The Facts:At the Chancellor’s Liaison meeting Wednesday, Chancellor Randy Woodson challenged administrators and student leaders to act boldly.
Our Opinion:What could be more bold than a visionary statement on campus? A monorail or a like-kind transit system would benefit the entire community in many ways.At Chancellor Randy Woodson’s first Chancellor Liaison meeting at N.C. State Wednesday, he put forth some bold challenges to University administrators and student leaders. Among those, he challenged the group to fight bureaucracy at the University and dream big.It’s warming to see a man, a chancellor, who is in touch with the problems the University faces and isn’t afraid to call for a grandiose vision; it’s a good lesson for the rest of it.Part of dreaming big and riding along the autobahn of innovation is looking for opportunities to expand the campus’ scope, driving it to its limits —new horizons.Centennial Campus is a very real opportunity to realize this kind of groundbreaking change in the University’s midst; its campus of the future, which stretches down Centennial Parkway and out to Trailwood Drive, has incredible potential if its faculties are fully utilized.However, to witness that utilization of this incredible resource, students, faculty, staff and alumni must be able to effectively move between the campuses in a reasonable fashion. The University, its student and community, must demand a pensive response from the administrators who are instrumental in ensuring that projects like a rapid-transit system between the campuses takes off.Let’s build a monorail. Let’s build underground walkways. Let’s do something imaginative, creative and befitting of the state’s foremost technological learning institution.On a very basic level, a high-capacity rapid-transit system is a need the University identified when it developed its long-term physical master plan. Taking advantage of that need and seizing it as an opportunity to create something great for the University is a bonus.It sounds comical, but it’s really not. A monorail or other really inventive system falls into the category of identifying a need and filling it. This campus is going to have to figure out a way to conquer transportation issues, rapidly growing classrooms and declining class offerings. It’s going to take extraordinary solutions on a monorail scale. Perhaps it’s time we all find a little of that inventiveness within ourselves.