UNDER ONE ROOF...

DECEMBER 7, 2017

A CAMPAIGN PROPOSAL TO THE AUBURN STUDENT GOVERNMENT

ASSOCIATION.

PREPARED BY SARAH BETH MULLINS

              Imagine Auburn Alabama, a city with a population of 63,000 missing 30,000

people of its population. Imagine the damage it does to the local economy. Imagine

the damage it does to the local atmosphere. This is the reality of Auburn without its

30,000 college students. Students who pour in work and effort and love the city

and take care of it the best college students can. The students of Auburn University

have maintained a well-kept reputation, not a lot of noise complaints, not marked

as a party school, and are considered a family friendly environment, because this is

Auburn, this is the Auburn family.

              The Auburn Student body has recently been introduced to a wall of

separation from the city that has not been felt before. The Auburn student body is

privileged to live in a town with many various housing options, and one of the

cheapest and favorites of many students is to live in local houses with three to four

roommates, however in late September multiple homes receiving knocks on their

door around 6 a.m. regarding them being in violation of a city ordinance that was

something most Auburn students had no idea existed.

               This ordinance prohibits more than two unrelated people from living

together on certain streets and places in the Auburn area. It was put into effect in

1982, and was made to maintain the character and family-friendly atmosphere of

the city's older and more residential neighborhoods by prohibiting three or more

unrelated people from living together including students who might rent a house

for school (Brownlee, 2017). The Auburn Student Government Association President

Jacqueline Keck has already reached out to the city council to encourage them to

extend the deadlines for current residents effected by the evictions, but the city

council has refused to budge on this issue.

Background

              I am proposing that the Student Government Association set up an entire

campaign dedicated to having the ordinance changed or entirely removed. This

campaign is crucial to the Student Government Association because they are the

student link between the student body and the local city and Auburn administrative

team. The University has the chance to help future students from being affected by

this ordinance, even though the only law they are not obliging by is that they share

the same address as their friends. While the Student Government Association has

been trying to work with the local government they have not made headway in

favor of the student body, so by implementing a city and campus wide campaign to

have the ordinance altered or removed entirely, students can have their voice heard

and make a significant change. 

Background continued . . .

               To best conduct research on this local issue, my first choice was to conduct

with various students impacted by the ordinance, as well as conduct an interview

with Auburn’s student government president Jacqueline Keck. With these

interviews and first-hand situations they have encountered, I have better

understood the situation as a whole and how to help moving forward.

              I also would like to interview the city council and the mayor, and the people

who filed the complaints against the students. By gaining their opinions and insight

we can target them better and figure out how best to approach them and get them

to feel that a change is necessary for this community to continue to coexist as well

as it has been for years.

              In addition to these interviews, moving forward I would like to conduct a

survey with Auburn students and another with the community, on if they feel the

ordinance is fair and if they would be interested in changing it. I think this will help

better understand how much support there truly is outside of the student body,

which can help propel this campaign.     

               Many local newspapers and websites have been covering the events as they

have unfolded, which is where the majority of my information so far has come

from. The Plainsman has posted multiple articles in regard to how the city has been

handling it and the impact it has had on the students as the story has progressed.

Also, WLTZ, WTVM, covered the issue. In addition to these news sources, I read the

petition the main group that faced eviction created on change.org and referenced

the interactive ordinance zoning map on the cities official site. 

Research

The goal of this campaign is to make the city revoke, or at least alter the ordinance.

There are various objectives which will help us reach our end goal. 

Objective 1: To put out over 100 yard signs in various locations throughout Auburn.

          • In producing yard signs, we will have them placed in various locations               

 throughout the local community, both in home yards as well as businesses and

throughout campus. 

Objective 2: To have rally attendance increase by 20 during the rally series. 

           • Hosting a three-part rally series to increase awareness and involvement

with this campaign, with various speakers and points.

Objective 3: To motivate a legislator to support our alteration or removal of the

ordinance. 

             • Incorporating a legislator into our campaign can really help carry weight

with the city council. If not a local legislator, I would like to see a prominent Auburn

administrator involved. 

Objective 4: To incorporate not only students, but also members of the local

community into the campaign. 

             • By targeting members of the local community that have lived near the

college students for years, we help pull in evidence that obviously this is not a

problem that everyone is having, it is minimal and contains members of the local

community who also feel that the students are being treated unfairly. 

OBjectives

Objective 5: To incorporate local businesses into the campaign and for them to

show support for the students.

              • Students are a vital part of the Auburn local business economy, and a lot of

the local businesses are geared toward the student body. By approaching these

businesses and obtaining their show of support, we continue to be backed by

various facets of the local community that are not just students.

Objective 6: To have over 1000 people like the Facebook page and share the

graphic.

