Three years ago I battle the hierarchy of South Carolina State University for South Carolina & USA taxpayers and citizens to have full access to Computers and Internet at South Carolina State College (SCSU) Library. It took a year of woe & hell but finally two years ago the SCSU Trustee Board and President Huggine agreed to get the IT Department at SCSU to make “community User name and a password so the Public (”Community” as they called it) to log on. A staff person had to log you on but finally taxpayer’s Civil Rights were no longer being Violated and trampled on.
It worked for all concern except for students violating no cell phones; no music, no eating nor drinking was rarely challenged by the library staff. Often in the labs the students rarely did real studies via the computer and spend too often on social websites such as Facebook™ and MySpace™. The ones I was impressed with were the International students that were in the lab to really study and not have a party.
Now that is all changing again. As of July 19, 2007 only Student’s and Alumni can log on the library lab computers.Taxpayers & citizens should have full access to all computer labs/Internet on campus, etc. and not have their Civil Rights violated. Unnamed staff members have informed me that no criteria have been made to verify that a person claiming to be an Alumni of SCSU is in fact a SCSU Alumni. What this means that anybody that that is of African descent can claim to be a SCSU Alumni and get away with it while I and other non-African descent Taxpayers can’t use the computers and this to me is racial bigotry. Let alone stomping on the Civil Rights of Taxpayers. The founding of SCSU is a Land Grant college.
According to Maurice Washington, Chairman of the SCSU Board of Trustees and Present President Andrew Huggine is that SCSU is to be open to all people including as they call taxpayer’s “the community and that the community should be able to use the computers/internet. These are statements they made to me.
With a new person brought in to head the reference section etc., according to staff members (who want to remain anonymous) said it was his idea, to violate the Civil Rights of the Taxpayers and Citizens.I have not been able to speak to the new person or to the library dean but soon I hope to re-instate to them what transpired three years ago and see if this is a plan to get rid of taxpayer’s Civil Rights which from all accounts I have seen so far seems to be true.
Because this is not the only major problem within SCSU there is a growing talk of what should be done to SCSU. Approximately five years ago President Sorenson of University of South Carolina (USC) came to SCSU when the Honorable Ernest Finney was SCSU Interim’s President. President Finney asked Dr. Sorenson “are you here to steal my students?” There has been talk and even now talk in the community both by black and whites of closing SCSU, making it a USC – Orangeburg or re-uniting it with Clafin University.
People in today’s Society need to be able to have free unlimited access to computers as well to the Internet to do Research, Communication, etc. and a college is to be and should be a place where that is possible especially a “State College”. Computers/Internet is no longer a privilege for the few but a must necessity for all to be able to be a productive member of our society.
When I was a boy in school I learnt the necessities of life were food, clothing and shelter; now its food, clothing, shelter and internet. Sadly many in our community doesn’t understand the validity and importance that computers/Internet play in our productive life and not is just a toy as many try to make it to be.Clearly something needs to be done.
For the sake of the student’s future, staff, faculty as well as “We the Taxpayers/Citizens of South Carolina and the United States of American” we cannot stand to the sidelines and watch things go on as they are. We the Taxpayers, State House, Governor, Budget Control Board, etc. needs to aggressively look at SCSU and see what needs to be done to correct longstanding problems, hazardous safety issues (cracked steam vents and downed power lines, asbestos, violations of Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) etc. and financial questions that seem not to be totally open and answered. The time is now to act, to either make South Carolina State University a great university in one form or another or put her into history, changes needs to be done NOW!
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