To build or not to build. That's the question.

The University of Massachusetts at Boston has signaled it will move ahead with plans to construct on-campus dormitories, and already the sides have begun to take shape.

Advocates believe strongly that the educational process at the Dorchester campus can only improve if UMB can compete with other local colleges by offering residential housing. The academic qualities will be bettered, they say, when the community at our local academy becomes a 24 hour a day, seven day a week proposition.

But some neighbors say UMass was designed and sold to the community as a commuter school, a destination place that would attract "dayhop" students, people who travel back and forth to the campus for their classes, while maintaining a semblance of off-campus family life and perhaps employment. In fact, it was exactly in those terms that the university was "sold" to wary neighbors when it was first under construction three decades ago.

But that was then, and this is now, and UMass officials say they can vastly improve the educational process by building housing for students. Ironically, it is precisely the higher-achieving students whose families live within commuting distance of the Dorchester campus who choose not to attend, opting instead for the enhanced college experience they can find at UMass campuses in Amherst, Lowell and Dartmouth. Typically, contemporary students do not want to live with their parents while at college; UMass officials believe that the dorms would attract some of these students, and the academic experience will be enhanced for all who study there.

But the UMass officials have a tough sell on their hands, as many nearby neighbors, especially in Savin Hill, have clear memories of the long-ago promises made by previous administrations.

There is little doubt that UMass has been an asset to our neighborhoods. Scores have availed of the school's athletic facilities, which have been available for low-cost community memberships since the campus first opened. And thousands of local people- some young, many not-so-young- have enrolled in courses at the campus over the years.

But conflicts between college and community are common all around the country. They are referred to as "town and gown" issues, and they come about largely because colleges and universities typically become their own self-contained community. Too often, a measure of contempt develops between academia and nearby residential neighborhoods, due to the distinctly differing lifestyles that exist in each. UMass critics point to the low level of employment opportunities that have been extended to nearby neighbors, and they note too that too few of the academics who have been attracted to teaching jobs at UMass have chosen to live in the nearby neighborhoods of Dorchester, South Boston and Roxbury.

Longtime residents have vivid impressions of the negative impact of college students on once-vibrant family neighborhoods in Allston-Brighton and the Back Bay, and they fear that the construction of a residential student community at Columbia Point would lead inevitably to a student encroachment in traditionally family housing.

The debate is on, and while an expected meeting with neighbors this month at the Columbia-Savin Hill civic group has been postponed, the concerns are certain to grow. UMass officials have a lot of explaining to do, and a lot of persuading as well.

- Ed Forry