THE SPECTATOR: BLINN UNDER ATTACK AGAIN
Blinn College has been educating students in Brazos County for 46 years. In 1970, after consulting with A&M President Earl Rudder and the superintendents of the Bryan and College Station school districts, Blinn began offering night classes in Bryan. Allen Academy had closed its junior college division, and the leaders of Bryan/College Station asked Blinn to step in. My how times have changed!
After 46 years of stellar education….after millions and millions of dollars of investment in Brazos County…..after agreeing to put two Brazos County residents on the Blinn Board without a taxing district….and after purchasing property for a new Bryan campus….a group of Bryan/College Station folks want Blinn to get out. It’s not because Blinn doesn’t provide outstanding value and education for the 12,000 students on their Bryan campus. No…the folks that want Blinn out can’t attack the job Blinn has done. What they want….and are brazen enough to say….is complete control of the Blinn College Board of Trustees and the Blinn College budget. And if they can’t get that….they want to replace Blinn with their own community college.
On the surface, one might think that the Talent Initiative Steering Committee of the Research Valley Partnership….the group trying to push Blinn out of Brazos County…is a group of solid, thoughtful community leaders. But you don’t have to dig very deep to see that some of its members have their own, personal agendas. One is a former President of Blinn's Bryan campus who was passed over for the Presidency of the entire Blinn District. Another is a former Blinn professor who was dismissed from the faculty. Others are developers, builders and bankers who see dollar signs in their future should a new community college be formed in Brazos County. Now I’m not saying there aren’t some members who are sincere in their beliefs. But perhaps they are being led astray by others who are driven by revenge and greed.
At first, this committee claimed that Blinn was ignoring the workforce training needs of Brazos County. But after they were presented with the facts that Blinn was offering 83% of the courses they were requesting….and would offer 97% by the fall of 2017…the committee showed its true colors. Committee leaders told Blinn that they had two goals: To take over the Blinn Board completely, and to take over the Blinn budget completely. Why don’t you tell us how you really feel, Brazos County?
Any doubts about Blinn’s focus on workforce training in Brazos County should be put to rest by this afternoon’s news conference with Texas A&M. Here’s hoping that Texas A&M Chancellor John Sharp does the right thing and publicly throws his support behind Blinn College.
i’ll give you more insight into these attacks on Blinn later this week. And that’s the way it looks to this Spectator.