̨Íåswag

[Chaudron Gille, Provost & Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs] - Colleagues and friends, for our annual State of the University Address I present to you President Bonita Jacobs.

[Bonita Jacobs, ̨Íåswag President] - Good morning. It is so good to be with you today to kick off our fall semester, and it will be a year-long celebration of our Sesquicentennial, our 150-year anniversary.

We also have special guests that I would like to welcome and to recognize. First of all Jimmy Faulkner, who is past chair of the ̨Íåswag Foundation and one of the chairs of our Sesquicentennial Committee. Please stand and remain standing.

Barbara Williams, an alumni and former ̨Íåswag Foundation trustee. She also is serving on our Sesquicentennial Committee. John Douglas, an alumnus, also on the committee.

And I do want to go home today. I would like to ask my husband Glenn Jacobs to stand and be recognized.

You may be seated. So a little history. In January 1873, after several years of planning and a lot of effort, North Georgia Agricultural College officially opened its doors with a central mission of providing quality free educational opportunities to the young men and women in northeast Georgia, many of whom could not afford to travel great distances for an education. The college began as a land grant university through a partnership with the University of Georgia and funding from the historic Morrill Land Grant Act. Because military education was a requirement of any institution receiving funds from the Morrill Act, 1873 also marks the beginning of our corps of cadets. So they will also be celebrating a major milestone. Our military program is one of only six senior military colleges in the nation. Most of you know, but if you don't, the other five are Texas A&M, Virginia Tech, Citadel, VMI and Norwich. ̨Íåswag holds a special designation as a State Leadership Institution and also as The Military College of Georgia. With this unique distinction as part of our educational mission, ̨Íåswag is designated by the state legislature as The Military College of Georgia. We're also designated by the Board of Regents as a State Leadership Institution because leadership development permeates all areas of our university. And that is something that you all are very good at doing. In fact, we have been leading where it counts since the very beginning. At the opening of the university, there were 177 students, 98 men and 79 women, in the first year of classes. And this was a time when most institutions did not admit women into higher education. In addition, we were also the first public college in Georgia to grant a bachelor's degree to a woman. Similarly, Gainesville Junior College opened in 1964 when visionary community leaders sought to fill a need for accessible quality higher education for students in northeast Georgia. Both institutions were successful ones, producing high-achieving graduates. In the 150 years since our founding we have changed names, we have consolidated our institutions, but our commitment to quality, affordable education and leadership development opportunities remain unchanged. In fact, those are the ties that combine our campuses, that tie us all together regardless of the decade, the legacy institution or our home campus. Ten years ago in 2012 on the precipice of the consolidation of North Georgia College and State University with Gainesville State College, both exemplary institutions, I was excited about the potential that I saw for this region. At that time I wrote to the university community to encourage us to imagine the future and I quote, "We need to imagine the impact we could have on educating more students and awarding degrees as the University of North Georgia. To imagine the impact ̨Íåswag students could have on this state and the vitality of this region. To imagine the impact we can have on regional economic development as we create an educated workforce that will attract businesses. To imagine the legacy for generations of students. In short, to imagine what we could become." You answered that call to imagine and in a big way. We have been on a positive trajectory ever since. United by our mission of developing students into leaders for a diverse and global society, we have become a leading public university that is a driving force for educational attainment and economic development. I want you to consider the extraordinary momentum you have created in the past decade. Enrollment has grown 23% to about 19,000 students served through our five campuses and online. While about 80% of our students come from northeast Georgia, we enroll students from across Georgia, nearly every U.S. state and territory, and 85 countries. I believe this year we have students from every county except five. That is expanding our reach. We now offer four doctoral degrees, including a new Ph.D. in criminal justice. Our retention and graduation rates are high and we exceed most of our peer institutions. We have expanded bachelor's degrees available at our Gainesville Campus from eight when we consolidated to now 20. This year U.S. News and World Report ranked ̨Íåswag as the number-one best value school and as the number-one best college for veterans among public regional universities in Georgia. I am proud of both that value statement and also the quality of our students.

