Georgia, like many other states, is facing a budget shortfall of about $2.5 billion, according to the Georgia Budget & Policy Institute. To help cope with its money woes, the state's university system alone has to make at least $200 million in cuts, if not more. As the Georgia Senate chairman of the Higher Education Committee, Seth Harp announced in December that he hopes to duplicate savings by shutting down predominantly White Armstrong Atlantic State University and merging it with historically Black Savannah State University. Both located in the coastal city of Savannah, the schools are 12 miles apart, less than a 20-minute drive from one another. He also wants to close mostly White Darton College Seth and combine it with mostly Black Albany State University, which are about five miles--or less than a 15-minute drive--away from each other in Albany. Besides the state's pressing money problems, Harp wants to close the door on Georgia's racist past and to finally begin a healing process. Born in Arkansas, Harp has seen the injustices of racial discrimination and segregation up close. When Harp first brought up his proposal, he found support from one of the most unlikely places possible: the African-American editorial page editor of the state's flagship newspaper, Cynthia Tucker of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Tucker says Harp has the right idea. Harp also enjoys the support of citizens around the state as well as the country, as evidenced by the letters he's received since his idea has gotten so much media attention. But the Georgia Board of Regents is ultimately responsible for distributing money to the state's public colleges and is charged with determining school mergers; the only thing legislators like Harp can do is to use the bully pulpit of their offices and levy budget cuts to effect change. Harp plans to do both.