Don't blow it FSCJ!!!

[zoo]

Jax has already screwed up enough by re-directing Florida Coastal School of Law, and subsequently, the Art Institute, down to Baymeadows. Hopefully FCSJ realizes the role they could play in revitalizing Downtown, surrounding communities, and ultimately in a region anchored by a strong core!

Summed up nicely in this article from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution...

Leverage universities for growth of metro Atlanta

By James W. Wagner
8:14 p.m. Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Earlier this summer the Macâ€"Arthur Foundation awarded $7.6 million in grants to 10 universities around the world, Emory University among them, to establish special master’s degree programs focusing on sustainable development.

We at Emory are fortunate to receive hundreds of grants every year. What the MacArthur Foundation grant and others like it demonstrate is the critical role colleges and universities play in creating the human capital needed to advance the economic, social and cultural lifeblood of a community.

Indeed, work in this one subject area â€" sustainable development â€" creates an opportunity for the production of new ideas that can be applied as far away as a remote village in Africa or as close as the crowded corridors of metro Atlanta.

Whether the goal is creating world-class facilities for the research and treatment of cancer in Atlanta or a healthier economic climate through sustainable development on another continent, America’s most successful communities have come to rely heavily on their universities and colleges to sustain economic and social progress.

But while that progress isn’t hard to measure, it can sometimes be undervalued.

Traditionally, economic development focuses on tax breaks and inducements to recruit major employers â€" like the $109 million package put together by state and local officials to entice NCR to move 2,120 jobs to metro Atlanta from Dayton, Ohio, or the $46. 6 million used to recruit Kia Motors to build a plant in West Point, near LaGrange.

Even as we celebrate the success of such endeavors, we should be careful not to overlook the sustained impact that colleges and universities have on the communities they serve and what role they can play in the future to move the region and state forward.

Emory University, for instance, is among the largest private employers in the 20-county metro Atlanta area. Our Woodruff Health Sciences Center, including Emory Healthcare, has an operating budget of $2.3 billion a year and generates an economic impact of about $5.5 billion annually.

And unlike major corporations â€" or professional sports franchises, as other cities have learned â€" there’s no risk that Emory University is going to pack up and leave town for greener pastures elsewhere. Our roots are deeply embedded here. Atlanta is our campus.

We’re here â€" in green times and economic droughts â€" for the long haul. That’s also true of Georgia Tech, of Georgia State and Kennesaw State, and Agnes Scott, and Morehouse and Spelman and all the other institutions that contribute so much to metro Atlanta’s vitality.

Sometimes we forget that Atlanta has an enviable higher education base. We are gifted with research universities in medicine, engineering and technology; historic black institutions and classic liberal arts colleges; graduate schools of theology, law, public health and public administration as well as community-level programs that allow opportunities for thousands of Atlantans to get a bachelor’s degree while still working and raising families.

These distinctive institutions share one common goal: Making it possible for men and women to lead better lives by improving their minds and expanding their intellectual frontiers.

We know from research that that makes them more employable and able to earn more money.

But we also know that the expanded knowledge base they acquire makes them better citizens; and better citizens make better communities.

Sociologists and economists say that high concentrations of highly talented and educated people â€" what we now call human capital â€" provide metro areas a distinct advantage in competition for economic development.

Places that attract and put into close contact entrepreneurs, engineers, designers, authors, scientists and other smart, creative people, in the words of author Richard Florida, “accelerate the local rate of economic evolution.”

The communities in which these people live, work and interact are vital, interesting places that tend to look forward, adapt to change and value the diversity of ideas and cultures.

In short, they have a huge head start over homogeneous communities stuck in the past looking for new ways to re-create themselves. Universities serve as the incubators for this talent. The benefits these people bring to our campuses flow naturally to the communities we serve.

If Atlanta is to move forward it must recognize the important role these institutions play and put them front and center in public and private economic development plans, the way Raleigh-Durham and Nashville and other Southern cities started using their colleges and universities for economic development years ago.

We hope that by 2012, Emory and the other MacArthur Foundation grantees will produce 250 master’s degree recipients who will be given over to the world to create new forms of sustainable development.

Some of them, no doubt, will use their minds and educations to help the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Carter Center, CARE and other Atlanta-based agencies tackle this and other important global missions.

In so doing â€" and by working and interacting with thousands of others on equally important projects â€" they’ll also be breathing new life into our community.

