GlaxoSmithKline Faculty Fellows - Program Update

Our faculty fellows have been working hard throughout the summer.  NC State’s Tom Birkland took issue with the legislature’s Beach Plan fixes in a recent op-ed in the Raleigh News and Observer.  Birkland lauded the plan for scaling back the degree of public subsidy but noted that residents across the state continue to underwrite some of the risk for coastal property owners.  He called for local governments along the coast to change land use and other policies so that the real risk takers—those who choose to build or buy on the coast—assume responsibility for mitigating the risks they willingly take.

Also in the Raleigh News and Observer, UNC-Charlotte Political Science professor Greg Weeks took on the issue of admitting undocumented students into the state’s community colleges.  Weeks argued that this debate missed the larger point: workforce projections show a significant lack of skilled workers as a quarter of our state’s workforce will reach retirement age by 2017.  The debate about undocumented students affects only a small handful of community college students and distracts from efforts to raise education levels among the state’s Hispanic workforce.  To meet our workforce needs, all groups must be educated beyond levels seen today.

Finally, Wake Tech’s Rich Cregar was part of a welcoming committee for U.S. Representative David Price during his recent visit to Wake Tech.  Price has requested $400,000 from the next federal budget be split between Cregar’s program teaching students how to repair electric and hybrid vehicles and another educating students in the creation of video games used for training purposes (so-called “serious games”).

Cregar will also serve as Wake Tech’s project manager on a separate $400,000 U.S. Department of Energy grant recently awarded to NC State University’s Solar Center.  As part of the Solar Center’s Clean Transportation  Education Project, the grant will allow Cregar to deliver workshops on alternative fuel technologies and practices across the country to "Clean Cities" groups over the next two years.