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Dr. Cecil Groves
President
Southwestern Community College |
Andrea Sumner:
How did the Southwestern Community College get
involved with Balsam West?
Dr. Cecil Groves:
Because of our needs-we are a heavy telecommunications user;
we operate 12 sites around the 3 counties we serve, operating instructional
television provisional services to schools and others-we had to
upgrade our services. When we started into that, we found problems
in the sense not only of cost, but also access to the technology.
With that, then we meet with others in the coli, worked with Advantage
West, the Western North Carolina Knowledge Coalition, a series of
others to get projects funded and to become the facilitator. We
were the agency funded to do this study and find out what's the
problem and what are some solutions. So we had been at this about
two and a half years. We've defined that and now it's a process
of implementing some actions. Taking action to resolve the problem.
And that's so Balsam West Fiber Net is the outcome of Appalachian
Access and like a lot of things in telecommunications, you get into
all these acronyms and terms, but it's a morph from Appalachian
Access, Education Research Consortium project, which is a map, and
then Balsam West Fiber Net. And other parts of rural areas area
also engaging in efforts now to connect themselves into this region.
And the community colleges are very much critical to this because
they're one of the facilitating agents in their community. They're
one of the highest users of Internet access and telecommunication
resources. So they are working, in many cases, helping to facilitate
the same thing that we've done and are doing out here in the far
west.
Andrea Sumner:
How does Southwestern Community College help the citizens learn
how to use this technology?
Dr. Cecil Groves:
Well, we were the first college to put, for example, an e-commerce
degree in. We were the first in the country to offer a degree in
e-commerce and business. We're one of the first to offer programs
in Internet access. And then all other kinds of forms of electronic
communication and telecommunication. We were one of the first Sysco
academies. That was preparatory to building a workforce capable
of using these resources, is what we're about. We really are a facilitator,
working in conjunction with county governments, public schools as
we have linkages with them, to help make things happen. We've gotten
in the past five years over 9 million dollars in grants to help
facilitate the building out of these things. And even in this room,
there's a unit over here I can show you in a minute off camera,
but that's how we'll communicate in the future, where it's all going,
what's going to happen. So we've prepared now, to enter the latter,
middle part of the 21st century. We're a facilitating agent. We're
here because we interact with county governments, local municipalities,
school boards and others. And that gives us a nice position to work
with them and to make things happen. And other community colleges
do that same thing.
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