Summer’s lull in certain types of community activity came to its usual abrupt halt the past 10 days as local institutions of higher learning opened their doors for a new school year.
A burst of energy always accompanies the return of college students to Terre Haute and Vigo County. The campuses, commercial areas and city’s downtown district reap the most notable benefits — or detriments, if you prefer a more pessimistic view — of the surge.
While every college town endures its share of tensions when students return from summer break, Terre Haute in recent years has begun to more clearly recognize that the presence of area colleges and universities provide it with a big part of its personality and identity. In doing so, it also provides the community with one of its more promising paths to prosperity.
The social and economic impacts of area colleges aren’t all we need to flourish, but they are key elements in the formula. Community leaders obviously recognize that and use it to paint a positive — and totally realistic — view of the future.
Indiana State University, by virtue of its size and geographic location, is the anchor of the higher education community. This fall, ISU marks a major development in its master plan by opening the new Scott College of Business in the former Federal Building at the corner of Seventh and Cherry Streets.
The university since its inception has been an urban campus that borders Terre Haute’s downtown. But last year’s opening of the building housing the Barnes and Noble Bookstore and ISU Foundation offices, and this year’s opening of the business school, officially brings ISU across Cherry Street and into the downtown district in a major way. The next phase of ISU development may well place student housing in downtown locations, including on Wabash Avenue.
While ISU’s expansion deeper into downtown represents a major change for the community, we see it as a positive development and one that helps make an important section of the city more vital and vibrant.
We would, however, be naïve to ignore the potential problems that can occur. One need only look back to the recent fatal shooting of an ISU student outside of a tavern bordering the campus to understand the community must be vigilant in reacting quickly and effectively to safety and security concerns to ensure that tragic incidents such as this remain rare.
ISU’s is not the only significant higher education presence here. Not by a long shot. Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology on the city’s east side is smaller, but its national reputation as an undergrad engineering school bolsters the community’s image in the state and throughout the Midwest.
Likewise, St. Mary-of-the-Woods College, the small liberal arts school for women, provides an element of educational and gender diversity uncommon in most college towns.
Vocational schools such as Ivy Tech State College and Harrison College also add to the array of choices available to people who want to better themselves through higher education. And the presence of these institutions make our community better in many other ways as well.
We extend our welcome to the returning students, and we’re anxious to see what new and exciting benefits our colleges bring to Terre Haute in the coming school year. We anticipate there will be many.
Editorials
EDITORIAL: Terre Haute continues to develop its college-town personality
Students bring new energy to community
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The celebration season
Spring has been a bit elusive at times in 2013, which is its nature.
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EDITORIAL: Noteworthy in the news: MVC tourney an event worth having
It’s been a long time since the Missouri Valley Conference chose Indiana State University to host its post-season baseball tournament, but Terre Haute had never been more prepared for an event such as this.
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EDITORIAL: Cleaning up voter rolls
It’s not a lot of money in the big scheme of things, but the $2 million designated in the recent session of the General Assembly will begin the messy but necessary process of cleaning up Indiana’s voter registration rolls.
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EDITORIAL: Waging the ‘readiness’ campaign
Almost every Hoosier who starts college intends to finish. Unfortunately, those who arrive on campus unprepared in key academic areas are far less likely to fulfill that aspiration.
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EDITORIAL: Insult to an independent press
Distrust of government secrecy has been elevated to an exceptional level with the disclosure the Justice Department covertly examined two months of Associated Press phone records to determine who leaked details to the AP about a foiled terrorist plot.
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EDITORIAL: Noteworthy in the news: Dashing finish for the Sycamores
It’s always thrilling to see Indiana State University’s athletic teams do well in high-level competition, and two specific teams rose to impressive heights last weekend in the Missouri Valley Conference outdoor track and field championships.
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EDITORIAL: Better monitoring needed to prevent local environmental messes
The nasty, hazardous messes lurking in the community raise a bottom-line, red-flag question. Could these environmental problems have been monitored and, thus, prevented?
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EDITORIAL: Memo to U.S.A.: You can ‘SPPRAK’ just as we do in Vigo County
Our kids, truly, are ‘Making a Difference’
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Some words in praise of boring government — Indiana’s
A conservative Republican governor has super majorities in both branches of the legislature. One might suspect such one-party government leads to major changes in public policy. This did not happen in 2013 in Indiana.