Our Nationally Competitive Scholarship initiative has helped students earn more than 3.5 million dollars in highly competitive national merit awards, such as the Goldwater, the Truman, the Pickering, Gilman and Boren scholarships. We have been named a national top producer of Fulbright students for five consecutive years, and I am particularly proud of the fact that we have had at least one Fulbright student on each of our five campuses. That is exciting.

Last year two of our biology students won the Barry Goldwater scholarship. The preeminent undergraduate STEM award that provides up to 15,000 dollars per student over two years.

I will note unabashedly that ̨Íåswag was the only public university in Georgia with more than one recipient last year. The only one. First of all, I want to thank Dr. Anastasia Lin, please stand, for all of her work that she has put into this.

She will be the first to tell you she did not do it alone, and I know that many of our faculty and staff help mentor these students. You do not win a Fulbright, a Boren, a Gilman by writing an essay. If you have been a mentor to these students, please stand and let us recognize you. Many of you have mentored. Please do not be bashful.

Come on.

Also, support from external grants has increased 40% to more than 7.2 million dollars last year, providing important resources for research and university programs. Also, research expenditures, the national standard for research activity, will likely surpass 2.23 million dollars this year, a 36% increase over 2016.

And this is important. The growth in research activity and expanded scope of graduate degree programs have placed ̨Íåswag on a trajectory to be classified as a Doctoral/Professional university by the Carnegie Commission in 2024.

In addition, our Leadership and Global Engagement offices have offered tremendous support for study abroad opportunities, and I know that many of you have led groups as they study abroad. And we all know that study abroad provides an opportunity and insights that cannot be taught on the Discovery Channel. Within our College of Arts and Letters, we offer study in 12 different languages, and study abroad opportunities often serve as a capstone experience for our language majors and a life-changing opportunity for other students. As a Spanish language graduate, I am extremely proud of the work that they do. The quality of ̨Íåswag's Corps of Cadets remains exceptional, and they have performed at the highest levels nationally. ̨Íåswag's Ranger Challenge team placed first among ROTC units nationwide for the fourth consecutive time. We are the only SMC that has been named the number-one ROTC in the nation four consecutive years. Overall, we placed fourth, outpacing international teams from around the world and several of the U.S. service academies. I am, as you know, a graduate of Texas A&M, and I am very proud that our ̨Íåswag cadets were able to win, even though.

A record 34, 34 ̨Íåswag cadets were named Distinguished Military Graduates last year with nine ranked in the top 10% of national Army ROTC cadets around the nation, those among 7,000 cadets. Also, ̨Íåswag commissioned 123 cadets as second lieutenants in the regular Army, the Army National Guard and Army Reserve for 21 and 22, exceeding any other year in university history.

I am a really proud of what you all have done with Presidential Incentive Awards. We have funded more than 2 million dollars in faculty and staff projects and research that enhances students' educational experiences and innovate our work. The awards have sparked creativity and scholarship across all of our campuses, and many award recipients have leveraged their initial work to receive external grants from national associations and organizations. And they have often used it to publish articles and books, present at conferences and pursue other external opportunities. With this successful foundation, this program will now move from being Presidential Incentive Awards to Presidential Innovation Awards because at first we needed to incentivize the creativity, but you have done that and more. So we will now continue the awards, but they will have a new look. Finally, one of our most gratifying success stories is the increased support of student scholarships. One of my highest presidential priorities has been raising funds to increase financial support for students. We know if students leave for financial reasons it's hard for them to come back and graduate. Need and merit-based scholarship awards distributed by the ̨Íåswag Foundation totaled 2.8 million dollars last year, a 64 increase over fiscal year 2017. Thank all of the trustees on the ̨Íåswag Foundation and Jeff Tarnowski and his team. Great job!

