Word: harps
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Beck argues that when you're facing a budget shortfall in the billions, the extra revenue from an added day of alcohol sales is just a drop in the bucket. His opponents, however, insist it is significant. "At least it's a drop," says Georgia Senator Seth Harp, who introduced a bill proposing local referendums on Sunday sales. "Maybe it's even a cup full. But right now, I'd like to have a couple of cups full than nothing at all." (See what businesses are doing well despite the recession...
Take Savannah State University, a 173-acre (70 hectare) campus of tawny brick buildings and Spanish-moss-covered oaks that hosts some 3,400 students. Under Harp's proposal, it would keep its name but merge with Armstrong Atlantic State, a majority-white school of about 7,000 down the road. Founded in 1890 as the Georgia State Industrial College for Colored Youth, Savannah State opened at its current site on a wooded salt marsh in 1891, 70 years before the state's universities were integrated. Its first president, Richard Wright Sr., was born into slavery...
With Georgia facing a $2 billion budget shortfall, Seth Harp, chairman of the state senate's higher-education committee, has proposed merging historically black public universities with mostly white schools nearby to cut administrative costs. Among other drawbacks, critics say, the move could mean fewer scholarships, larger classes and teacher layoffs. But race is the thorniest issue by far. "We've made tremendous progress in Georgia," says Harp. "I just think it's the right time to get rid of this vestige of legal segregation." (See pictures of a diverse group of American teens...
...whereas Harp sees such schools as the product of an "ugly chapter in Georgia's history," black students and educators see them as a point of African-American pride. While historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) make up just 3% of U.S. schools, they produce nearly a quarter of all African-American graduates. A 2007 study showed that black men who attend a black college as opposed to another four-year school enjoy a hefty lifetime-earnings boost. HBCU alumni include Booker T. Washington, Toni Morrison, Sean (Diddy) Combs, Oprah Winfrey and more than a third of the current Congressional...
...accept low-performing students who may not have been given a chance elsewhere. At Savannah State, the figure hovers around 35%. A bigger problem is money: HBCUs are chronically underfunded, and Savannah State--with an endowment of just $3.4 million, compared with Armstrong's $7.9 million--is no exception. Harp expects the merger to help close that gap, an aspect of the plan that is winning over some critics. Emanuel Jones, chairman of Georgia's Legislative Black Caucus, says his "ears perked up" at talk of funding disparities, and he is co-sponsoring a resolution to study the merger...