UAFS seeks more than $15 million in federal funding

Submitted by The City Wire Staff on Thu, 03/11/2010 - 6:33pm

story submitted by the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith

The University of Arkansas at Fort Smith has five appropriation requests before federal agencies — seeking funds to expand the university in facilities and programs — and UAFS officials have met with congressional representatives about the projects.

Administrators from UA Fort Smith recently visited with Arkansas's legislative representatives in Washington, D.C., to explain the requests and garner legislative support for their approval. Dr. Paul B. Beran, UAFS chancellor, said he felt optimistic about the meetings.

"We were very pleased with the meetings," Beran said. "The members of our congressional delegation were very positive about UA Fort Smith. We're appreciative of their support for these appropriation requests. The approval of these projects will be an asset to the university and the Fort Smith region."

Making the trip with Beran were Dr. Arleene Breaux, vice chancellor for university relations, and Mark Horn, vice chancellor for finance and administration. The three met with U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., and U.S. Rep. John Boozman, R-Rogers, and their legislative staffs, as well as two staff members in the office of U.S. Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark.

The funding requests include
• Expansion and Renovation of Boreham Library — $6 million;
• Campus Energy Management Improvement Project — $5 million;
• Arkansas Research and Education Optical Network (ARE-ON) Campus Network Extension Project — $300,000;
• Business and Industrial Technology Training Center Facility Project at Fort Chaffee — $3 million; and,
Business and Technology Training Center Program Support — $1 million.

The requested funds, which come to a total slightly over $15 million, do not reflect the total costs for each project. Total project costs come to approximately $28 million.

"These projects are both necessary and relevant to the economic development of the region," Beran said. "We have had tremendous growth, growth that is expected to continue, and we want to be able to meet that growth head-on with facilities and programs."

The Boreham Library project encompasses part of the cost in improving energy efficiency of the building and the building's expansion, but it also has as its goal to increase opportunity for research access for university students and the citizens in the service area.

"We want to continue to be on the cutting edge of meeting educational needs of entry-level students, those already in the workforce and those entrepreneurs who will grow our economy," Beran said.

The campus energy management improvement project, which is designed to help contain cost increases to students, will include energy conservation measures for UAFS, while the ARE-ON project will provide additional high-speed Internet access across campus.

Funds for the Fort Chaffee training center project request will include the design, construction and equipping of the proposed facility. The center's support would come primarily from the fifth funding request.

The requests are before several agencies — Department of Education; Department of Energy; Department of Commerce; Transportation, Housing and Urban Development; and Department of Labor, Training and Employment Services.

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Comments

Let me help you read the article yesterday. It says "donations" if you really want to get technical......but i guess wasting money on one thing bc somebody told you to warrants asking for money for another. Great thinking. Hope you are around to help our great grandchildren pay for all this "funding" we are giving out......

Hey Anno

Submitted by Woodhead on Fri, 03/12/2010 - 11:34am.

He is probably one of those Goobers who voted against the Greenwood Millage Tuesday. Damn! I am still mad. Sorry.

Woodie

Submitted by arnold fudpucker on Fri, 03/12/2010 - 2:13pm.

Did you notice the other communities that turned down millage (tax) increases? No deal is good when you don't have the money. People are tired of the spending by our elected representatives that fail to represent us. Get over it. You will feel better once you realize you were wrong.

Ancient Chinese proverb

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 03/12/2010 - 3:42pm.

Thank god for Mississippi.

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"[Hundreds of thousands of

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 03/12/2010 - 8:42pm.

"[Hundreds of thousands of students and teachers took part in protests Thursday, March 5, 2010, as part of the National Day of Action to Defend Public Education. Much of the day’s focus was on the university and state college campuses of California, where students face a 32 percent tuition hike. Thousands of California students staged a one-day strike and took part in rallies from San Diego to Sacramento to Humboldt County. Actions were held in at least thirty other states, including here in New York, where protesters rallied outside the offices of Governor David Paterson. It was the largest day of coordinated student protest in years.]" http://www.democracynow.org/2010/3/4/students What strange timing. These students have already taken to the streets standing up for their public education. Can you imagine the unrest if the federal funding for a library renovation goes through while their campuses are shutting down entire departments and laying off educators?

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Request

Submitted by A. Chicken (not verified) on Sat, 03/13/2010 - 12:22pm.

The problems at California schools have to do with state cutbacks due to their backwards, out-of-date tax laws which create volatile swings in revenues. A request of $6 mil. of federal funding has no bearing on the structural problems California must address at the state level to fix and avoid this same problem in the future. Now if you want to argue that, in general, Arkansas gets more than its fair share of federal dollars, you may have a point as the state receives more than it pays (redistribution of wealth! we're socialist welfare babies!) from the federal government. I guess that is a question Congress will have to determine when they take up this request -- key word being "request".

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All that Glitters

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sun, 03/14/2010 - 3:51am.

Actually, the problems happening at the University of California have a deeper issue than cut-backs in state funding. Arkansas REALLY needs to pay attention to what's happening because we're usually only a few years behind. A 20% cut-back in state funding sounds dramatic but, if state funding is only 15% of the total budget the overall impact is only 3%. All this while having a record year in revenue from parking, housing, medical services, research grants and federal stimulus money. They've shifted pay scales in a, Wall-Street to Main-Street, ratio where their top administrators and staff received pay increases while faculty and lower level staff are laid off. More than likely the funding cutback is being used as a Public Relations tool to justify tuition hikes and hide the fact that a former public education system has become a government subsidized corporation. What the article above fails to mention is if UAFS receives the federal $15 million and the project requires $28 million who pays the rest? If it's corporate donors (and more than likely it is, as the projects are necessary to prepare the local workforce for the mass of incoming corporate development). Then basically, a public education system (socialism) becomes a government subsidized training facility for the use of a regional corporate conglomerate. The corporation pitches in on the cost "giving back to the community" and the rest is split between the taxpayer, the student and the new voluntary workforce training tax, AKA: the lottery. "But who cares, my kid's going to college!" The problem is the new corporate system has re-structured the value of a degree. Previously, a degree (any degree) would fetch you a very nice income in a wide array of work, be it corporate or independent. You were financially free to earn a living independent of corporations. The new system has an enormous focus on specialization which highly limits your employment options even within your chosen field of specialization (you're being trained to serve the corporate infrastructure). It's in the best interests of the corporations to make a relatively small investment upfront making college degrees available to virtually everyone. This floods the market with degreed workers, reducing pay rates across the market, saving untold sums on employment costs over the lifespan of an employee salary. Not to mention, the leftover unemployed degreed individuals are encouraged to fork over the dough again and "re-educate" with a different specialization. The new corporate style degree will get you out of the fields, so to speak, but you'll still be a house servant to the corporations. "But everything's shiny and new." As we saw with the Dot Com bubble and burst, the housing bubble and burst, the credit default swap financial crisis and bailout ransom, these nice things aren't actually ours. Come harvest time it's clear; we just plow the fields. Let's hope the corporate welfare-free for-all that gets Fort Smith ranked in the Forbes top 10 cities with the "Lowest Cost of Doing Business" doesn't put us on the map as the last pit-stop on a corporate run for the border. It will require a great awakening for our government and our citizens to declare independence from global corporate domination. I wish we could level the subsidy manipulated market by adding a tax to items that were subsidized outside our region and combine that revenue with all the incentives we're using to lure outside corporations to move here and then invest it in our own people and resources and become independently progressive through, pull yourself up by the bootstraps, regional self sufficiency.

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