5 nursing students at GSU mourned
As an RN and a former Georgia Southern University student, the news of the tragic car accident on I -16 hit me hard. Hearing the five victims were all nursing students on the way to their final clinical of the semester made me feel nauseous. Although I completed my nursing degree at a different university, I attended GSU for 2 1/2 years and had several close friends in the nursing program. I saw the bond they had, witnessed their study sessions, and heard their plans for carpooling to Savannah for clinicals that started at 6:30 a.m.
I’ve been an RN for 20 years and can honestly say some of the best nurses I’ve worked with attended Georgia Southern. Chances are that if you’ve been hospitalized in the state of Georgia, you’ve been cared for by one or more of the excellent nurses educated at GSU.
I can only imagine the pain of their families, friends and fellow nursing students. I know the bond that exists among nursing students, and I take comfort the GSU nursing students will be supporting and leaning on each other as they make sense of this tragedy. I pray the two surviving nurses receive all the physical and emotional healing they need to move forward with their lives. So many have lost a daughter, granddaughter, sister, girlfriend and best friend, but we have all lost the excellent and compassionate care of five future nurses.
NANCY MCLAUGHLIN, WOODSTOCK
Two years after the assassination of my fraternity brother, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., integration of public schools began in earnest all across America. Black teachers and administrators populated the field of education so much that the powers that be in politics and education felt there were too many. The answer to that problem was the National Teachers Exam, a culturally biased test that consequently purged many great black teachers from the classroom.
That was in the 1970s. Fast-forward to today, where tests and grading schools are being used to invalidate the public school system in Georgia and across America. Privatization is the ultimate aim.
In the 2016 referendum on Opportunity School Districts, Georgians will decide who will control public education. If the governor wins, he takes over personnel and the curriculum. Proposed bills like House Bill 481 introduced by Rep. Rahn Mayo on black history and diversity will not be given an ice cube’s chance in hell of being passed. Histories of Native Americans, women, Latino Americans and the Jewish Holocaust may never be properly taught or given a chance to be taught if the public does not wake up and vote “no” to Gov. Deal’s Machiavellian machinations to create billions for himself, partners and associates.
TERRY THOMAS, ATLANTA
