CEO: Partnership will unlock huge potential
The new learning centre for Georgia Southern students was greeted with oohs and aaahs of appreciation at its official unveiling.
The brightly coloured modern lecture hall, the old judge’s chambers which is now a lecture room where sophisticated video conferencing facilities have been installed whereby lectures taking place 3,850 miles away can be streamed live, and the classical colour scheme immediately made an impression on the 100-strong crowd attending the opening ceremony.
The new learning centre in Wexford in the old County Hall building in Spawell Road is Georgia Southern University’s European hub and features numerous high ceilinged rooms over two floors, which will soon be occupied by lecturers and staff from the university.
During a tour of the facility, county council CEO Tom Enright spoke of the huge potential being linked to Savannah has from an economic perspective.
Works are underway to provide student accommodation within the old County Hall campus and at the Adoration Sisters Convent on Bride Street.
The bright, modern new lecture hall housed in what was a shabby old courtroom, can seat 60 students. Mr Enright said the fact that a delegation of 22 people from Savannah, including seven faculty heads from different departments at Georgia Southern, highlights the confidence they have in the Wexford project. ‘What they can do now is bring their own courses. This campus has now expanded from being a research centre into a variety of disciplines including nursing and business. The students will do modules here over seven weeks. There are 26 units within the Georgia State University and college structure and none of them have students who study overseas. We have known all along that the student accomodation was going to be an issue. There have been students coming over in small numbers. They have been staying in B&Bs and hotels which can be expensive over time. Accommodation can be hard to find here during the summer and the opera festival so it was vitally important to get this student accommodation in place.’
Mr Enright said there are already a number of companies on either side of the Atlantic who have expressed an interest in Wexford and Savannah. ‘All of them have already made progress on business deals from this side. We see this as something that can grow and expand,’ suggesting that food companies have great opportunities in the lucrative Georgia State market.
‘Particulalry with Brexit there is an opportunity for them to develop more relations with Savannah Economic Development Authority (SEDA) and Georgia Southern University.’
Another plan is to tell the story of successful Savannah people who are descended or who emigrated to Georgia from Co Wexford in a new museum in Savannah. ‘ There is a fantastic history there. William Kehoe left Wexford town when he was ten or 11 in December 1851 and his fmaily emigrated over there and he ended up running the largest iron works in the state. It closed its doors in the 1920s but the Kehoe ironworks have been reopened as a new cultural centre. It was a big, old derelict red brick building and they have turned it into a cultural centre so there is an opportunity to tell the Wexford story there.’
He said many Savannahans want to trace their story back to Ireland.
‘Many emigrants from Wexford were successful in business and politics to become important members of the community there and they are proud of their Wexford history. This project here is a way of the connecting back to a place that was home for their ancestors.’
SEDA selected Ireland as one of its six target countries. As a result, several trade-and-investment delegations have taken place, and in March 2018 a formal initiative, Wexford-Savannah TradeBridge, was launched.
TradeBridge has already resulted in a number of positive outcomes, including a major Southeastern US distribution deal for Survipod, a Wexford manufacturer of innovative surveying tools.
The Savannah Bee Company has contracted a broad-based distribution deal into Ireland, while Raceix, an Irish company in the motor-boat tech sector, has announced Savannah as the choice for its North American headquarters.
Speaking on the latest joint ambition between Wexford and Georgia, Dr Howard Keeley Director of Georgia Southern’s Center for Irish Research and Teaching said: ‘Georgia Southern University is excited to make a significant investment in international education by committing to Global Hub — Ireland. This constitutes the university’s most important study-abroad initiative since its founding over 100 years ago. Our ambition is to develop Global Hub — Ireland in Wexford town as Georgia Southern University’s primary educational venue for Europe. While the principal user will be Georgia Southern’s 26,000 students, we anticipate and welcome use by our sibling institutions in the University System of Georgia, which serves some 333,000 students.’
Georgia Southern encourages its students to gain a global perspective by studying and interning abroad, and the university intends to offer courses throughout the year at its Irish hub in Wexford, with plans to facilitate up to 100 students during peak college term. Irish students may also be able to avail of educational opportunities at the campus in the coming years.
It is planned that in the spring and summer semesters of 2020 Georgia Southern will be launching a series of pilot courses at Global Hub — Ireland focused on nursing, healthcare administration, sports management, and primary and secondary school education. In addition to classroom instruction, the intention is to provide field experiences and networking opportunities for Wexford town-based Georgia Southern students.
Also to be offered during the pilot phase of Global Hub — Ireland will be humanities and international-studies courses, presented under the auspices of Georgia Southern University’s Honors Program, which is on track to become an Honors College. Occurring over four weeks in May and June 2020, the courses will centre on the unique emigration story that links the county of Wexford and the city of Savannah.
Dr. Howard Keeley explains: ‘During the early summer of 2020, these courses will provide undergraduate students with opportunities to conduct primary-source research at the Wexford County Archive and elsewhere in the region; to present their findings to public audiences; and to gain knowledge about diaspora identity, a matter that’s more important today than ever.’
EMIGRANTS ARE PROUD OF THEIR WEXFORD HISTORY. THIS PROJECT IS A WAY OPF THE CONNECTING BACK TO A PLACE THAT WAS HOME FOR THEIR ANCESTORS