"Won’t You Be My Neighbor?" The NERLab at Providence College

By Emilia Farrell

This blog post is cross-listed with an article in The Cowl, Providence College's student newspaper, on October 1, 2026.

The Providence College mission statement reads:

“Providence College is a Catholic, Dominican, liberal arts institution of higher education and a community committed to academic excellence in pursuit of the truth, growth in virtue, and service of God and neighbor.”

But what does it mean to be in service to your neighbor, or even neighborly, specifically as a PC student? The Neighborly Engagement Research Lab is currently conducting a research study based on this very question.

The NERLab is a community-engaged research lab that collaborates with students, community members, and campus partners to study and strengthen neighborly relationships between colleges and the communities they call home. The lab recently launched a “Student Perceptions of Neighborliness Survey” to the PC student body, inviting students to reflect on how they experience the 02908 neighborhoods (Smith Hill, Wanskuck, and Elmhurst) that surround PC. The survey is designed to examine how PC students perceive, engage with, and experience the local neighborhoods in which the campus is situated. With “neighbor” being a key word in PC’s mission statement, the NERLab is curious about students’ understanding of this word and its implications. Consider how you interact with local residents, businesses, and communities that surround campus. Would you consider your interactions neighborly? Findings from the survey aim to support the NERLab’s central mission of building more sustainable and reciprocal community-campus relationships. In this, the NERLab seeks to better understand how students and local community members can learn from and contribute collaboratively with each other.

This recent survey builds upon previous research conducted by the NERLab, which examined what it means for institutions of higher education, like PC, to act as good neighbors from local residents’ perspectives. Through interviews with 02908 residents and participant observations at community meetings, research findings highlighted the distinction between being a neighbor, via geographical proximity, and acting neighborly through intentional presence and engagement. However, one of the recurring themes throughout the NERLab’s interviews with community members was that students are neighbors too. This idea of how students might think about the notion of neighborliness piqued the researchers’ curiosity, and from there, the NERLab’s current research project was born.

Scan the QR code to take the survey.

The “Student Perceptions of Neighborliness Survey” is currently open to all PC students (18+), and will remain open through mid-October. Students are encouraged to participate regardless of grade level or experience with the community; the NERLab wants to hear from everyone! By developing a greater understanding of neighborliness on a community and institutional level, the NERLab hopes to cultivate a stronger relationship between PC and the surrounding 02908 neighborhoods that we call home.

Emilia Farrell is an undergraduate student in the Class of 2028 at Providence College, double-majoring in Public and Community Service Studies and Political Science, with a minor in Communications. She writes for the student newspaper, The Cowl, and serves as a Research Fellow in the Neighborly Engagement Research Lab (NERLab) at Providence College.