UGA to receive $1 million to create professorship honoring George Busbee
Larry B. Dendy, (706) 542-8078, ldendy@arches.uga.edu
Keith Oelke, (706) 542-8179, koelke@arches.uga.edu
Jan 8, 2003, 15:54

ATHENS, Ga. — The University of Georgia will use a $1 million gift from Atlanta businessman Cecil Phillips to establish an endowed professorship in honor of former Gov. George D. Busbee, who holds two degrees from UGA.

The George D. Busbee Chair in Public Policy will be the first endowed faculty position in UGA’s new School of Public and International Affairs. The school will recruit a nationally known scholar in the field of contemporary public policy to fill the chair.

Busbee, who was governor from 1975 to 1983, received a business administration degree from UGA in 1949 and a law degree in 1952. He was the first governor to serve two consecutive four-year terms after Georgia law was changed to allow governors to succeed themselves. After completing his second term, he joined the Atlanta law firm of King and Spalding and is now a retired partner of the firm.

Phillips, president and CEO of Place Properties, served as special assistant and executive assistant to Busbee during his second term and is a long-time friend and admirer of the former governor.

The creation of the Busbee Chair was a surprise to Busbee. Phillips and UGA President Michael Adams made the announcement Jan. 7 at an Atlanta dinner attended by Busbee and his wife, Mary Beth, their children and their spouses, and several close family friends.

“What I saw in Gov. Busbee is best expressed by Rudyard Kipling,” said Phillips. “He could walk with kings and keep the common touch. He never lost sight of where he wanted to lead Georgia, how he wanted to get there, and why.”

Elected governor after serving 18 years in the Georgia House of Representatives, Busbee focused on economic growth and education. In each of the last five years of his administration, he helped bring more than $1 billion in new and expanded industrial investment to the state.

He was especially interested in international commerce, which was not a major part of Georgia’s economy when he was elected. He made several trips abroad to recruit foreign firms to the state, and helped create the Japan/S.E.U.S. Association, which promotes trade with Japan. As chair of the National Governors’ Association Committee on International and Foreign Relations, he helped write the Export Administration Act of 1979 and the Trade Procedures Simplification Act of 1980.

Busbee started a half-day statewide kindergarten program, which was expanded to a full-day program under his successor, Joe Frank Harris.

“Gov. Busbee’s progressive leadership helped lay the groundwork for much of Georgia’s tremendous economic growth in the last two decades,” Adams said. “Our state will long be in his debt, and the University of Georgia is proud and honored to help recognize the contributions of one of our most outstanding alumni by establishing this new chair.”

Thomas P. Lauth, dean of the School of Public and International Affairs, which was created in 2001, said the Busbee Chair is a perfect fit for the new school.

“The chair will be filled by an outstanding scholar who — through research and teaching — will help inform discussion on major contemporary public policy issues, and will help prepare students to participate in public affairs in Georgia, the nation and the world,” Lauth said. “We’re extremely pleased that the first endowed chair in our school is named for such a distinguished public servant.”

Phillips, whose Place Properties firm is one of the nation’s largest developers of student housing and other facilities on college and university campuses, said he wanted the chair to be in the field of public policy “as a perpetual and public reminder to later generations of the difference Governor Busbee made in Georgia.”

The chair “represents a critical aspect of Governor Busbee’s character and stewardship of the state that I so admired,” said Phillips. “He wanted to plant acorns for oak trees under whose shade he would never sit. The Busbee Chair will be just such an acorn.”

Busbee, a native of Vienna, Ga., practiced law in Albany after receiving his law degree from UGA and was elected to the state House of Representatives in 1956 at the age of 29. In 1967, he was elected as the first House majority leader, a position he held until becoming governor.

He was elected by his fellow governors from throughout the nation as chairman of the National Governors’ Association. Governors of other southern states also chose him to head the Southern Growth Policies Board, which promotes the region’s economic development.

President Jimmy Carter appointed Busbee to the President’s Export Council, and he was reappointed by President Ronald Reagan. Busbee is a past chairman of the Japan-American Society of Georgia and the Atlanta Metro Chamber of Commerce, and a past president of the Metro Business Forum. He is a retired member of the board of directors of Delta Air Lines, Union Camp Corp. and Weeks Corp.

Busbee’s daughter, Jan, a 1977 UGA graduate, is married to Carlton Curtis, a 1972 graduate who is president of the UGA Alumni Association.


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