FSU Appalachian Festival Symposium: Roundtable Sustaining community and community wealth building

 

September 15, 2017

On Friday, September 14, 2017, there was a roundtable discussion held in the upper quad area at noon.  The plethora of topics discussed included: anchor institutions, adventure capitalism and geo-tourism, local foods initiatives, coops and benefit corporations, Maryland State entrepreneurial opportunities, etc.  Participants included FSU students and faculty, Allegany College of Maryland faculty, Garrett College faculty, local Frostburg residents, and visitors from other Maryland counties. The format of the roundtable discussion had participants split into five groups that were focused on one of the topics that was stated above.  Each group was assigned a note taker that was tasked with writing down key discussion points and presenting the discussion to the crowd as a whole.  The groups were allotted thirty minutes to discuss their topics. 

The group I participated in discussed the topic of anchor institutions, adventure capitalism and geo-tourism. My group consisted of two FSU students, one FSU faculty member, two retired FSU professors, one Frostburg local, a speaker from Washington, D.C., an ACM professor, as well as a professor from GC.  Throughout our discussion, my group discussed many assets that the city of Frostburg has, and also many needed assets that the Frostburg community needs. The discussion began when FSU professor Kathleen Powell introduced the topic of local business commitment that the city of Frostburg needs to improve.  She stated that her husband owns Main Street Books, which is located at 2 E Main St, and that FSU used to use his business to buy books for the campus.  Recently, FSU has begun to utilize a new payment option that allows the school to pay for books electronically, which has inevitably caused FSU to discontinue their business with Kathy’s husband and start using Amazon instead.  This problem illustrated that there truly needs to be something done that can help with the continuation of business done with local businesses by Frostburg residents and the surrounding communities.

There were many other pressing topics that other groups discussed; one group went as far as coming up with a step-by-step action plan that should be implemented to assist with the deer problem that Western Maryland has.  It was truly inspiring to see people from different communities come together to discuss the great future that Frostburg should attain.