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Questioning WCU’s growth
To the Editor:
Jay Leno.
The taxpayers of North Carolina ante up tens of millions of dollars for improvements and expansion of an institution of higher learning and what do we get? Jay Leno, a tasteless entertainer who makes his living telling Michael Jackson jokes and interviewing celebrities.
The fact that the grand opening act at the new Fine Arts Performance Center represents some of the most banal aspects of popular culture, while having no connection to traditional mountain culture or community speaks volumes about the focus, direction and vision of Western Carolina University.
We are told that WCU is growing to serve the needs of the community and the region. We are told that this state institution, chartered to serve the people of the state and particularly the western region, an institution supported by taxpayers of the state, is on a mission to embrace, enhance and celebrate the culture of the region. This institution, we are told, is on a mission to create opportunity for the folks it has been built to serve and whose taxes support it.
Listen closely however, and it becomes far too apparent that the mission of the current administration of WCU is not to enhance but to replace. The mission is not to embrace communities and culture that already exists but to impose a vision upon those communities. The mission has far less to do with providing opportunity for our existing population and citizens than in marketing the area as ripe for takeover. The mission has little to do with preserving and providing for local communities, it is grounded in the development of resources for the purpose of attracting unrestrained growth that overwhelms and displaces local communities.
The paternalistic rhetoric of uplifting mountain folks and celebrating traditional culture and community is hollow posturing. WCU has become a corporate entity engaged in a marketing program that has more to do with growing the institution than serving the community. And while the leadership of WCU is busy serving up a vision that leads to the academic equivalent of Pigeon Forge, we are being stuck with the bill. There are tremendous strains being placed on our local infrastructure. Transportation systems are being overwhelmed. Water and sewer capacity is being used up. Local government and emergency services are being stressed. Perhaps worst of all is that our local communities and neighborhoods are being carved up and disassembled to meet the increasing demand for land.
The bill for all this coming due. Eventually someone must pay for bigger roads. Eventually someone must pay for greatly expanded water and sewer capacity. We are already paying with streams and rivers that overflow far more frequently and that run red with sediment. We are also paying in more tangible ways. Our traditional rural landscape is disappearing and with it our communities. There are more gates and less open space. Everyday there is less chance that our children will be able to afford land or a decent home in the community and the promises of better jobs and economic opportunity seem illusory. Oftentimes it seems that in order to fulfill such promises we must destroy our quality of life.
Our local political leaders have remained largely silent on the changes being imposed upon our communities. Our local media has been worse, essentially acting as chief cheerleaders without casting even a bit of a critical eye towards the impact of WCU’s behavior on our communities. It would seem reasonable to expect someone in a position of leadership to ask it the costs being imposed on the community are worth the supposed benefit. It would seem reasonable to question the vision of people who believe that this community is simply crying out for the opportunity to see Jay Leno.
Mark Jamison
Cullowhee
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