My father said today I like to poke the bear.  I said a lot has been learned from someone poking the bear.

Well, it happened.  They approved the proposal to have Georgia Southern absorb Armstrong. Absorb is not the right word.  It was a takeover.

And what gets me is how people are saying it will be for the better.  Fine.  Prove it to me in other ways besides a press release. Don’t wait for the public input AFTER the vote.  Where was the public input and education BEFORE the vote?

There are 11 key questions that should be answered NOW:

1. Who suggested this merger?
2. When was it decided it was to be Georgia Southern and Armstrong to merge?
3. How long has this merger been in the works without public input?
4. When did the faculty and staff of both school find out about this merger?
5. What will happen to the student athletes of Armstrong?
6. Why are we waiting until AFTER the official vote to perform town halls and meetings to perform the merger with a deadline of 1/1/18 for the merge?
7. What are the benefits for Savannah?
8. How will tuition costs be handled?  

All viable questions in my mind.

They are planning a town hall at Armstrong (or should it now be the school formerly known as Armstrong) at 4:30 on the 19th at the Fine Arts Auditorium. I believe I will go.  If you are a student, I say go. They owe you that much.

I had a smaller Twitter discussion with a local reporter today. I asked why hasn’t anyone investigated the back story.  He replied that there is the town hall next week.  I think that got to me even more.  Why do we have to go forward?  Why can’t we know the history? What happened to investigative journalism? Perfect story for investigation.

A friend of mine that is an alumna of the now dead Southern Polytechnic State University said what else did I expect.  If the BORUSG wants it, they are going to do it. What happened to making them accountable? They did the same to SPSU as they did to Armstrong. See this article: Merging Into Controversy.

After this news, I went to the Armstrong Alumni Facebook page and asked about getting an Armstrong Alumni sticker for my car. They are going to send me one. I urge other alumni to get their Armstrong gear as fast as they can. The BORUSG will never take the following away from me, as much as they are going to now:

1. I graduated from Armstrong Atlantic State University.
2. All my college memories are from Armstrong Atlantic State University.
3. My diploma will always be from AASU.  You can change my transcripts to GSU and you can reissue my diploma as being from GSU, but I will tell ANYONE that asks that it was from AASU.
4. I will always be a Pirate.