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Promised growth arrives at WCU
Some five years after the calendar event, a new millennium has dawned for Western Carolina University – and all of Jackson County.
With the launch of its Millennial Initiative, Western is doubling its land mass and exponentially expanding its impact on the county and region. Through this ambitious undertaking, university leaders look to provide a major economic stimulus to the area while simultaneously expanding the quality of students’ education.
“Public-private partnerships,” a phrase that’s been bandied about for awhile, seems to be eminently sensible in this application. We can picture innovative entrepreneurs who lack the capital or location to transform their brainstorm into a marketable product finding a home on the planned Millennium Campus as well as capable, enthusiastic students to assist them.
Western’s new acreage has been described as 75 percent suitable for building, which means the university will be able to develop a truly diverse mix of residential, industrial, research and classroom space. Including housing in the mix will be a boon in attracting proven academic, research and industrial leaders to the area.
Such an undertaking is already a reality on N.C. State’s Centennial Campus, and Western envisions its new space becoming a similar “knowledge enterprise zone.” WCU leaders see their planned Millennial Campus as the economic boon the region has long needed to keep Western North Carolina’s brightest young people from leaving the area to land high-paying jobs.
Developing the new campus means the university is fulfilling a promise made to the people of the region to keep local talent at home, said Chancellor John Bardo. With the economic stimulus made possible by development of the Millennial Campus, skilled individuals will be able to participate in the knowledge-based economy of the 21st Century while remaining in the mountains, he said.
We’re all for that. It has been true for too long that once our youth obtain quality educations, the suitable jobs they find are hundreds of miles away. While Jackson, which last year ranked 31st in growth among the state’s100 counties, is not growing as fast as some areas, it’s obvious that things are picking up.
Change is on the horizon for us all. Thanks to the regional commitment displayed by Bardo and the other university officials who developed the Millennial Initiative, this county’s next vision of the future may well be a “technopolis” that unites the worlds of business and academia and creates the innovations of tomorrow.
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