              • Social media allows us to make this an endeavor bigger than just in Auburn.

By having a social media push we encourage people from all over to read about our

mission and goal and can obtain more support and generate substantially more

awareness about the issue.

Objectives continued . . .

              Our main message we are trying to spread is that Auburn is a family. We all

share the same roof. This town is big enough and friendly enough to handle both

the college students and local community members. Under One Roof sends the

message that what happens to one member of the Auburn family happens to all of

the Auburn family. It will stress the importance of taking care of the family, and beg

the question, would you want this to happen to your children?

                In addition to this message of general awareness and family

encouragement, we are sending a message that this ordinance is not right, and

evicting students on such short notice in a college town is also not right. This

requires change, and that is what this campaign will demand.

                The key audiences for these are genuinely just the local Auburn community,

both students and local community members. The Auburn family encompasses

everyone that loves and lives in Auburn. By reinforcing the Auburn family mentality

through the campaign, we grab the attention of all members of the community.

Key Messages

              We will be targeting three separate groups. We will be raising awareness

and encouraging students and people that have been effected to join in the

campaign efforts, but we will also be targeting the city council and members of the

local community that are in favor of keeping the ordinance in act.

            We are targeting these groups with a large campaign effort across the entire

town and through social media on multiple platforms. This campaign is trying to

live such a lasting impact on the community and evoke emotion through various

tactics so that the city council makes the change necessary to keep moving

forward.

Local Community:

              In targeting the local community, we are trying to help them see the issue

from a student’s perspective. We are going to use people who live near students

and have no problem with it to help encourage and promote the campaign to those

of the local community who are opposed to changing the ordinance.

              Our disadvantaged public regarding this campaign are the people who filled

the complaints and live on the streets that are affected by the ordinance. The

members of these streets are the ones that filed the complaints against the

students with the housing ordinance, so anticipating them to be forcibly opposed is

something that we must anticipate moving forward with the campaign.

Target Audiences

Students:

             The students will primarily be the focus of the social media campaign, as

well as just general awareness. We want the student body to stand together as

one unit to support each other and be one large Auburn family, to encourage the

city to understand the burden this eviction ordinance puts on students, as well

as limits potentially living options when not everyone can afford to live in the

expensive apartments found in the local area that are within decent proximity to

campus. 

City Council:

              We want to grab their attention and force them to make this change. The

biggest goal of this campaign is for the law to altered so that the students and

local community have reached a mutually beneficial compromise. By carrying

this campaign out on such a grand scale, the goal is to force the city councils

hand in following through on what so many people are asking for, change. The

city council is very opposed to changing this law, and we have to show them that

students can still follow with the family friendly atmosphere and be law abiding

citizens. 

Target audiences Continued . . .

               To spread awareness about the message we are going to use various

communication outlets. Our primary platform is going to be social media, focused

immensely on social media. We will be creating a Facebook page to raise

awareness and encouraging a social media graphic takeover. This graphic will

have the primary logo and other information on it, and will be shared on Facebook

and members will be asked to share it and to encourage others to share it. I have

selected Facebook because I believe it targets both groups of people we are trying

to reach with this message. The Facebook page gives people a place to go and read

all the information that we have already shared to learn more, and gives us a way

to communicate to the masses without having to flood their email inbox. In

addition to reaching a wide audience with Facebook, we also have the ability to

expand outside of Auburn in terms of spreading awareness.

                We will be working with local businesses to hopefully garner their

support, especially ones that are targeting college students in their business, to

help put the message in multiple locations. We’ve selected the businesses based

on ones that support college students primarily, and will then move forward to

general businesses in the local area. We will be providing these businesses with

opportunities to share the message in their business to help increase awareness

as well. Using these businesses was decided on the idea that it helps show the

community is working together and supporting each other. The idea behind the

“Under One Roof” is that all the homes in Auburn are synonymous and

compassionate, the businesses are a part of the Auburn family and are a way to

target people that have not heard about the message. 

Strategies

            Using yard signs, we will be raising awareness throughout the streets that

this has impacted and will be a consistent message the people are seeing

everywhere. We have selected using these yard signs in various homes yards to

show the message to people when they are driving by, or going outside to check

their mail. These are more focused on the local community and members opposed

to altering the ordinance. These signs will be found in any supporter’s yard in

various neighborhoods and communities in Auburn. 

Strategies continued . . .

Speech: To be given at a rally in regards to the issue of the housing ordinance, held

on Samford lawn. We would like for Jacqueline Keck, the student government

associations president to give this speech and then MC the open question forum

following. People on the question panel would vary from students impacted by the

ordinance, to elected officials that attend. View Appendix Figure 6, for an example

of the speech.

