Stan State business students Nate Straubinger and Logan Martinez have Town and Gown dreams — visions of aligning Stan State students more closely with Turlock’s business community.
Their plan to further bridge the gap between Stan State students and Turlock’s businesses was the recipient of the second annual Mayor’s Award for Public Policy Research, a contest established and overseen by Turlock Mayor Gary Soiseth.
"Their proposal was well thought-out and will address a longstanding concern — bridging the wider Turlock community with our college students, specifically working with local businesses to increase the number of students that patron our local and small businesses,” Soiseth said.
Straubinger and Martinez will be using their $3,000 award to market Turlock businesses to Stan State students, largely through the use of websites and social media.
“We would like to dive deeper into the issues … because we have an extremely disconnected college campus and downtown area,” Straubinger and Martinez wrote in their proposal. “Students simply don’t know what is being offered or where to look. When we achieve our goal, we will be stimulating local businesses, growing our downtown area and showing Stan State students what’s in their own backyard.”
The proposal calls for revamping the student website, creating social media channels for the purpose of marketing Downtown Turlock to students, enhancing existing relationships with local businesses, creating on-campus presences for local businesses and conducting surveys to gain information about the types of products and services in which students would be interested.
The inaugural Mayor’s Award was claimed by political science major Josephine Hazelton. Her project “Catching the Bus: Public Transportation in Turlock” aimed to improve access to municipal bus service for the community.
Mayor Soiseth is looking for applications for his third award, a proposal to bring public outdoor murals to Turlock.