Education and Technology -- Madison's Road to Prosperity

Full disclosure: As a graduate research assistant at Dakota State University, I am an employee of the Board of Regents. Upon completing my degree, I hope to obtain a professorship at DSU and spend the rest of my life scholaring away at my computer right here in Madison. And I have always thought education is really, really cool.

I thus have numerous reasons to be excited about two proposals the Regents have before them about DSU. The first is the High-Speed Research, Education, and Economic Development Network that would hook up the six public universities, EROS Data Center, and the Homestake research lab. The governor's budget address slideshow (pp 20-21) has a couple of slides giving an impressive graphic perspective on the capacity of the proposed 10,000Mbps connections (verbal version: if typical broadband is the size of the Earth, the proposed bandwidth is the size of the sun). The front page of the dead-tree MDL reports that, if the Legislature approves the system, DSU would be the administrative hub of the network. DSU already administers the K-12 data system, so adding Hi-Speed REED to our duties is a perfectly logical stretch.

Now I know Mr. Sibson has issued some strong reporting that questions the Great Plains Education Foundation, the big slush fund being used to cover $8M of the $30M price tag. There are certainly issues about legislative oversight -- we shouldn't be comfortable with the Board of Regents using the GPEF as a way to get around the legislature's proper control of its expenditures. But if we can fund this project, South Dakota and Madison in particular stand to gain jobs and money, not to mention knowledge, from the improved capacity for research and e-commerce.

If you don't like throwing money at education, then how about a program that helps DSU with no additional cost? DSU's College of Liberal Arts has proposed to the Regents a new master's program in entertainment technology. According to MDL, the program would bring at least ten more students to campus (graduate students, the kind who do really bankable research!) but cost the state not one extra penny, since it could be funded entirely through reallocation and external funds. Again, we'd like to know exactly from whom those external funds will come, but we will happily take ten more students and another degree opportunity for students and scholars who want to make Madison home.

DSU has always been one of Madison's largest employers. Manufacturing employers come and go, but our education industry has been a rock-solid base for our economic development for 125 years. The economy constantly evolves, and every business hopes Schumpeter's creative destruction won't target them next. But whatever the twists and turns of the global economy, education and technology seem a sure bet for continuing prosperity.