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Lafayette’s Technology Clinic is focusing on the revival of downtown Easton during this yearlong project cycle and is making valuable contributions to efforts such as the Main Street Program and improving campus and community relations.
The team will give its mid project presentation “The Main Street Program: Exploring Ways to Revitalize Downtown Easton,” 4:30 p.m. May 8 in Van Wickle Hall room 108.
The Main Street Program is a state sponsored initiative to revitalize the downtowns of Pennsylvania. To aid in its progress, the Tech Clinic proposed the creation of an online real estate inventory to highlight spaces available for rent to developers and to identify the merchants currently located downtown. It is also considering a map fashioned much like the campus map to better inform students and visitors of merchant locations.
Additional suggestions to enhance the comfort and aesthetics of the town were to utilize the Ambassador Program and the Artist-in-the-Window Program. Employees of the Ambassador Program would provide a friendly, helpful presence to visitors in the city. Through the Artist-in-the-Window Program, emerging artists temporarily rent vacant storefronts as studios.
Students enrolled in the Tech Clinic course are mathematics majors Tom Harju ’07 (Richardson, Tex.) and George Armah ’08 (Accra, Ghana), Marquis Scholar and biology major Danielle Koupf ’08 (Randolph, N.J.), English major Karen Ruggles ’08 (Easton, Pa.), and Lauren Menges ’08, (Vestal, N.Y.). The facilitators are Larry Malinconico, associate professor of geology and environmental geosciences, and Dan Bauer, professor of anthropology and sociology. Richard McAteer, vice president of the Easton Heritage Alliance board of directors, serves as the city liaison.
Team members are also concerned with building bridges between the campus community and the downtown area. They conducted informal interviews with students to gauge their interest in downtown and identify which businesses attract them.
In order to increase interest in downtown, the clinic hopes to create a coupon booklet and distribute them to students this fall. Another consideration is a first-year orientation event that allows new students to explore Easton as part the program.
“This experience has been extremely rewarding so far in many ways,” says Koupf. “It has improved my ability to work in a team and has taught me how successful a team can be when students of different academic backgrounds and modes of thought work together. I have also learned the importance of giving back to the local community. This project has definitely opened my eyes to all that Easton has to offer including many attractions and merchants that are largely under appreciated by the student body.”
“Personally, I think this is a wonderful opportunity to do something other than the usual classroom learning experience,” says Armah. “It’s possibly one of the best preparations for the real world that Lafayette has to offer and I’m honored to be a part of it.”
Recent Technology Clinic projects have resulted in a walking DVD tour of Hugh Moore Park in Easton, plans to revive the Easton and Phillipsburg riverfront area, recommendations for improving traffic on Cattell Street, and ideas for developing the North 3rd Street corridor at the foot of College Hill in Easton. Other projects include an automobile tour on CD to boost tourism and local awareness of historical assets in Nazareth and its surrounding rural municipalities, a self-guided tour and other enhancements at Bachmann Publick House in downtown Easton, and improvements in the experiences of patients at the offices of doctors within Lehigh Valley Hospital Physicians Group.