Let's keep thinking about Muncie. In particular, let's consider Ball State University and its relationship with the city.
The first question to think about is relatively innocuous: what exactly do we mean when we say Ball State and Muncie have a "relationship"? It's not uncommon to use the term to refer to some sort of connection between two super-human entities, but the precise meaning is not clear.
Hammering out a precise definition of a general relationship is quite tricky, so let's try to get some idea of what being in a relationship does by drawing an analogy with romantic, interpersonal relationships.
What happens when a man and a woman begin to date? When the relationship becomes more than casual, the man and woman cease to be only interacting individuals and create a new social unit: the couple. It consists of the man and woman acting together.
Marriage illustrates this idea a bit further.
In our culture, marriage is recognized as the formal joining of two lives to create one. As a consequence of this formalization, a spouse recognizes responsibilities not only to the other spouse, but also to the marriage. It is convenient to treat the marriage itself as a third entity, in a sort of weird recursive way.
As an example, a wise man once gave this bit of relationship advice: if you're having marital difficulties, pull three chairs together and sit down you, your wife, and your marriage to talk it out.
Ultimately, when two people form a relationship, they create a super-human entity of which they are members and toward which they owe duties in order to keep it alive.
This goes not only for dating relationships and marriage relationships, but also for friendships (How many of us have had a friendship cool down and slip away because we did not communicate?) and even for the relationships we have with every other stranger, characterized by the expectations and standards of our culture.
What does this have to do with Muncie and Ball State?
Just this: like individual humans, it is possible for other social units to have relationships.
As a consequence, Ball State and Muncie have an informal relationship characterized by the give-and-take of living in the same community, just as you and I, reader, have a relationship characterized by our common citizenship.
Ball State brings students (and their money) to Muncie, employs Muncie residents, and invests, to some extent, in Muncie's infrastructure. Muncie, meanwhile, provides the civic services Ball State needs, gives Ball State employees, and surrounds the campus with businesses and other opportunities for students.
And yet, there's quite considerable animosity between Muncie and Ball State. Students tend to dismiss Muncie as a hick town with no opportunities where they are stuck for four years before they can move to a city. Muncie residents look down on Ball State as the temporary home of lazy, good-for-nothing drunks.
It's about time Muncie and Ball State got over their mutual disregard.
Expecting an immediate change in their cultures is obviously a pipe dream, but is it too much to ask for the city and the university to recognize at an institutional level their relationship and the responsibilities it entails?
Only then can the two begin to really work together, in spite of dissension, to make Muncie a place where students want to stay and Ball State a place where Muncie's leaders are educated.
Write to Neal at necolman@bsu.edu
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