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Columns::March 10, 2003
Daughter of Brown decision plaintiff to deliver annual Tresp Lecture
Vet med students host international meeting
Peach State Poll: Georgians like new electronic voting machines
Lecture to consider approaches to first year of college
Study ranks university high in advertising research productivity
Get your (alternative) motor running
Lab results: Diagnostic and investigational facility in Tifton saves lives, dollars
Campus Closeup
Update: Private Giving
Kudos
Unbuckling the Poverty Belt
Warm reception
Campus News
Symposium looks at ways to dismantle ‘persistent poverty’
By Jennifer Freeman
jdeprima@uga.edu
On March 11, the Office of the Vice President for Public Service and Outreach and the Carl Vinson Institute of Government will
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James Ledbetter
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co-host a symposium on “Dismantling Persistent Poverty in the Southeastern United States: The University Challenge.” The symposium will take place at the Georgia Center for Continuing Education’s Masters Hall from 8:15 until 11 a.m.
The symposium stems from a study released by the Vinson Institute in November 2002. The study identified a 242-county region in the Southeast that has labored under a cycle of poverty for so long that some have termed the area “America’s Third World.” Home to 7.5 million people across seven states (Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia), the region represents the nation’s highest concentration of persistently poor communities. The symposium program will include a presentation of the report by Jim Ledbetter, director of the Vinson Institute, followed by a panel discussion of the study’s implications.
In 1997 Libby Morris, of UGA’s Institute of Higher Education, and Ron Wimberley, of North Carolina State University, published a study titled The Southern Black Belt: A National Perspective. Art Dunning, vice president for public service and outreach and associate provost, convened a meeting at the Carter Presidential Center in May 2001 that brought together Southern educators, community leaders, health care providers and policy makers to discuss strategies for alleviating conditions described in the study. A subsequent meeting at Tuskegee University assembled a larger group of community representatives to gain a wider perspective on the challenges facing the region.
“I saw the need to address this problem as an economic imperative,” Dunning says. “Allowing this region to lag so far behind the rest of the country damages the growth and health of the entire nation.”
U.S. Sen. Zell Miller learned of the initiative in the summer of 2001 and requested funding from Congress to support further research on the region. The Vinson Institute undertook to define the region according to measures of persistent poverty and to provide recommendations for the structure of a potential federal commission to serve the area. The study was completed in November 2002.
“I’ve been struck by the extremely positive response to the report,” Dunning says. “It’s not news that the Southeast faces serious and widespread poverty. But this study approached the issue from a different perspective, and I think people are ready to work on new approaches and solutions that will create sustainable growth and wealth throughout the region. The purpose of the symposium is to solicit the support and participation of the UGA community in an effort to seek answers to this critical issue.”
The symposium is free; participants are asked to register by sending an e-mail to pso@uga.edu. |
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