Social Media: Carrying out a social media campaign on Facebook, we are hoping to

grab nationwide attention. The social media graphics are simplistic with facts and

information about the campaign and issue on hand. We will be creating graphics for

people to share as well as short videos. Use the hashtag #AUunderoneroof for

social media posts to have them collectively in one place.  We will be using social

media to really target any of our uniformed publics. Using social media we will

garner shares and posts from both the college students and local community

members, spanning an age range of 18 to mid 50s. View Apendix Figure 2 for an

example of a social media post. 

Yard Signs: The yard signs are simple and are helping increase involvement and

awareness in simple day to day life. We would like to see these outside of local

businesses and in lawns of various homes throughout local Auburn subdivisions. By

putting these out there for people to see multiple times in their day to day life, we

are hoping to increase awareness and involvement overall. The signs are simple

featuring the slogan campaign and should help reinforce the message. These signs

are focused more on the people against this alteration to the ordinance. By putting

these signs in the yards of their neighbors and community members we are hoping

to enforce that this ordinance is unfair. View Appendix Figure 3 for an example.

Tactics

Flyers: We will be using a flyer to increase awareness of the beginning of the

campaign. We are hoping by displaying the flyers in various locations throughout

Auburn we will increase people who knows about this campaign before we begin to

kick-off our rally series. We will be producing two flyers throughout the campaign,

one for our rally series dates and one for general awareness. We will be putting

these flyers in various businesses and up throughout the town. The goal is to put

them in as many places as possible and increase interaction with the campaign

overall. We are trying to target our uniformed public, and it will primarily be

members of the university community, but also our local community members.

View Appendix Figure 1 for an example of our general awareness flyer. 

Proposal: This proposal will be comprised of our collective proposal to the city

council, and will be garnering digital signatures until we have decided to turn it into

the city council. With the proposal we are imploring the city council to see that

change is necessary in this ordinance, and with the signatures of both local

community members and students, we hope to leave a larger impact as opposed to

it being only from one side of the community. See Appendix Figure 5 for an example

Buttons: The buttons will be a simple way the we are spreading the word about

what is going on. We would like these in bowls near the cash register in businesses

that are supporting the campaign, as well as passing them out on campus. Auburn

students have embraced the trend of covering their backpacks in buttons,

especially for things they believe in. These buttons are to help raise simple

awareness among students and just get the "Hey what is that?" conversation going

between students. See Appendix Figure 4 for an example. 

tactics continued . . .

               This is a multiple step plan to put into action and involves many local

members in order to be as successful as we want it to be.

1. Gathering and obtaining supplies.

    • We will be obtaining supplies as soon as possible, and will make the social

media pages and begin production on all products to be done within the next week.

2. Distribution.

    • We will start by visiting various businesses and by posting flyers around town

about the campaign.

3. Gathering support.

    • We will be sharing the Facebook page with everyone in the local Auburn

community.

    • Distributing out buttons and flyers in downtown Auburn and in various locations

on campus.

    • Leaving flyers with Facebook link on business counters in addition to the yard

signs.

4. Hosting a rally series.

    • A three part rally series on Samford Lawn.

    • Will feature various people personally impacted by the ordinances, as well as

members of Auburn Student Government Association that have been working

directly with the case. 

I implementations

5. Distributing a proposal to garner signatures from both students and the local

community in support of altering the ordinance.

    • Sharing it on the Facebook and encouraging members of the campaign to share

it with people on their personal platforms.

6. Obtaining media attention.

    • Through press releases about the rallies and by increasing shares on the

Facebook page. 

Implementations continued . . .

Total budget: $1000

Yard signs - 89 cents per sign. 

          - 150 for $133.50 via SignsOntheCheap.com

Buttons - $65 for pack of 1000

           -1000 for $65 via Amazon.

Flyers-  $202.50 for 750

           -1,500 for $405 via Office Depot

Leaves $396.50 in excess in the event of other expenses. 

Budget

            To evaluate the success of this campaign, we will keep track of how many

businesses and homes put the signs in their yard as well as how many people join

in the campaign and volunteer to help with various portions of the campaign. In

addition to this we will be tracking viewers and followers on Facebook and how

many people are apart of the page. Also, we will be measuring the attendance of

the rallies and how many shares are on social media.

             A large portion of the success of this campaign will be if we are successful

in overturning a portion of this law and helping change it for future prospective

students living in these areas. If the city council listens to the proposals and the

evidence and support we have from the local community I believe that it will be

incredibly successful.

             The end goal of this campaign is to have the majority of the city of Auburn

behind us on this campaign. With the city behind us, the city council will be forced

to rethink their decision to leave the law in its current placement. With the

alterations that are being proposed, they are nothing major and will not cause

detriment to the local Auburn neighborhoods and their family friendly

atmosphere. 

             -SWOT Analysis of Campaign.

             -Average attendance.

