Mary Gooding spoke up for VSU at

the Industrial Authority 19 February 2013,
saying that
VSU President McKinney was
in Athens (as was President Perrin of Wiregrass), but he and
VSU:

We too believe that this is a huge strategic initiative for our community.
And we were thrilled after the meeting that we attended that
the city, the county, both educational institutions, the Industrial
Authority, everyone there, the hospital for sure, all agreed
that this had to be a significant incentive.

Mary Gooding

added:

At Valdosta State it’s becoming one of our biggest road barriers to
online degrees, to online classes.
That’s again more bandwidth that’s needed to be able to deliver
degrees and classes online.

That’s all good, but where were the superintendents and school boards
of the two K-12 school systems?
Where were library

users and staff and
the

library board that doesn’t seem to like the Internet bringing
transparency to their own meetings?
Where was

Idelle Dear,
who previously explained to the Lowndes County Commission that:

Many people use the library who can’t afford Internet at home. They use
it for filling out job applications, for doing homework… many uses
of the Internet…. And of course there are a lot of people who check
out books, check out DVDs, use the meeting rooms constantly, and there
are all the education programs for the children. So the library is very
much needed and very important for the community.

Where were the

VLCIA focus group participants who brought this issue
to the Industrial Authority’s attention last summer?
This isn’t an initiative that closed-room meetings is going to make
strategic.
If it’s for the community, it needs to involve the community.

And unfortunately it’s clear that much of what Mary Gooding
said wasn’t heard;
see

next post.

-jsq