No surprise the N&R expects big things from the Joint School of Nanoscience and Engineering, which has its grand opening today:
Credit goes first to A&T, UNCG and UNC leaders who developed this vision, community boosters who strongly supported it, local legislators who made sure their colleagues in Raleigh understood the importance of this project and lawmakers who provided the funding.
It’s clear that higher education fashions the keys to future success. Developing new technologies and products will create jobs and push economic growth. Nanoscience is a field with tremendous potential for manufacturing materials that are lighter and stronger, applying medical therapies directly to diseased or damaged parts of the body, or making progress in countless other endeavors.
Today, the Joint School opens what ought to stand as one of the best facilities for nano study and research in the country. It’s a great accomplishment but only the beginning. As the story continues, Greensboro may find that really big things come in nano-sized packages.
Keep in mind that this is a $64 million investment of taxpayers’ money in what seems to me to be a highly specialized field will do little to put a dent in Guilford County’s high unemployment rate.
This is the type of business progressivism that newly sworn-in Mayor Robbie Perkins continually promotes. Perkins’ seven-member following will no doubt join hands with him and embrace similar projects.
