I have the high privilege of serving on the Board of Directors of the Troy University Foundation. As with all university foundation boards, its members are tasked with encouraging and procuring private donations and being good stewards of those gifts.

Troy’s Foundation Board members have no involvement in day-to-day operations of the university. We do, however, have numerous occasions to observe the truly unique culture of leadership that exists within Troy University’s administration. That culture strongly influences decision-making processes on all issues.

In a recent meeting of Troy’s Foundation Board, members were updated on the construction of new student housing on the Troy campus. In that update we learned that the original loan commitment was withdrawn because of uncontrollable factors in current market conditions. Start of construction was temporarily stymied.

Fortunately, the dormitory project was “rescued” as a result of timely negotiations between Troy University and a local lending institution. The outcome was the procurement of new a loan with much better terms and conditions. It saves millions of dollars over the life of the project.

With more favorable financing in place, the administration made an absolutely extraordinary decision: Rather than using the windfall savings to cover some other critical budget needs, Troy University has chosen to pass along those savings to students and their families by significantly reducing future rental rates for campus housing.

From a personal perspective, I thank God for principled leaders who understand that students should be the primary focus of all educational institutions.

Dan Broughton

Opelika

 

Common sense called for

in gun control debate

Brace yourselves for a bombardment of media hype for gun law changes. It is as predictable as the sun rise. We are a reactionary nation in our responses to catastrophes rather than being proactive by trying to avert disasters such as school shootings.

My research today reveals that the the FBI had already recorded 16.8 million purchase requests for guns in the U.S. in 2012 PRIOR to the Connecticut school school. As expected, purchase requests have soared through the roof since last Friday. These number are attributable to fears of the public that eventually Obama will significantly restrict gun ownership. America has always been possessive about owning a gun going back colonial days. While it is difficult to nail down information on the number of guns circulating in the U.S, official sources place the number for a low of 270 million to as high as 350 million! Even the liberal bias left media acknowledge that roughly 52 percent of household have a gun. Too many!

I have been gun collector of sorts for about the past 50 years. Additionally, I hunt. I feel I have an adequate grasp of the 2nd Amendment as it relates to Americans possessing guns. I urge anyone in doubt of their constitutional guns rights to go to the Internet & read it for yourself. This Amendment DOES NOT say – or even imply, that ordinary citizens have a right to possess assault weapons with high capacity magazines, just as it does NOT permit ownership of machines guns, RPG’s etc. It is obvious from this Amendment that intent as it states was to make a provision for militias.

We must, first of all, keep our wits and common sense when debating the gun ownership issues. I urge you to be very leery and wary of organizations and left wing media groups preaching suspect data slanted to favor their causes. Just today, December 19, CNN published poll information alleging that 52 percent of all Americans favor major gun restriction or all guns made illegal! Yet, this info conflicts with even CNN’s other data that 52 percent households have guns. Perhaps most telling is CNN reported in the same story that 53 percent of Americans feel the shootings will continue regardless of action taken.

Bottom line: We will continue to be able to buy and own guns. At the same time, remove assault weapons from streets as we did decades ago with fully machine guns.

We can and absolutely must see that the mentally challenged DO NOT have access to weapons by enforcing existing laws and methods.

James W. Anderson

Talladega