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EDITORIAL: Doc’s prescient prescription
Viewed through a 2013 prism, Doc Bowen’s response to the AIDS epidemic looks merely prudent, routine.
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EDITORIAL: Education remains worth the cost
Within the next few weeks, each of the local colleges will have conducted graduation ceremonies. A few days later, a different Class of 2013 will don caps and gowns for commencement — the seniors at five Vigo County high schools. It is still a smart, worthy aspiration for those high school grads to replicate the achievement of those college students by earning a higher-education degree.
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EDITORIAL: Good news for downtown
For decades, it seems, downtown Terre Haute has been in the throes of change
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EDITORIAL: Overall, state budget step in the right direction
For average Hoosiers uninterested in political point-scoring, the budget crafted by the Indiana Legislature inspires only muted, if any, fanfare.
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EDITORIAL: The lessons of organ donation
The range of emotion surrounding life-saving transplantation of a vital organ is extreme. It is the ultimate “good news-bad news” scenario.
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READERS’ FORUM: April 26, 2013
• Pence’s tax cuts benefit wealthiest
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EDITORIAL: Noteworthy in the news
This does not qualify as a surprise in any way. But the Wabash Valley’s response to widespread flooding of recent days has been nothing short of impressive, even inspirational.
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EDITORIAL: Still waiting for the jobs reward
The forces in control of Indiana government for most of the past decade need to show some results to Hoosiers in one primary category.
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MARK BENNETT: Littered with irony: Why do people callously discard their trash, and who are they?
Though they aren’t acknowledged by the U.S. Census Bureau, there are basically two demographic groups of people … Those who would dump their old toilet on the banks of the Wabash River or a rural roadside. And those who wouldn’t.
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EDITORIAL: Doing the dirty work to clean up tossed trash
A first-of-its-kind, coast-to-coast project to remove litter from U.S. roadsides brought the Pick Up America crew through the Wabash Valley two years ago.
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EDITORIAL: Keep school security a local issue
The decision to provide armed security inside a schoolhouse should be made locally.
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EDITORIAL: Noteworthy in the news
Indiana’s parks need your help.
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EDITORIAL: The return of terror
Emotions today remain strong and raw in wake of Monday’s terror bombings near the finish line of the Boston Marathon.
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EDITORIAL: A solution to distracted driving … stop it … now
You’ve got to stop. You know you do it. It’s a miracle you haven’t caused a tragedy already.
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EDITORIAL: ‘Women of Influence’: 2013 selectees have given much to their communities
For the second year, United Way of the Wabash Valley has teamed up with local sponsors to select and honor a group of women who have made outstanding contributions to their communities, professions and families.
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EDITORIAL: Noteworthy in the news: A new honor for our veterans
A commendation goes out today to state Rep. Clyde Kersey, a Terre Haute Democrat who led the charge this week in the Indiana House of Representatives to pay tribute to the nation’s Purple Heart recipients.
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EDITORIAL: Shifting view on marriage
One could argue, as many have, that Sen. Joe Donnelly did the right thing last week when he dropped his support of government-sanctioned opposition to same-sex marriage. It wasn’t a radical move, considering most Democrats have now made the switch.
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MAX JONES: The American Newspaper: Changing? Yes. Dying? No way!
It happened again this past January when all those “looking at the year ahead” stories started popping up on Internet “news” websites and broadcast “news” programs. Under a provocative headline reading something like “Five industries/businesses doomed to tank in the coming year,” there it was, a prediction based on an unsubstantiated “expert” analysis that the newspaper industry will continue in 2013 to suffer its slide into oblivion.
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EDITORIAL: A chance to change our bad cultural habits
The sight of diligent, eager young people dragging trash out of the Wabash River wetlands is both inspiring and sad.
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EDITORIAL: Maintaining high standards
Standards
It’s the raging buzzword in education circles these days. Everyone insists that higher standards must be met. Anything less is, doggone it, unacceptable. -
Noteworthy in the news
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The celebration season
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Unique Display Greets Guests At Revel Casino
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Star Wars X-Wing Star Fighter Made of Legos
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President Obama Heckled at National Security Speech
Morgan Freeman falls asleep on air
More lewd photos may soon come out: Weiner
