B Y - M I C H A E L - F . - A D A M S

1899 Gathering for the traditional class portrait on the steps of the Chapel, the class of 1900 numbered fewer than 60. Walter B. Hill, the first alumnus to lead UGA, was determined to create a modern, progressive university. 1919 Mary E. Creswell, UGA's first female undergraduate, earned a B.S. in home economics and later served as dean of the school. 1961 After a protracted court battle, Charlayne Hunter and Hamilton Holmes integrated the University. Hunter became an award-winning journalist, her late classmate a physician. 1985 A postage stamp of founder Abraham Baldwin marked UGA's Bicentennial. 1999 Beth Shapiro is UGA's 18th Rhodes Scholar—and the first female. More than 5,000 students will receive their degrees at spring Commencement 2000.

ver the course of the 20th century, the University of Georgia has transformed itself from a small liberal arts school to a major public research university with a growing national reputation. Now, as we stand poised at the start of a new century, it's instructive to reflect on the past 100 years. As the saying goes, you can't know where you're going if you don't know where you've been.

At the start of the 20th century, the University looked not so very different than it did in 1801, when the first classes were held. It was a place where young men, primarily sons of the privileged, came to receive a classical education that included Greek and Latin and offered few options in the course of study. The school turned out the future political leaders of the state—a tradition that continues to this day—but otherwise was relatively obscure and, in fact, struggling to survive. An expansion plan, drawn up in 1859, had never been implemented as the Civil War and its aftermath took a devastating toll on the state. But as the 20th century got under way, change was on the horizon.

In 1899, Walter B. Hill became chancellor (a title changed to president in the 1930s) and he began the transition of the University of Georgia from a small school serving the few to a major state university. Hill was the first alumnus to head the school and the first non-minister since Josiah Meigs in 1801. Hill had a grand vision for the University of Georgia and energetically set about making it happen.

Recognizing that dreams needed funding, Hill organized a large gathering of alumni for a festive dinner in 1901 that included a procession through the Arch. Among those who attended was Oscar Straus, a friend from Hill's boyhood home near Columbus who, with his two brothers, built Macy's department store. Straus brought his friend, George Foster Peabody, a Columbus native who, like Straus, had moved with his family to New York. Though Peabody had no college education, having gone to work at age 14, he was a wealthy man—a self-made Gilded Age millionaire. He became the University of Georgia's first major benefactor.

Throughout his term, Hill worked tirelessly for the expansion of the University. With Peabody's financial backing and an increased appropriation from the state legislature, new buildings were begun, additional land purchased, the curriculum expanded and more faculty hired. Hill personally traveled throughout the state and around the country speaking on behalf of higher education in general and the University of Georgia in particular.

Tragically, his health was not up to his demanding schedule. In 1905, Hill contracted pneumonia and died. It was left to his successor David Barrow and those who followed him to continue the making of a 20th-century University of Georgia.

As the latest in a line that stretches back to founder Abraham Baldwin, I am conscious of past legacies and future prospects as the calendar turns to the year 2000. I feel privileged to be president of the University of Georgia at the start of the 21st century and confident that this institution can continue to make great strides. But that depends on many pieces fitting together.

First, like Hill, we must have a grand plan for how the University of Georgia should next evolve. In the coming year, a strategic planning process that has been under way for many months will articulate our shared vision for the first decade of this new century. Next, we must have financial support—in the form of state and federal funding and private gifts—to implement that plan. And along the way we must have the commitment of students, faculty, staff, alumni, and friends to work toward making the University of Georgia all that it can be. Our history tells us that individuals can and do make a difference.

As president, it is my role to provide leadership, seek financial support, and carry the University's vision to audiences around the state and, increasingly, around the world. We are no longer a small liberal arts school for the few, but a major public research university whose reach extends far beyond Georgia's borders. Our students are no longer solely young white men, but also women and minorities and international students, all of whom will take their place in an increasingly diverse and demanding world. How well we prepare these students—"the rising hope of the land," as our charter reads—will, in a very real sense, determine all our futures.

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