Brookings Banter

The Board of Regents held a town hall meeting in Brookings last Monday.  In a forum setting like that you get a variety of questions.  SDSU students are always active and ask great questions about tuition and technology.  I'm glad the students are pushing the wireless campus issue but I think the Regents missed the boat and should have been a lot farther along instead of playing catch up.  I saw the problem clearer when President Jewett commented that he saw a UPS deliver agent communicating with the home office on a device.  He commented that wireless is they way of the world and we have just have to do it.  I've had wireless in my home for a least 4 years.  State Universities (except for DSU) have ignored technology for years.  Now we need to play catch up.  It isn't just computer technology the labs and classrooms are out of date and in disrepair.  I'm not sure how we got into this mess.  But it was either lack of or mismanagement of funds.  Either way ultimately it was under the regents watch.  Nothing much was said about the issue until the Governor proposed in his 2010 goals to improve the state's stand in research and development.  The stress of increased enrollments and the pressure to increase research created a breaking point.  The Regents are asking for $70 million to improve labs and create investments in research.  I know from being on the side of prioritizing use of public funds that there isn't large sums of money laying around unused.  Although there are creative ways you can fund projects.  Legislators need to step up and find the funds through bonding or some other means.  North Dakota is kicking South Dakota's butt in research and business growth.  Our friends to north started this process several years ago and made the investment, today their research dollars are four times South Dakotas.  Now is the time to invest or settle to be a state that creates leaders for the future and ships them out for other states to use.