Proximal Redevelopment of Brownfield and Derelict Sites Near Institutions of Higher Education

It is critical to educate higher education faculty about the importance of redeveloping brownfields into usable spaces for campus expansion. While there are many studies on the success of brownfield redevelopment, research is limited on how professors’ perceptions on brownfield redevelopment can help their institutions to impact community initiatives and promote collaborative, environmental efforts. Hence, a need to design methods to collect, record and analyze professors’ perceptions became fundamental in capturing the voices of participants and ensuring the accuracy of their responses. The first set of analysis methods included categorizations, descriptions and interpretations of qualitative data. The secondary method of analysis utilized descriptive statistics to measure the most important indicators that influence professors’ perceptions to redevelop brownfield sites near their campus communities.

Pseudonyms are used for the three universities across Jefferson County in the State of Alabama which provided access to their professors. Findings from the study showed that professors from two universities were knowledgeable and aware of the sociological and economic challenges in low income communities where brownfields are geographically located. Findings also indicated that Eta-One University was a recipient of an EPA Region 4 grant that focused on educating low income communities associated with the presence of brownfield sites in their area. Alpha-One University was eager to establish a special partnership initiative. Although Gamma-One University was located in a high crime and low-income community with potential brownfield sites, the faculty showed no interest in participating in the study. Therefore, challenges and factors that Gamma-One University faced were undetermined.