39
community colleges. Two
private universities, Duke and
Wake Forest, joined as well.
One of the most interesting
courses taught online across
NC at community colleges
was the embalming class. At
least the undertakers in NC
now had excellent educational
preparation to handle your last
days on earth. Te course is
still taught today.
And the NC School of
Math and Science could now
work to teach advanced math
and science to many of the
high schools in rural areas.
Even German classes were now
taught to all high schools in
Guilford County; Appalachian
and UNC Asheville
universities could now graduate
majors in German by putting together classes
on both campuses with the courses needed
to complete a major. BMW and Mercedes
Benz both located large factories with supplier
networks extending throughout the region.
Still, we had to move forward on many fronts.
Two things happened. Our frst Education
Summit was hosted in Wilmington in 2002
by the Rural Internet Access Authority. UNC
system president Bill Friday spoke in favor
of statewide collaboration among schools,
community colleges and universities. It took
years to build support for the connectivity for
these institutions. So we began to push for
middle-mile funding and fnally got it with
BTOP under the stimulus program.
What Collaboration Means
You cannot connect to schools unless the
efort is collaborative. You have teachers,
administrators, technical folks, the state's
Department of Public Instruction, State IT
folks, the state's Education Department. It
took another visionary Governor, Bev Perdue,
and her education advisor Myra Best to create
committees to look at digital learning as well as
to advocate for the funding, teacher training,
school design and collaborative work between
educational institutions to create the NC
Connectivity Initiative. Tis began in 2005.
Fortunately, during the early days of the
frst collaborative connectivity eforts we
had the support of the Bush Administration,
pushing school connectivity. Te Obama
Above:
North Carolina's
Research and Education
Network can handle
more than 200 Gbps
statewide. By the end
of the decade its fber
may handle 50 times as
much trafc.
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