James W. Wagner is president of Emory University.

[zoo]

If I'm going to slam, I have to give props, too.

John Delaney still seems to get it as UNF partnership (ownership, or whatever the arrangement is) with MOCA demonstrates. Looking forward to having those students in the downtown area!

[fsujax]

When I lived in Atlanta I saw firsthand how Georgia State university really made that part of downtown seem alive and vibrant.

[Jason]

When I lived in Atlanta I saw firsthand how Georgia State university really made that part of downtown seem alive and vibrant.

What about the feel of Tally beacuse of FSU?  It's amazing the positive impact urban universities have on their neighborhood even despite Tally being a state capitol.

Hopefully FSCJ will remain a staple and continue to grow.

[Steve]

ADMIN: Edited the title of the thread - the OP flipped a couple of letters in the title.

[thelakelander]

A better warning would be for DVI and the JEDC not to blow the benefit of having a large FSCJ campus downtown.  At a SAMBA meeting a few months ago, an FSCJ Downtown Campus representative stated that their new entrance on State Street was designed to include an art gallery at street level.  They wanted to be a part of art walk, but she claimed DVI felt their location was too far removed to be included.

FSCJ already plans to invest heavily in the downtown campus and expand along Laura Street.  The nearby communities, DVI and the JEDC have just as much responsibility in making sure that future plans are laid out in a fashion that promotes connectivity and walkability between the campus and its immediate surroundings.

[urbanlibertarian]

If First Baptist were involved in Art Walk, FSCJ wouldn't be too far removed anymore.  Will there be an art program at the Baptist Academy?

[downtownparks]

Art is the devils work, UL.

[Charles Hunter]

Not if its a Thomas Kincaide!

[Jaxson]

don't forget those hummel figurines!

[Coolyfett]

When I lived in Atlanta I saw firsthand how Georgia State university really made that part of downtown seem alive and vibrant.

You do see those students in the core during business hours, but after 6 I never see many of them. Emory?? I was not even aware they had a set up downtown. Where is Emory exactly? I have heard the name before, but never actually seen the school. If FSCJ has dorms in downtown then I think that would be great. EWC is not that far away not like how JU and UNF are far away. Maybe the city could somehow connect those 2 schools/areas via Skyway.

[buckethead]

GA Tech and Emory are both located in Atlanta.

[stjr]

Connections to universities are vital for any city to become world class. This is why I suggested on another thread that Jax needed to do more to connect with Gainesville and UF with a better travel corridor (see http://www.metrojacksonville.com/forum/index.php/topic,4269.0.html ).

Separately, a college downtown with dorms should be a major goal of the City.  Getting graduate schools (law, medicine, business, etc.) and/or research centers would be the next best thing.  Not one major city I can think of is absent a major higher education facility in its downtown core.  Not only do they provide active and energetic downtown residents to establish a minimum threshold to support downtown culture, food, and entertainment, they also provide major numbers of great paying jobs.

By example, in a city as large as Philadelphia, after the federal, city, and school board, the University of Pennsylvania has almost 23,000 employees as its largest non-governmental employer.  That's a "city within a city".  Add to it, Temple University, Drexel U., Thomas Jefferson, etc. and higher education is a dominant force.  Although not a university in the normal sense of the word, the Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland has over 25,000 employees on nearly 50 city blocks.  Imagine what that would be like in Jax if UF/Shands made a major commitment here.  (P.S. Maybe we should have recruited Mayo to downtown instead of the beaches.  Think how that would have changed the face of Jax.) Even mighty New York City is loaded with major colleges including NYU and Columbia.  One could go on endlessly.... but, it's clear enough that this should be atop goals for the City's future.

[braeburn]

I must say, I love living two blocks from downtown campus. And it's MY space, not a dorm! 

This is giving me an idea to promote City Place to the students when classes start in a couple weeks!

[904Scars]

New from Riverside:

Totally agree with STJR... I wish the current Jacksonville colleges had thought long and hard about their locations along time ago. I realize most of them have been around way before Downtown was ever "cool" but as some others mentioned, what was the Art Institute thinking? Dowtown would have been perfect. It makes my blood boil to think of all the opportunities this city has had to make our downtown flourish. I was just recently in Louisville and they have a gorgeous dowtown, right on the river. Why can't Jacksonville open their eyes. There is so much potential.