Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, January 2, 1995 TAG: 9501070064
SECTION: EDITORIALS PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Virginia's secretary of education may have been in Richmond too long. She needs to return to Southwest Virginia, for a visit anyway, to reacquaint herself with reality.
The need for reacquaintance is evident in comments she recently made, defending Gov. Allen's plans to scrap funding for Radford University's New College of Global Studies.
The college, set up at a cost of $2.2 million and ready to accept its first students in the fall, is intended to teach complex technological communications and other skills needed for maneuvering in the international marketplace.
It's expendable, says Sgro, because there's little international activity in Western Virginia and it's doubtful there ever will be.
Say what?
That will come as a shock to companies such as General Electric in Salem, which exports about 65 percent of its products; and Magnox Inc. in Pulaski, which sends 85 percent of what it makes overseas; and Westvaco in Covington, with about 45 percent of its output going abroad, and literally thousands of smaller companies in this region doing business in Hong Kong, Mexico, India, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Germany - just about any place in the world that can be reached by telephone or fax to seal the deal.
Sixth District Rep. Bob Goodlatte says there's hardly a company in this area with at least 50 employees that isn't somehow involved in international trade.
Does Sgro think all those Norfolk Southern freight trains traveling from Southwest Virginia's coalfields to Hampton Roads are headed there for a weekend at the beach?
The education secretary, dean of students at Virginia Tech before she joined Allen's Cabinet in '94, ought to know better.
If, during the many years she lived in the New River Valley, she didn't get wind of the international activity going on in this part of Virginia, she might have heard it from the state's own economic-development officials in Richmond.
They are quick to attest that this region is responsible for a significant share of the $10 billion in goods exported globally from Virginia each year. One describes Southwest Virginia as ``a gold mine of exporting activity.'' And virtually all agree that the region's potential in the international marketplace is just beginning to be realized and developed. It needs to be developed more, not dismissed.
Anyway, the mission of the New College of Global Studies at Radford University is to help prepare not just this part of the state but all of Virginia and all of the nation for the global economy, for a future where prosperity is inextricably linked to international competitiveness.
The Allen administration may yet offer a good reason for pulling funding for the Radford program, or at least for putting it on hold. But we haven't gotten it yet from Beverly Sgro.
by CNB