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March 5, 2010

Citizens of the Week: Patricia Grady and other students

Dalton Daily Citizen

DALTON — There is a big difference between being a citizen of a place and just being a resident.

Citizenship is active. Residency is passive.

Citizenship means getting involved in issues and fighting for what you believe in. It means being willing to give something of yourself to push for something that you believe promotes the greater good.

It takes courage to advocate for what you believe in. But isn’t that what America was founded upon in the first place — the courage to act upon one’s principles and beliefs?

We were reminded of that this week by the social work students at Dalton State College, and countless other students around Georgia and the rest of the nation, who descended upon Atlanta and other state capitals to protest proposed cuts to higher education.

Yes, they were motivated by personal reasons. But many were also able to look beyond that and talk about what effect those cuts will have on all of us.

Take, for example, Patricia Grady, a junior at Dalton State College who put off getting her degree until her children were grown.

Grady was one of about 50 students from around the state who visited the state Capitol on Wednesday to ask lawmakers to reconsider a proposal to slash funding to the University System of Georgia Board of Regents by $300 million.

Grady is attending school on a state scholarship given to students who plan to work for the Department of Family and Children Services after graduation.

“I am only a small, small sample of hundreds of thousands of these stories across the state of Georgia,” Grady said. “My concern is much larger than (myself).”

After attending the hearings, Grady and others had the chance to talk to lawmakers and get a lesson about how politics works.

“It was a little disappointing because it was like they were hearing us but not really listening to us,” she said. “I had kind of thought they would be a little more concerned.”

If we have any advice for Grady and her fellow students it is don’t give up hope. History and politics are full of examples of people who felt defeat time and time again only to win the day by force of will and perseverance.

Does the name Abraham Lincoln ring a bell?

For having the courage to enter the political ring in the first place and be willing to stand up for what they think is right, we salute Patricia Grady and the other students from around Georgia as our Citizens of the Week.

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