Virginia Technology Center Seen as Economic Hope
By Ronald Roach

Danville, Va.

In Virginia, the decline of the tobacco and the textile industries has led to hard economic times in the state's southernmost counties known as southside Virginia. In addition to high unemployment, the largely rural region struggles with low educational attainment among its residents. Just 5 percent of Black adults and 12 percent of White adults in Danville and the surrounding Pittsylvania County, the heart of southside Virginia, have a bachelor's degree or higher. Twenty percent of all adults in the area have less than a ninth grade education.

Nonetheless, regional leaders are placing high hopes on an $18 million academic technology center in Danville to stimulate economic development in southern Virginia. Pittsylvania County and Danville leaders are realigning their public schools and colleges to develop a local work force capable of attracting and sustaining high-tech industries. Using funds appropriated from the settlement of national tobacco lawsuits, the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research (IALR), which is being constructed in Danville, will be operated jointly by three institutions: Averett University, Danville Community College and Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech).

"The (IALR) represents a unique model for university outreach," says Dr. Tim Franklin, IALR executive director and Virginia Tech administrator.

Franklin says the institute, which is scheduled to open in the fall of 2003, will combine the structure of a regional academic center offering degree programs from state institutions and a university-managed research park. Virginia Tech provides the primary administrative, academic and research management of the IALR. The completed 90,000-square-foot institute will house traditional academic and distance-learning classrooms, research laboratories and facilities, and a conference and meeting center, according to Franklin.