̨Íåswag is bucking trends, national trends in many important ways. 75% of colleges and universities are losing donors at dramatic levels. But the number of donors to ̨Íåswag grew by more than 15% last year, and new gifts and commitments to the ̨Íåswag Foundation this year will be over 23 million dollars. Our alumni have been extremely supportive to their alma mater. This critical financial support goes far beyond scholarships. Northeast Georgia Health System made a significant and generous commitment that will increase the number of nurses in this region by 280 over the next five years. Charitable and corporate support for athletics have allowed the addition of video boards in the Convocation Center, a new terrace at Haines and Carolyn Hill Stadium and scholarships to ensure that ̨Íåswag can support our student-athletes, which is among the best in NCAA Division II athletic programs in the nation. Just since March, our women's softball and basketball teams each reached the Final Four. The men's golf team competed at the NCAA Division II national championship tournament, and we hosted the NCAA Division II women's golf national championship in Gainesville. Looking ahead, the initial fundraising efforts to expand the Pennington Military Leadership Center and to build a new STEM facility are gaining substantial momentum. All of these projects are vital to the ongoing success of our students, faculty and staff. So again, great appreciation, Jeff Tarnowski, please stand. Your group has been amazing. Last year, as you know, we expanded into our newly renovated facilities at the Gainesville Campus, the former Lanier Tech property, allowing high-demand academic programs to grow. This facility needed work, and it is now beautiful, functional and well-planned. I was very pleasantly surprised the first time I walked through it at how remarkable it is, and I will take a moment here and invite members of the ̨Íåswag Facilities team to please stand and be recognized. Facilities team, all please stand.

This fall, due to the transformational private support from Mike and Lynn Cottrell, we will open the Cottrell Center for Business, Technology and Innovation on the Dahlonega Campus to prepare the next generation of business leaders. Later this fall, we will break ground for new buildings at our Blue Ridge and Cumming campuses. I am very grateful to the governor, the General Assembly and the University System of Georgia Board of Regents for their strong support of these projects. As we seek to advance these resources and facility projects, it is important to know that ̨Íåswag continues to generate a significant return on investment. Our economic impact to the region climbed to a record 755 million dollars in 2021, and we continue to help create new economic opportunity across Northeast Georgia. This summer I joined a group of academic and administrative leaders for our second Regional Education and Economic Development Tour, which we know as the REED Project, to highlight cultivate and advance mutually beneficial community partnerships. This year's tour was in Forsyth County, where we visited with alumni leading in global technology companies, local schools, government agencies, and nonprofit organizations, and included some time with the Junior Achievement Discovery Center. By the end of the day, new partnerships were already emerging that will expand academic collaborations and career opportunities for our graduates. Partnerships like this are critical for our success.

Despite our many achievements, ̨Íåswag is not immune to the imminent changes facing colleges and universities across our nation and in Georgia included. The pandemic disrupted current and future students' academic progress and their social development, and they are struggling to get back on track and re-engage both in the classroom and in their campus life. Enrollment declines in certain segments of our student population are causing budget concerns, and demographic shifts require targeted approaches to recruitment and retention. Economic conditions may heighten concerns about college affordability because we are already seeing that in the news media. Let me highlight a few ways that we are striving to manage and overcome these challenges. First of all, we initiated a five-year strategic enrollment management plan in spring 2021 to attract, enroll, retain and graduate students, particularly cadets, transfer students, adult learners, veterans, out-of-state students, and international students, and students from under-represented groups. The office of University Relations expanded institutional marketing efforts in targeted ways and implemented use of the Common App in ̨Íåswag. Collectively, these efforts supported a 16% year-over-year increase in new freshman applications for this fall. Student Affairs, Academic Affairs and others are implementing student retention initiatives in many areas across the university, including the Deans of Students' new Flight Support program, diversity discussions, the student mental health initiative, financial aid outreach, and our very successful First Gen mentoring program, which was initiated on the Gainesville Campus and now later expanded to other campuses. Because the pandemic negatively affected enrollment patterns, this year we are advanced scheduling all incoming students for 15 credit hours per semester and adopting early alert mechanisms to identify students who may be struggling so that we can connect them with resources to help them persist.

