Community Relations
The University's rapid expansion has created tension in the city-university relationship with issues such as growth planning. In 2006, the Board of Visitors approved the invocation of eminent domain against a neighboring business, a funeral parlor, to make way for the school's new Performing Arts Center. Before eminent domain was exercised, the property owner accepted a purchase offer from the University. In the May 2006 city election, incumbent mayor Larry Rogers, who also serves on JMU's Board of Visitors, lost his bid for reelection to a JMU graduate. JMU has nearly doubled in size in the last 20 years. JMU purchased the former Harrisonburg High School building, now known as Memorial Hall, and promised to keep some of the important features intact for the benefit of the community.
Read more about this topic: James Madison University
Famous quotes containing the words community and/or relations:
“As in political revolutions, so in paradigm choice—there is no standard higher than the assent of the relevant community. To discover how scientific revolutions are effected, we shall therefore have to examine not only the impact of nature and of logic, but also the techniques of persuasive argumentation effective within the quite special groups that constitute the community of scientists.”
—Thomas S. Kuhn (b. 1922)
“As death, when we come to consider it closely, is the true goal of our existence, I have formed during the last few years such close relations with this best and truest friend of mankind, that his image is not only no longer terrifying to me, but is indeed very soothing and consoling! And I thank my God for graciously granting me the opportunity ... of learning that death is the key which unlocks the door to our true happiness.”
—Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791)