the community cares about them and their voice is important.
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