During the course of the last two weeks, my experience of the “public square”—a metaphor I have used to describe the environment for a public university—was being at the State Capitol to meet with our representatives and senators about funding. Specifically, we are asking our elected officials to support our request for nearly $1M to begin the planning and design work in the upcoming fiscal year FY19 for renovations on our Cochran campus that are vital to enrollment growth. If we are successful, and the legislature and the Governor sign off on the University System of Georgia’s request, then we can look forward to the planning stage of our Cochran renovations beginning this summer.