Our innovative Blue Ridge Scholars Program has supported 92 students as incoming freshmen since fall 2016. Half of those scholars have continued their education at ̨Íåswag after participating in the program, and 16% of the students who started in the program have graduated from ̨Íåswag. Much of the program's success has been related to cohort-based model and approach to equipping students to lead in the classroom and in their community, and in the process, Sandy Ott and her team have done an excellent job of building community among those students and also reaching out to the community at large and cementing those relationships. Building on that success, Pathway Plus is a new streamlined academic program with structured support systems that will help our associate-level students persist and prepare to transition into the baccalaureate degree program. Because we have seen the greatest declines in the last two years with our two-year programs, Pathway Plus will begin as a pilot program at the Oconee Campus this fall and expand to the Gainesville Campus next fall. This promising program will help students identify and make progress toward their degree and career goals. As we strive to increase student engagement because we know that engagement in building community is critical for students being part of this group so that they want to persist and graduate.

As we strive to do these, we look forward to introducing club sports including soccer and rowing at the Gainesville Campus and a newly renovated student activity lounge and future campus green space at the Oconee Campus. All much needed.

For you, our faculty and staff, the unprecedented uncertainty and change we have experienced the last couple of years have challenged us personally and professionally.

Now, retirements and the national Great Resignation are taking a toll on dedicated individuals who remain to fulfill our mission Doing more with less is not a sustainable solution. But we face significant hiring competition with other universities and professions for new faculty and staff. Again, I must thank our state leaders for their important and timely support of the $5,000 cost of living adjustment for eligible employees this year to improve salary competitiveness for state employees. I'm also grateful for the technology advancements and improvements and the use of automation in many functions that have resulted in efficiencies and cost savings, as well as more flexible work arrangements for some of our positions. Our considerable achievements over the past several years would not have been possible without you. And your talent, your innovation and your creativity inspire me daily. Thank you very much. While headlines routinely point to the nation's decreasing confidence in the value of higher education, we have an opportunity to change that narrative. Regional universities like ̨Íåswag play a significant and valuable role in society. We know that higher levels of educational attainment lead to higher lifetime potential earnings and healthier communities. In fact, a recent report showed that ̨Íåswag is among the top 20% of universities in the nation for economic mobility, an indicator of how well we serve low- and moderate-income students. Key elements of this success are our affordability, the low amount of student borrowing to pay for college, and getting students to graduate on time and on target. And I will add to that we have a very low student default rate. They pay their student loans. Importantly, universities expose students to knowledge, new ideas and opportunities. Universities are places where we encourage students to explore different perspectives, for students to learn to think critically. They are opportunities with a strong sense of belonging, and we do a good job with creating that sense of belonging for our students. We equip graduates for creative success and lifelong learning. In addition, ̨Íåswag in particular helps students learn to both serve and lead others. As faculty, staff and administrators, this is a role and responsibility that we embrace.

That determined spirit that led to the creation of then-North Georgia Agricultural College sustains us still today. We have unwavering commitments to student success and service to our region and state. And for nearly 150 years we have produced civic, professional and military leaders who make a positive impact on this community and beyond. We have a good story to tell. We have a very good story to tell, and I encourage each of you to share it with your friends and with those in your community. As we reflect on our many accomplishments, and there are many accomplishments, which represent an inspiring success across every facet of the university, it is clear to me that our university is strong and our future is bright. I am confident that with our new five-year strategic plan, entitled Flight Path for the Future, we'll address the challenges we face, build on the significant institutional momentum that we currently have and propel us toward even greater prominence.

This academic year marks my 12th and final year as president. As I prepare for retirement, I want you to know what an honor it has been to serve alongside you and that I look forward to a very productive and successful Sesquicentennial year. Thank you very much.

I am so grateful to the ̨Íåswag community, our students, faculty, staff, alumni and friends. Included in that we have strong groups. Our Faculty Senate is strong, our Staff Council is strong, our Student Government is strong. Our history is a colorful tapestry woven by talented and creative scholars, teachers, mentors, bright and successful students and graduates who are successful both personally and professionally. They have distinguished themselves as leaders with character. This is the ̨Íåswag way. Numerous events this year will recognize historic milestones, achievements and the positive impact the university has had since 1873. 150 years. Together, together we will build upon our proudest traditions and legacies of scholarship, leadership and service that are the hallmarks of the University of North Georgia. And there is no telling what we will accomplish in the next 150 years. In conclusion, I once again want to thank you for all you do. You are a magnificent group of professionals. Thank you.