UGA at the new Gwinnett Center

By Delmer Dunn

Last March, President Michael F. Adams appointed a Gwinnett Program Committee. He charged this committee with making recommendations to him about the involvement of the University of Georgia in a new University System Center at Gwinnett, to be located on Collins Hill Road, near Highway 316, in Lawrenceville.
Earlier, the board of regents had decided to expand the present Gwinnett Center, which offers associate degrees through Georgia Perimeter College (formerly Dekalb College) and graduate degrees through the University of Georgia. The new center will add baccalaureate degrees and increase the number of graduate degrees.
The board assigned responsibility for freshman-sophomore level courses and associate degrees to Georgia Perimeter College. UGA responsibilities include junior-senior level courses and baccalaureate as well as graduate degrees. The board also envisions the new campus will emphasize high-quality, technology-enhanced education.
The committee will present its report to President Adams by the end of this calendar year. It will make recommendations on the educational program and faculty resources needed for the university’s responsibilities in the new center. This article, as well as a presentation to the University Council last week, provides to the campus community the basic outlines of the committee’s work to date. The committee solicits reactions or input from any who desire to provide it.
The University of Georgia already offers several graduate degrees at the Gwinnett Center. These include the master of education (in adult education, occupational studies, educational leadership and early childhood education), master of public administration and master of social work. The committee’s deliberations to this point recommend adding the master of business administration and the doctor of pharmacy degrees, as well as a master of education degree in interdisciplinary teaching, learning and technology.
The committee’s recommendations on procedures for these programs track present UGA practices. UGA faculty teach these courses, students apply for admission to the the UGA Graduate School and UGA faculty admission committees admit the students in accordance with Graduate School and teaching-unit standards and procedures. Students who complete degree requirements receive a University of Georgia degree. The committee plans to recommend that these degree programs be authorized to provide instruction in flexible formats to best meet the needs of students at the Gwinnett Center.
The committee will recommend undergraduate majors offered by Gwinnett Center divisions of arts and sciences, business, and education. The arts and sciences degrees emphasize interdisciplinary majors, including language and culture, science, humanities, social science, and computer and quantitative sciences. The business degrees include general business and management information systems. The education degrees will provide for a teacher-certification program for other majors and specific programs in special education, math education, science education, foreign language education and English as a second language. Ideally, UGA-Gwinnett students will major in one division and minor in another division.
The committee envisions a UGA-Gwinnett Center faculty that will be responsible for baccalaureate degree instruction. The UGA-Gwinnett faculty will formulate promotion and tenure standards that conform with the mission of the center. The UGA-Gwinnett faculty will also develop the curriculum and the degree requirements for the University of Georgia-Gwinnett Center baccalaureate degree. The committee envisions a campus undergraduate program marked by flexible and innovative teaching methods, sophisticated technological support of teaching and courses that range from classroom-centered instruction to instruction delivered by a number of distance-learning alternatives.
The committee finds the development of a new campus exciting. The board of regents’ request means that University of Georgia faculty will be involved in providing what we believe to be useful guidance in launching the new campus. Our involvement will also make possible the instant provision of high-quality graduate degree programs in one of the largest and fastest growing metropolitan areas in the country. Finally, the demographic profile of the state of Georgia suggests a growing number of high school graduates for the next

several years. This growth requires the provision of new opportunities for these graduates in order to control adequately the growth rate of existing institutions. The new Gwinnett campus will thus meet growing needs for higher education opportunity in the state with degree programs that emphasize technology-enhanced instruction.
Delmer Dunn (ddunn@arches.uga.edu) chairs the committee. Other members include Dorothy Carrillo, Don Eastman, George Francisco, Robert Gatewood, Carl Glickman, Michael Hannafin, Sylvia Hutchinson, Kay Keck, Katharina Wilson and Bonnie Yegidis. Meg Amstutz and Elizabeth Molloy (of Georgia Perimeter College) are ex-officio members of the committee.

Delmer Dunn is Regents Professor of Political Science and chair of the Gwinnett Program Committee at UGA.