THE SPECTATOR–HUGE PARTNERSHIP IN WORKFORCE TRAINING

  

Thank you Texas A&M Chancellor John Sharp for giving Blinn College the vote of confidence they sorely needed and deserved.  Earlier this week Sharp, along with Blinn President Dr. Mary Hensley and Blinn Board of Trustees President David Sommer, announced a partnership with Texas A&M Engineering Extension Service to provide workforce training in Brazos County.  For several weeks I have been hoping that Sharp would step forward and give a public showing of support for Blinn College in Brazos County.  His announcement of this partnership between A&M, Blinn and TEEX is that and so much more.  A lack of workforce training has been what the Talent Initiative Steering Committee of the Research Valley Partnership has been publicly touting as a reason to replace Blinn with another college.  Even though most of what was being said in the media was false, workforce training was still this group’s public outcry against Blinn.  With this announcement, the former co-chair of that committee, Bryan Mayor Andrew Nelson, says his vote will be to suspend the petition drive for a new college.

Although the residents of Brazos County don’t know it yet, they have dodged a huge bullet.  If somehow Blinn had been forced out of Brazos County, any new college would have taken between three and four years to gain accreditation.  Brazos County could have been left without a community college for a period of two to three years!  That fact was not shared with those asked to sign the petition.

So many falsehoods have been shared with the public by members of the Talent Initiative Steering Committee that it would take a week of Spectators to run through them all.  Bobby Gutierrez, Secretary for that committee, has said that the last six construction projects on the Brenham campus were paid for by Brazos County money.  Those would include the A.W. Hodde Technical Education Center, the Kruse Center, the Coatney Athletic Complex and the new 450 student housing project that is a public/private partnership.  Blinn Board President David Sommer says there is a reason there are names on many of the buildings on the Brenham campus.  It’s because the people of Washington County have contributed generously to Blinn.  Sommer says he sees no names on buildings at the Bryan campus….but “it would be great to have that type of partnership in Brazos County”.

Wednesday night the Blinn Board authorized a maximum of $34.2 million toward the construction of its new campus on the site of Texas A&M’s RELLIS Campus.  As far as I know, none of the buildings have names on them yet.  Here’s your chance, Brazos County…..

One final note.  There are always people working tirelessly behind the scene to make partnerships like this one between Blinn, A&M and TEEX happen.  One such person who deserves a mention is Charles Schwartz, a member of the A&M System Board of Regents.  As he did two years ago during the Texas legislative session, Schwartz played an instrumental role in helping Blinn move forward into the future.  Charles’ father, former Blinn President and Brenham Mayor Walter Schwartz, would be very proud.

And that’s the way it looks to this Spectator.