Community Development Model
1. Get familiar with every resident: this will be largely a function of meaningful early interaction and persistent efforts through the boundaries that will naturally emerge as people settle in and the year comes underway.
2. Create meaningful opportunities for residents to get to know each other: depending on the interests and concerns of the community, the form of group events this could take might depend a lot. The key will be generating enough enthusiasm to get people to actually come.
3. Meet the community’s unique needs: as long as I’m still in North Quad with returnees, getting a gauge early on the interests and needs of the group & a quick understanding of what resources might be available to facilitate matching events and experiences will be valuable.
4. Developing experiences that match the community: a bit echo-y, but a matter of gauging those needs early on and getting a lead on making the community feel like there’s something to be gained by participating.
5. Guide the community to a sense of ownership: depending on what style of floor I end up with, it could be a fairly closed-off environment, and drawing people out of that both in terms of interaction and in terms of realizing the coexistent nature of the community.
6. Avoid feelings of closed-offness among the community; engage people in each other and facilitate meaningful interaction: again depending on exact circumstances, this could look like a lot of things, but establishing the value community to as much of the group as is reachable from the beginning will be essential.