             -Status of the ordinance.

Evaluations

Appendix figure 1

Appendix figure 2

Appendix figure 3

Appendix figure 4

UNDER one

roof.

appendix figure 5

 Dear Auburn City Council Members,

            The city of Auburn is near and dear to many peoples hearts, alumni, faculty,

local community members, businesses, Auburn football fans, students, and so

many more. For years students have lived among neighborhoods that are

traditionally more family-focused, and there has been no issue. For some reason a

series of complaints that had nothing to do with more than unrelated people living

together were filed, and now students have been forced to pay inflated rates for a

lease of only two months.

             We are sure you also see this as a problem. We understand that local

neighborhoods are focused more on a family atmosphere, but what happened in

believing in the Auburn family? These students have not had noise complaints or

any other complaint filed against them. This is completely unjust to throw students

out of their homes mid-semester.

            We implore you to look at the implications of what this ordinance does to the

relationship between the student body and the local community. When people

move to Auburn, they know they are living in a college town, and they should expect

to potentially live near or interact with college students. The Auburn family is more

than just words, if we want to continue to hold onto our family mentality, we need

to embrace it in all facets.

        

               We propose to you, both students, faculty, members of the local community,

as the Auburn family, that we alter this ordinance. Homes and neighborhoods

within half a mile of campus should be exempt from this ordinance. In addition to

this, streets with tiger transit stops should be permitted as many unrelated

occupants as the home has bedrooms. With these alterations we believe that the

family atmosphere will remain intact, and students will still have the ability and

opportunity to live in these off campus houses.

             We are open to discussing other options, but a change must happen. The city

of Auburn will not stop until something is done about this. We hope you will

consider this alteration.

Thank you,

The Auburn Family

Appendix figure 5 continued

               Welcome to our first rally regarding helping alter the housing ordinance

here in Auburn that has affected so many students in our local community.

I stand here today, to encourage you to help us make a change. The city of Auburn

would not be Auburn if it was not for the students here in this town. We coincide

peacefully and have always had a wonderful relationship with the city, however, in

a time where students really needed the cities help, they were turned away

because of wanting to continue to hold onto a local family atmosphere.

               Are we not still the Auburn family? Is that not made up of both the members

of the University as well as the town? Auburn has prided itself on being such a

wonderful atmosphere, but by evicting students in late September with only 30

days warning, is unfair and unjust.

                I propose to you an alteration to this ordinance. On the streets affected by

this ordinance, many of them have tiger transit stops, meaning they are

anticipating students living on the street and nearby. We propose that homes

within a half of a mile from campus be removed from this ordinance, and on streets

with tiger transit stops, as many non-related people as there are bedrooms may

reside in the house.

                 We are more than willing to work with the city on these issues and find a

compromise that helps students moving forward since we are unfortunately

unable to help those who have already been impacted by the ordinance this year.

I am imploring you, both students and local community members, to rally behind

these students and help make a difference for future students. Auburn students

love their community, and want to peaceful reside among their local community

members. Let’s help unite Auburn, let’s bring everyone under one roof, together.

Thank you for your time, and war eagle!

Appendix figure 6

Brownlee, Chip. “Rash of Zoning Complaints Leads to around a Dozen Students           

                Being Evicted from Homes.” The Auburn Plainsman, 29 Sept. 2017,                     

                www.theplainsman.com/article/2017/09/rash-of-zoning-complaints-         

                 leads-to-at-least-a-dozen-students-being-evicted-from-homes.

Brownlee, Chip. “Students, Residents Spar over Zoning Ordinance, Student                   

                 Evictions at Council Meeting.” The Auburn Plainsman, 4 Oct. 2017,                     

                  www.theplainsman.com/article/2017/10/students-residents-spar-over- 

                 zoning-ordinance-student-evictions-at-council-meeting.

Branton, Parker. “Auburn University Students Facing Eviction Due to City                       

                  Ordinance.” WTVM.com - Columbus, GA - News, Weather, Sports -                 

                   WTVM.com-Columbus, GA News Weather & Sports, 2 Oct. 2017,                       

                   www.wtvm.com/story/36503060/auburn-university-students-facing-     

                   eviction-due-to-city-ordinance.

Buckles, Brooke. “Sign the Petition.” Change.org, 25 Sept. 2017,                                           

                  www.change.org/p/city-of-auburn-stop-the-eviction-of-auburn-

students.

“Interactive Unrelated Occupancy Map.” City of Auburn,                                                         

                    www.auburnalabama.org/maps/.

Mumma, Marlena. “Auburn University Students Evicted Due to City's Ordinance.”       

                    WLTZ, 24 Oct. 2017, www.wltz.com/2017/10/24/auburn-university-           

                    students-evicted-due-citys-ordinance/.

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