Southwestern Community College [Link]

Broadband Pioneer

Do you know people who live “on the edge?” They go sky diving in the Mohave Desert, bungee jumping along the Grand Canyon, and scuba diving in South America. On the one hand, you think they might be crazy—but on the other hand you are intrigued by the awesome things they might see or experience. And then there are those folks in history who were “ahead of their time” with their thinking and activities—people like Albert Einstein and his Theory of Relativity, Henry Ford and the assembly line, Amelia Earhart and her solo flights, and Lewis and Clark and the Corps of Discovery. They were questioned by their peers and society, yet their discoveries paved the way for great advances that we benefit from today.

Well, you might be surprised to learn of a modern day “pioneer” nestled in the rural mountains of western North Carolina—Southwestern Community College. While SCC hasn’t cured cancer or discovered a new land, it has quietly dared to imagine its region in several years time—with easy access high-performance telecommunications delivered via a fiber optic backbone on par with that found in urban environments.

SCC was established more than 40 years ago to provide educational and training services to the people of Jackson, Macon and Swain counties—which includes the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. When the College opened its doors in 1964, a total of 133 students were enrolled in short-term courses in 4 programs of study.

Today, the College provides instruction in more than 50 programs which can culminate in a diploma, certificate or associate's degree to its service area population of more than 80,000. More than 2,600 students enroll annually in these credit classes, and more than 6,500 participate in a wide variety of courses, workshops and seminars offered through Continuing Education. The College also provides support to the area’s business and industry sector through customized training and its Small Business Center—and is actively involved in promoting the economic development of the region. In addition to the main campus in Sylva, the College operates a full-service campus in Franklin, three outreach centers, and a Public Safety Training Institute.

It is this commitment to quality education, grassroots innovation, and community development that has driven SCC’s long involvement in the telecommunications field. Recognized as a technology leader, SCC utilizes sophisticated fiber optic infrastructure to fuel its extensive telecommunications network—supporting 35 file and application servers, 20 computer labs, close to 1000 desktop computers, and free internet service provision for students, staff, and faculty at home. In addition, the College hosts a 13-site interactive television system – which includes four SCC locations and seven area high schools – and a North Carolina Information Highway connection which provides a valuable videoconferencing linkage.

In 1999, the College began an unprecedented quest to bring 21st Century resources to the region. Armed with more than $1.5 million in funding won by SCC, the College launched the Appalachian Access Initiative – seeking to find a way to lower the cost and increase the quality and availability of telecommunications infrastructure in rural western North Carolina. The scope of the effort included sophisticated assessments of technical, regulatory, business and political factors affecting pricing and quality of service in the region—and ended in the development of a strategy to deploy an alternative middle mile infrastructure in western North Carolina.

The strategy was validated by Callisma and adopted by such groups as the Education and Research Consortium of the Western Carolinas, the Western North Carolina Knowledge Coalition, AdvantageWest – and the founders of BalsamWest FiberNET, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Nation and Drake Enterprises. “We are excited to see years of collaborative effort pay off for the people of western North Carolina,” said Cecil Groves, President of Southwestern.

Serving as BalsamWest’s Community Interest Partner, the College has been a pivotal player in the establishment and management of the Company. This involvement has helped the area bridge the technological gap with the rest of the world—ensuring that the region could participate fully in a global economy by providing open and affordable access to this state-of-the-art infrastructure. In a new model of innovation and collaboration, SCC has assisted in the creation of an open infrastructure that will be directly available to the public, private and non-profit sectors—a model that has drawn attention across the Country.

“BalsamWest will give the region the tools it needs to educate and train the workforce of the future, support advances in health care, improve the ability of local businesses to succeed, and create opportunities to generate good jobs for the future,” said Dr. Cecil Groves, President of Southwestern Community College. “And infrastructure like this will allow the College to tap into advanced teaching tools, provide education virtually anytime/anywhere, and help our public partners—such as the schools and libraries—access resources anywhere in the world,” said Groves.

SCC is one of 59 institutions operating in the North Carolina Community College System, a statewide organization of public, two-year, postsecondary educational institutions. The College’s vision, mission and goals are indicative of the modern community college—providing inspiration for the implementation of innovative educational programming and collaborative approaches to community development.

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