THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, May 16, 1996 TAG: 9605160399
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B2 EDITION: FINAL
SERIES: BY THE PEOPLE
An occasional series on citizens taking steps to build better
communities.
SOURCE: BY MIKE KNEPLER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Short : 45 lines
The Virginia Beach Neighborhood Institute is modeled somewhat after the Hampton Neighborhood College, which began in the spring of 1995.
Besides neighborhood activists, students in the Hampton program include an assistant city manager and representatives of businesses and nonprofit agencies.
Guest instructors include Hampton Commonwealth's Attorney Linda Curtis, who talks about the criminal justice system, and a Hampton University architecture professor, Ron Kloster, who discusses the relationship between a neighborhood's design and its social issues.
The Hampton program also has expanded to include a ``Youth School,'' attended by eight teenagers and four adults working together to improve their neighborhoods.
Joan Kennedy, director of Hampton's Department of Neighborhood Services, said the city hopes to add a course to help neighborhoods start and maintain nonprofit community development corporations.
Her department, Kennedy said, also hopes to work with Virginia Beach and other cities to launch an area neighborhood college for advanced or specialized courses, such as working on issues such as regionalism.
Others who have endorsed creation of more neighborhood leadership training programs include: Gene Waters, chairman of the Hampton Roads Coalition of Civic Organizations; and Jackson Pope, chairman of the Healthy Community Cluster of the regional Plan 2007, which promotes better economic development activities. MEMO: [For a related story, see page B1 of The Virginian-Pilot for this
date.]
KEYWORDS: PUBLIC JOURNALISM COMMUNITY CONVERSATION by CNB