Higher Education Center in White Bluff?
In part 2 of my interview with White Bluff Mayor Linda Hayes and Vice Mayor Jeff Martin we discuss about a potential for a higher education facility in Dickson County and why they think White Bluff is the best place to build the campus. First part of my interview was getting to know Mayor Hayes and Vice Mayor Marting. And the third part? Well you’ll just have to come back.
Sean: What really initiated the higher education center being in White Bluff?
Jeff: About two years ago in the Fall of 2006, Linda and I were both invited to participate on the county three star strategic planning committee. And that committee was comprised of about forty-five individuals from across the county. It represented every community in the county. It represented every walk of life in the county. There were professionals, there were elected officials, there were homemakers. . .it was a cross section of the county. And the purpose of that group was to come together and develop a five year, rolling strategic plan for the county.
And out of those discussions, one of the initiatives that we discussed was the need for higher education in Dickson County. We in turn took that concept of that county wide strategic plan, we brought that back to White Bluff and we put our own community leadership group together and we went through the same process at the town level. It was amazing to me how the town goals dovetailed into the county goals. And higher education also came up in our White Bluff strategic plan as a desire from the citizens of the community. At that point, Linda approached Mayor Stone in Charlotte and inquired as to what would be the next step to bring higher education to Dickson County. His first priority was to see if they could acquire donated property and Linda approached Richard Bibb, who has been a strong community advocate and has done a lot for White Bluff as well as Dickson County. After some contemplation, Richard came back with the desire to donate the ten acres of property in White Bluff. We approached Mayor Stone at that point and it’s taken off from there.
S: When did you approach Mayor Stone initially?
Linda: After we had our community leadership seminar, I talked to Jeff and we decided if Dickson County was ready for a college, there’s no reason in the world that it could not be right here in White Bluff. No reason in the world. So, I approached Mayor Stone and said, “If I could get you ten acres, ten or twelve acres, would you consider White Bluff for the foundation?” And that was based on the fact that Humphreys County has ten or twelve acres, so I thought that would work. I didn’t know at that time if it was the county or if it was the foundation, I really didn’t know what the next step was. And he was just ecstatic, so I said, “Well, I think maybe I can.” So, I went to our friend Richard Bibb and at first he was like everyone else, like, “Oh, gosh. A college in White Bluff. . .that’ll never happen.” The more he thought about it and after we had a couple of meetings and we showed him the transportation route, the commuter route coming in and how we were in a hole and the closest colleges around, and how it would fill a void for this region. Then he said, “You know, you might be right. It may make some sense. Yeah, let’s go for it. Let’s try it.” Then I went back to Mayor Stone and told him we got the land.
J: There were some other concepts that came out of the county wide strategic plan, and one of those was that we need to adequately use our limited resources. I mean, the county is a certain size, and we have a certain amount of land and road ways and those types of things. So, as we grow as a county, we want to make sure that we adequately use the resources that we have. There’s the consideration of road congestion and things like that, and we feel like the White Bluff location really solves a lot of the county issues of how to grow in the future. The other concept that we discussed was that there are certain things that have to be in your population center such as your Wal-Marts, Lowes, and larger chain restaurants. If you’re going to get those in your county, you’re going to get those in your larger population centers. A facility for higher education is not an entity that has to be in your population center. It can be in a more rural area, because people are going to come to that facility. And the other thing is where do you get the biggest economic impact for the county? If you put a facility of this nature in an area, what our position is that we can put this campus in a White Bluff location or for that matter another rural location and it will have a larger economic impact for the county than putting it in an area that is already basically filled out economically. So we feel like from a county perspective, and quite frankly from a town perspective, this would be the beginning of establishing a second economic center in your county. And we don’t see that as a bad thing. We don’t see this as taking away from any existing activities. We see this as really enhancing the county’s desire to grow. I think, of course we’re partial here, but we really see benefits at the county level by putting this facility in an area outside of your population center.
S: You mentioned that you have some resource limitations such as the road system. Anything else?
J: Now, don’t misunderstand. I said that county-wide you have certain areas that you will have resource limitations. You have a lack of large tracks of develop-able land in certain areas of the county. In White Bluff we have large tracks of land. You have congested transportation networks in part of the county. We do not have that congestion here, so we feel like this is an appropriate place to put a facility of this nature. We would never spend time trying to court a Wal-Mart or a Lowes. Those things would naturally go in your population centers. But this particular entity, the reason that we’re going to fight as hard as we are for this is we feel like it fits the bill for the county’s strategic direction.
S: Awesome. What type of education can people expect to get from this facility?
L: That really is more of a question for the board. I don’t want to be so presumptuous as to answer for them. From the meetings that I’ve attended so far and observed and different board members I’ve spoken with, it sounds like it would probably be wise to go for the two year college program with maybe certified courses available, maybe three month certified courses available. There will be a needs and assessment study and I know in that study and in that survey, they will be talking to all of the industries around here asking, “What do you need for your labor force? What kind of certificate so that you don’t have to go outside the county and outside the area to maybe try and get people to move in.” So, we’re looking right now probably, I would say, when it’s first built it would be like most other colleges have started out with a two year program that could be transferred on over to a four year university. Obviously, we would like for it to go into some four year degrees.
S: Okay, so we’re looking more at a two year college, hopefully eventually progressing into a four year, but this is not certain.
L: No. (in agreeing of uncertainty)
J: And I think Linda’s point is absolutely appropriate. That would really be more of a question for the Dickson County Higher Education Board.
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Thanks for reading and comments are always welcomed. By the way, the image at the top is a photo of the proposed site to be donated by Richard Bibb.
