As a regional specialist for the National League of Cities working closely with our University Communities Council (UCC), one thing I’ve recognized is that University communities are navigating similar crossroads: how to balance a thriving campus with a healthy surrounding civic life. This summer, UCC leadership got a firsthand look at how one city is charting that course. Leaders traveled to Louisville, Ky. and spent a day exploring the University of Louisville’s (UofL) campus, programs and partnerships through the lens of local government. What we discovered were a few new insights and bearings worth sharing.
The morning kicked off with breakfast and a conversation inside UofL’s newest building, the state-of-the-art J.B. Speed School of Engineering. Admissions staff shared the university’s story, walking us through its history, from the past to the present. UofL was founded in 1798 as the nation’s first municipal university, giving it a unique civic identity that’s still woven into its operations today. The university grew with the city and offers educational tracks that cater to both traditional and non-traditional students.
One highlight is UofL’s Metropolitan College UPS program, a partnership with UPS, Jefferson Community & Technical College, the Commonwealth of Kentucky and Louisville Metro Government that allows students to work overnight shifts at UPS’s Worldport hub in exchange for full in-state tuition, fees and bonuses. This model has helped more than 22,000 students graduate debt-free since its launch and is a compelling case study of how a university, a private employer and local government can partner to solve workforce, education and affordability problems at the same time.
The conversation then turned to a topic that will feel very familiar to anyone working in a college town: accessory dwelling units (ADUs) and how student housing patterns ripple through the broader community, impacting affordability and quality of life for the neighbors around campus. It’s a challenge many members of university communities wrestle with daily.
After comparing the similarities and differences between their home university communities and Louisville, the group loaded into a golf cart for a student-led tour of the Belknap Campus, all filtered through five lenses that anchor the UCC’s work:
- Community Engagement
- Housing Development, Zoning, & Planning
- Education & Workforce Development
- Economic Development
- Transportation & Infrastructure
The tour covered nearly the entire academic campus, with a few stops that stood out:
- Grawemeyer Hall: home to Rodin’s The Thinker. Tradition holds that rubbing the statue’s toes brings 24 hours of good luck, and the group didn’t pass up that opportunity.
- The Louis D. Brandeis School of Law: leaders learned about the school’s legal history and visited the Breit Courtroom, a fully functioning courtroom that earlier this year hosted oral arguments for the Kentucky Supreme Court while its Frankfort courtroom was under renovation.
- Ekstrom Library: with distinct loud and quiet study floors, a small detail that says a lot about how the campus prioritizes the student experience.
- Business and Public Administration Building: included a drive-by of the Speed Art Museum, rounding out the mix of academic and cultural landmarks.
- Conversations with Cardinal Guides along the way, who shared candid, first-person takes on what it’s like to be a student at UofL.
- A stop by the Baptist Student Center, which sparked a discussion about the role religious life plays in campus culture.
The group also received a brief glimpse of several other corners of campus, picking up trivia along the way, including that UofL has been recognized for over a decade as a Tree Campus by the Arbor Day Foundation, with more than 2,000 trees across 130+ species shading its 309-acre footprint.
See What UCC Leadership Can Unlock
Opportunities like this are just one of the benefits of leading a member council or showing interest in taking on a leadership role. These exclusive experiences give council leaders a chance to learn from one another, explore new ideas and bring those insights back to their communities to continue driving impact. If this is the kind of experience you want to be part of, now is the time to act. Applications to lead UCC or other NLC member councils are open through Sept. 28.
Apply to lead and see where your NLC leadership experience can take you.
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