For students and whole community
We at WCUG 88.5 Cougar Radio thank the community for the early praise we are receiving and the appreciation for our jazz programming. We assure you jazz will be part of our programming in the future.
We want to clarify our recent radio spot and explain what we mean by offering "all types of music." We are creating a learning community for students to develop original content, which will build better professionals. This learning experience requires many types of programming, including different music genres, talk radio and news.
Our station offers one of the few non-commercial broadcast radio formats in the region. As a non-profit station, WCUG 88.5 FM can make programming decisions based solely on student and community input and interests. We want our students to have the freedom to develop their ideas into original content. This will empower them to become the next generation of media professionals.
When Columbus State received the generous contribution of 88.5 FM, the vision was to add a radio broadcast platform to our growing multimedia platform in the Department of Communication. Communication is seeing unprecedented growth in our student body because we chose to not only lecture to our students, but to put them in learning lab environments to apply the principles they are learning. This will prepare them for the professional world. Our drive for original radio programming content in the interests of our students makes us different from anything ever heard in Columbus. If you are patient with us, we are going to be a radio platform the city and the region will be proud to call their own.
Danna M. Gibson
Chair, Department of Communication
Columbus State University
Blame to share
African Americans reading this letter will label me a boot-licking, feet-shuffling, fried chicken and watermelon eating Uncle Tom looking for white approval. Whites will tag me as someone who adheres to the status quo. In reality, the white man is only part of the problem. Racial discrimination and police brutality sometimes run rampant in the African American community. Those who deny the problem are suffering from delusions of grandeur.
The African American young woman, my "Sista," who committed suicide in a Texas jail, could have avoided the situation by complying with the state trooper, extinguishing the cigarette, accepting the warning, not a ticket, and proceeding to her destination. The state trooper should have deescalated the situation, rescinded the warning, issued a ticket, and proceeded to his destination. She consciously or unconsciously lured the state trooper into a sense of rage, and he lost his composure, professionalism, and logic. Instead, he exercised his exaggerated false sense of racial superiority, and showed this supposedly stereotypical angry black woman he is in charge. My "Sista" probably perceived the trooper as some Southern redneck who violated her rights. Had my "Sista" complied with the officer, she would be alive today, and the officer would not be facing a lawsuit. Consequently, they both are problems and contribute to racial dissension.
Stephen Earl White
Phenix City
By the book
The Moon Road expansion is a Boondoggle:
(1) noun: Work or activity that is wasteful or pointless but gives the appearance of having value.
(2) verb: Waste money or time on unnecessary or questionable projects.
This is the biggest waste of taxpayers' money I have seen in a long time. You took a good two-lane road mad it a three-lane road? And added sidewalks?
Who walks up and down Moon Road?
What a waste.
Johnny Waldrop
Columbus
Maximizing or minimizing?
I frequently walk at Cooper Creek Park, but it had been a while since my last visit. Upon entering the park, I was surprised to see the clearance of trees behind the tennis courts and playground. A huge sign stood in front, advertising CORTA's campaign to solicit nine million dollars in donations to "maximize" Cooper Creek Park. The sign listed several proposed projects including more parking, 25 new tennis courts, a new CORTA office and a new home for CSU.
I was surprised and disappointed by all of this, not by the huge amount of money. Why CORTA needs a new building so soon after the second one was built or why CSU needs a "home" a mile and a half away from its main campus is beyond me.
But that is not my concern. Private citizens have the right to spend their money however they like.
No, I was disappointed in the elimination of greenspace and the use of public land for a private enterprise. There has already been a great deal of encroachment on Cooper Creek Park in recent years: The second CORTA building, concession stands and courts that now line both sides of the entrance, large private homes that were practically built in the park and Cougar Village. All of these developments have subtracted from its beauty.
Those of us who don't play tennis (dare I say, the majority) go to the park for the serenity of a pastoral atmosphere. The trees that have been uprooted were an essential part of that. Will Cooper Creek be the park with a tennis complex or a tennis complex with a walking trail? Are we "paving paradise to put up a parking lot"?
Joyce Leonard
Columbus
This story was originally published August 10, 2015 at 2:14 PM with the headline "For students and whole community ."