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By Sharron Hannon
shannon@uga.edu
With the switch from quarters to semesters, the tempo changed.  In the fall of 1999, one year after the shift, we were becoming adjusted to 30 weeks of classes divided into two sets rather than three. But the August opening and mid-May Commencement still felt strange, the academic year somehow condensed—though obviously no shorter than previous years that began in September and ended in June.
There was also no shaking the sense that the pace had picked up: more to do, more to know, more to attend to. On good days, the feeling produced an adrenaline rush of energy. On bad days, it threatened to overwhelm. The last few weeks of the year felt like a breathless sprint to some finish line.
What was it about this particular year, as the calendar turned from 1999 to 2000 and we crossed a mythic divide? It was a year like others, but not. The same, but different. It seemed, somehow, more momentous. Some of that was the Y2K thing—not just the fears of what might happen if the world’s computers went suddenly awry, but the looking back and the stocktaking that occurs as a century is left behind.
Reviewing the last 100 years at UGA, it is possible to spot moments in time when decisions were made that impacted the course of the institution’s future—sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. Walter Hill’s 1900 vision of a university committed to serving the state while building a reputation that reached far beyond remains a workable model. But at some crossroads in our institutional history, lack of foresight or commitment or money impeded progress.
How to avoid missteps in the coming century? For starters, by putting a strategic plan in place to guide decisions. But crafting such a plan is no easy task. A major institution-wide strategic-planning process, after many months of effort, was taking form and substance by May. Most of the schools and colleges and other major campus units had finished writing their separate plans. The Institutional Strategic Planning Advisory Group, having given those a stamp of approval, had turned their attention to the overall plan and to the job of defining major themes and priorities. Meanwhile, a self-study process, focused on improving the undergraduate experience, was also in progress—wending its way toward a December 2000 report deadline.
The university’s increased emphasis on being student-centered was evident at the first-ever Opening Convocation in August, where new students and faculty were welcomed to campus by President Michael F. Adams and former Gov. Zell Miller, himself a new faculty member with the Institute of Higher Education.
Miller spoke of “treasures” students can gain from being part of an academic community—knowledge, character, tolerance and perseverance—then at the reception following the convocation greeted each person who stood in line to shake his hand. The man who created the tuition-free HOPE scholarship program to keep Georgia’s best and brightest in state got a chance for an even closer encounter with new students when he taught a freshman seminar on leadership during fall semester.
Another leader, this one with international standing, filled the Coliseum in December. A standing-room-only crowd of 11,500 heard Mikhail Gorbachev, 1990 Nobel Peace Prize recipient and the driving force behind the demise of the Cold War, call for a “new world order” built on partnerships, not domination. Gorbachev’s presence on campus, arranged through alumna Pat Mitchell (who in February became the first woman to serve as president of PBS), underscored UGA’s expanding international reach and focus.
The biggest story of the year involved ongoing debates about whether race could—and should—play a role in the university’s admissions process. Atlanta attorney Lee Parks continued to file lawsuits charging reverse discrimination. President Michael F. Adams maintained that the university would “stay the course”—continuing to include race as one of several factors used to select among applicants with similar academic credentials for the final 10–15 percent of each incoming class. Speaking to members of University Council, as well as students and others who packed the law school auditorium on Sept. 30, Adams noted that the eventual legal outcome is unclear, “but we want to do the right thing.”
A week later, Provost Karen Holbrook convened a meeting of deans, directors and department heads to discuss ways to recruit more minority students and faculty. And by April a committee had been put together to conduct a national search to fill a newly created position of associate provost for institutional diversity.
The most unexpected and unsettling story of the year was a string of unrelated student deaths from a variety of causes in the spring. When the number reached 11 (including six in quick succession in March), Assistant Vice President for Student Affairs Rick Rose decided to plan a memorial service. And so on May 1, the last day of classes, several hundred members of the university community gathered outside the Chapel at dusk. The chapel bell tolled as the names of 28 students, faculty and staff who had died since the previous May were read and 28 members of the Arch Society lit candles in turn.
As the students then moved amongst the crowd, lighting other candles, President Adams spoke, reminding the group that the flickering flames “represent more than the warmth and light of our lives—they represent the fragility of our lives.”
A day later, a 29th name was added to the total when Barry Sherman, a telecommunications professor and director of the prestigious Peabody Awards, suffered a massive coronary during a lunchtime basketball game at the Ramsey Student Center. Three days later, after an emotional memorial service for Sherman in Hodgson Hall, colleagues and students gathered in small clusters in the lobby and on the steps outside, shaking their heads in disbelief and reminding each other of the importance of valuing and making the most of each and every day.
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