http://www.nccivitas.org/media/publication-archive/policy-brief/recommendation-3-freeze-new-capital-projects-refrain-issuing-

On that same theme, I find it interesting that WCU requested state funds (from this fiscal year’s budget) to renovate the Camp Lab building - a building destined for demolition if the Chancellor’s “strip mall development” moves forward. By the way, the square footage touted for this glorious new strip mall (featuring Moe’s SW Grille, Barnes and Noble, et al) is MORE THAN HALF that of the Biltmore Square Mall. Picture that!

Seems to me that some of these folks pushing the corporatization of the university need to go back for some remedial work in logic and math…at the very least.

Of course, these counties are mostly white for reasons a long way from elitism, and, for the most part, kids don’t live full time at such gated communities in the Cashiers/Highlands area. Any that do aren’t likely headed for Western.

Still, why not Buncombe? Certainly more of a “Gannett Community” than Cullowhee.

I would venture to say that liberal philosophy in Cullowhee is espoused 80% to 20% (even in the 70’s). But because BB&T has a more conservative philosophy they would like to fund, the outcry from libs is enormous. Give me a break. Are conservatives demanding that liberal speech be banned on campus? Hardly. But that’s what liberals are doing here. The hypocrisy of the left is overwhelming.

A thought: it’s perfectly reasonable for Mr. Studenc to pursue publicity through PR placements, as he does, because otherwise a lot of the cool activities that happen on campus would never see the light of day. Educational trees falling in empty woods, you might say.

These activities are valuable to the community and truly represent Western’s “product.”

On the other hand, the notion that the school can arbitrarily decide what it “is”, then sell that “is” through advertising buys and PR placements is straight out of a different decade. That’s why the school’s preoccupation with logos and branding is annoying. Swooshing pinstripes aren’t good teaching, good teaching is good teaching. Snarling kitty pictures aren’t good football teams, good football teams are good football teams. (For that matter, good football teams aren’t good schools).

Americans absolutely swim in “branding” every day, and know the difference between pictures and products almost instinctively. That’s why our “institution of higher learning” does itself lots of damage with its plans to build a chain shopping plaza to pass off as a “town center.”

No, it’s a shopping plaza. Cullowhee’s “town center” is over thataway about a mile, and it’s decrepit, largely because the college doesn’t care about it. Pretending otherwise is disingenuous, and “disingenuous” and “higher learning” don’t fit together so well.

And it won’t just be “off” to those of us who live here. It’ll also be insincere to the student WCU tries to recruit and retain, who, when sitting in another chain store in another shopping plaza, is smilingly told he’s in a “town center.” He’ll instinctively wonder what he’ll be getting in place of his “education.”