CAPACITY BUILDING
- Reflecting a joint venture between the Fanning Institute and Georgia Tech’s Enterprise Institute Innovation Center, the Atlanta Community Economic Development Academy for Neighborhood Planning Units V, X and Y held its initial session on August 18th. Juanita Blount-Clark, Raye Rawls, Skip Teaster, and Jim Youngquist worked closely with Tech’s Todd Greene, Martha Schoonmaker and Dr. Kathryn Brice, and Dr. Bruce Tucker of Leadership Link to make the Academy a reality.
EXPLORATION
- Kim Anderson, Matt Bishop and Langford D. Holbrook facilitated separate brainstorming sessions for the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences’ Advisory Council to develop ideas for sources of funding to support the CAES mission. Holbrook also planned and facilitated a strategic planning session for CAES’ Animal & Dairy Sciences Department.
- Jim Youngquist conducted a week-long SERDI strategic assessment for the Mid-East Commission in Washington, NC. Approximately 150 public and private sector leaders from a five-county region in eastern North Carolina participated. The two most significant outcomes of the assessment will be the restructuring of the Commission’s board and yearly information and input sessions with each of the five counties, which will in turn form the basic structure for a regional work program for the Commission.
IMPLEMENTATION
- A reception featured works by students from the first and second years of Project Riverway, a multi-disciplinary, service learning course designed to reconnect communities to the lower Chattahoochee River and provide them with real solutions to address their economic disparity. Project Riverway is led by Leigh Askew and Danny Bivins.
- The City of Dahlonega adopted “The Dahlonega Corridor Design Overlay District Ordinance” to help ensure quality development along Dahlonega’s four gateway corridors. The Guidelines and the Ordinance were developed by Danny Bivins, with assistance from the Alliance for Quality Growth.
- Bill Russell is collaborating with Dr. Jose Blanco of the College of Family and Consumer Sciences in a project to catalog and clean memorabilia for the Billy Carter Museum in Plains. This project will also provide a service learning experience for students in FACS. Deputy Director Annelies Mondi and Curator Ashley Callahan of the Georgia Museum of Art are also involved in the project.
CELEBRATION
Fanning Day, an annual event celebrating the life and legacy of Dr. J.W. Fanning, was inaugurated on August 14th, Dr. Fanning’s birthday. Speakers at the celebration included Dr. Arnett Mace; Dr. Art Dunning; Fanning children Sibyle Jenks and Bill Fanning; Dink NeSmith, president of Community Newspapers Incorporated; Karen E. Holt; and Matt Bishop, Fanning Day Chair. Special remarks were made by Gio Carrion, mentor for the Leadership sin Limites program and Judge Steve C. Jones, Chair of Partners for a Prosperous Athens, both of whom spoke eloquently about the impact of the work of the Fanning Institute on themselves and their communities. The formal program included the unveiling of granite garden benches donated by Mr. NeSmith in honor of Dr. Fanning and his wife Cora Lee, and concluded with a touching poem read by Dr. Fanning’s great grandson. The approximately 125 guests were then invited to share in refreshments and hospitality and to talk with Fanning Institute faculty about their work and how it promotes Dr. Fanning’s legacy.
