[ale] ALE OSPREX at Lanier Tech. College Linux User Group

[aaron]

Last evening (Thurs. 2009.11.05) Stephen Blevins and
I braved the rush hour traffic of GA400 to drive north
to the Forsyth campus of Lanier Technical College
and deliver version 0.02 of the ALE OSPREX.

This was the second meeting of the LTC LUG and the
student organizer, Joshua Roberts, along with the
group's faculty sponsor, Hans Dukes, had invited us
to present an introductory Linux talk and discuss
ideas for organizing and promoting their group.
The meeting was attended by about 24 Lanier Tech
students, alumni and faculty, about 15 of whom
acknowledged some level of Linux experience with
various live CD's and system installs -- one recent
graduate noted running 3 Linux systems in his home,
two for himself and one for his wife.

Stephen and I spent yesterday afternoon tweaking
the OS presentation and feel that the information was
very well received by the group.  Both Hans and Joshua
were very appreciative of our involvement and hopeful
that ALE will be an ally and partner to their group
in the future.  Their ultimate goal is to gain enough
recognition for the [overwhelming] presence of Linux
and OSS in the IT world that the college administration
will [finally] incorporate an essential Linux track in
their curriculum.  In random sync with that goal, our
revised OSPREX 0.02 makes a strong introductory point
of the fact that the Internet World is a Linux Open
Source World, and the future, like the present, is all
about the internet (thanks to LUCID folks for input).

I feel that Lanier Tech is a great outreach opportunity
for ALE and for Linux, as they have 5 campuses here in
Georgia. Case in point is that a faculty member from
Lanier Tech in Gainesville, Ron Frazier, was also present
for our talk and expressed interest in starting up an
associate LTC LUG at that campus.  I would like to
encourage ALE members to look at the campus list for
Lanier Tech and consider helping any of these schools
that may be in your neighborhood to move into the
Linux World of the 21st century:
<http://www.laniertech.edu/LTC_/directions.asp?m=x>

I'll also be happy to share contact info we have for the
Linux supporters at the Forsyth or Gainesville campuses
with anyone interested in helping with outreach at
those schools.

Along these same lines of partnering in promoting Linux
with area colleges, a few ALEr's have been working with
ALE member Michael "Wolf" Halton to help him bring more
Linux recognition into the Southwest Atlanta campus of
ITT Technical College (where he teaches their Linux
curriculum). ITT Tech has 3 campuses in Georgia, plus
over 100 campuses nation wide, and I hope ALE members
who have one of these campuses in their neighborhood
will consider offering support for students interested
in Linux there. <http://www.itt-tech.edu/campus/>

We also owe a thanks to Wolf and ITT Tech [SW Atl] for
hosting our next ALE / Ubuntu Linux install fest on
Saturday, November 21st, 9am to 5pm (formal announcement
to follow shortly).

Thanks for your attention!  Hope you will accept
the invitation to help in guiding all these future
IT professionals into a rewarding career supported
by Free and Open Source software!

peace
Aaron Ruscetta
ALE Public Relations Director
and Event Coordinator (etc.)

PS:
Not ignoring the contributions of the many ALE members
who regularly provide informative presentations for our
monthly meetings, nor overlooking all the work of the
generous volunteers who created this group, but I want
to point out that there are DOZENS of official sounding
unofficial ALE Volunteer Organizer Titles available to
any ALE members wishing to get involved enough to claim
them (including the two noted above).    :-)