Wednesday, 13 August 2008
A Failed Opportunity For Higher Education
« Catching Up With Beshear | Main | Analysis of KY US Senate Polling »The Courier Journal has a story today on the plans for the University Of Louisville's Shelby Campus. The university has decided to turn it into a research and office park.
The goal is to develop 108 acres of the 230-acre campus for business, office, technology and research use, said Burt Deutsch of the University of Louisville Development Co., which was formed in May to oversee the project. It is an affiliate of the U of L Foundation; the U of L trustees have directed the foundation to oversee the development of Shelby Campus.
To me, this move shows the absolute lack of vision our state has on higher education. For a long time, I have believed that the state needs to commit to having a world class engineering and science program. The best way to do that is to combine all of the engineering and science programs across the state into one school. It would maximize expenditures to make sure students have both top flight equipment and teachers. I have long thought that the perfect location for such a school was on Shelby Campus.
It would allow the state to centralize its engineering and science programs into a single school in the heart of the biggest city in Kentucky. It would provide an opportunity for real technological growth in our state.
It has already worked for two other southern states. Georgia has Georgia Tech in Atlanta and North Carolina has NC State located in Raleigh. Both schools focus on engineering and sciences and both are flagships for thriving technological centers in the South.
Kentucky is near the center of population mass in the United States. It is one of the primary reasons UPS resides here. We need to take advantage of our ideal location and develop a thriving center for technology. We could easily attract people from all over the Eastern, Midwestern, and Southern parts of the country.
Such promise must start with a new vision for Kentucky's higher education. Unfortunately, it appears the university system would rather keep doing what they are doing rather than embrace a different direction for tomorrow.
