Georgia's Challenges

As Georgia's state, public, flagship land-grant, research institution, the University of Georgia must think about its future first by thinking about Georgia's. In the first decade of the 21st century, these appear to be Georgia's largest challenges:

• The challenge of workforce development is the highest immediate priority of business leaders throughout Georgia, who see a present and accelerating shortage of personnel possessing sufficient skills in the utilization and application of information technology; in sophisticated analytic, synthetic and compositional skills; in language skills - in Spanish and Asian languages in particular; in "emotional intelligence," including the ability not only to co-exist but to thrive in the increasingly 'team' or work-group oriented, and culturally, ethnically, and racially diverse work environment of the 21st century. From kindergarten through college, the education of Georgia's citizens is the first priority for Georgia and its flagship university.
• The challenge of economic development is the most focused need Georgia has for its research universities, and that need is, compared to that of workforce development, longer-range and institutional rather than individual. There is no doubt in the minds of Georgia's elected and business leadership that the principal opportunities to improve this state's standard of living will come from its research universities, specifically from the combination of cutting-edge research with business development and applications support: That is the premise of such major state investments as the Georgia Research Alliance and the Yamacraw Mission. Other states are launching their own such initiatives, such as Michigan's $200M commitment to biosciences research at the University of Michigan, paid for from that state's tobacco settlement funds, and the $3 billion bond issue for higher education facilities approved by referendum in North Carolina. Such strategic investments will determine the winners and losers of the global competition for quality-of-life in the coming century. At the same time, the 106 counties in Georgia that are below the national average in per capita income and percent of population in poverty have an economic development challenge that the land-grant university was created to address, and that the Governor's "One Georgia" initiative is designed to support.
• The challenge of globalization propelled in large part by information technology, will be the hallmark of the 21st century. We are already on the doorstep of a world characterized by the routine extension of business and banking products, individual and corporate communications, and educational programs and services to other parts of the world. Employers want graduates who speak the languages of their new and future customers, such as Spanish and Chinese, and who know how to communicate, on-and off-line, with people from cultures other than our own. Global competitiveness requires a high degree of technological literacy as well as cultural understanding; "thinking with computers" is a skill everyone will need in the new global economy.
• The task of building "the good community" even when the economy is good and the citizens are prospering is perhaps Georgia's most acute challenge. Despite the extraordinary, indeed unprecedented, prosperity of Georgia in general and Atlanta in particular over the past generation, few are satisfied with the current condition or future prospects for the quality of schools, water, air, transportation, housing, cultural accomplishments and family cohesiveness. "Smart growth," "the new urbanism," mixed-use" development, K-12 education reform , "community-building" and GRETA (the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority) are all part of the buzz identifying these quality-of-life issues as Georgia's most pressing challenges - and in this, as in so many ways, Georgia is a timely microcosm of the nation and its most pressing needs.

Updated 12/09/2000