news-record.com

In an odd coincidence, dignitaries on Monday broke ground on two important new buildings in Guilford County.

In one ceremony, state and local officials turned dirt and toasted the promise of a 100,000-square-foot Joint School of Nanoscience and Nanoengineering.

Operated by cross-town partners UNCG and N.C. A&T, the school will employ and train nanoscientists who will explore how to use the tiniest of components -- atoms and molecules -- to develop advanced medical devices.

UNC President Erskine Bowles and Chancellors Linda Brady and Harold Martin of UNCG and A&T, respectively, were justifiably pleased. The school will offer master's degrees and doctorates in nanoscience and, eventually, degrees in nanoengineering on a site that is now still mostly rolling farmland off East Lee Street. It is only part of two collaborative research campuses, Gateway University Research Park, whose potential impact on the area economy could reach as much as $250 million over the next two decades.

Hours earlier, and only a few miles away, officials including Sheriff BJ Barnes and county commissioners Chairman Melvin "Skip" Alston had broken ground in a new, $114.6 million downtown jail.

Needless to say, new jails aren't half as exciting to talk about as new schools of nanoscience. Nor is it a happy reminder that, for now, at least, jails rank among our few growth industries. But the current jail is dangerously overcrowded, which threatens the safety of both the inmates and jailers.

The voters apparently agreed. Surprising even Barnes, they solidly approved $115 million in bonds in 2008 to fund the new facility on South Edgeworth Street, as well as renovate the existing jail beside it.

In a sense, the new campus and new jail represent, in brick and mortar, how far we have come and how far we still have yet to go.

Here's hoping the power of knowledge wins out.

And that in, say 25 years, we'll need to break ground again -- on an expanded school of nanoscience in Greensboro, not a bigger jail.