Vol. 34, No. 5, SPECIAL EDITION - DEC. 1998

A "Zealous" Tribute To Governor Miller

The atmosphere was festive; the evening grand as nearly 2,000 guests gathered at the World Congress Center, in Atlanta, for the University System of Georgia's salute to Governor Zell Miller, held on October 14, 1998.

"An unforgettable evening for an unforgettable man," noted Dr. Beheruz N. Sethna, president, State University of West Georgia.

Many others shared his sentiment including Felicia N. Sigler, a Savannah State University senior, who said: "The gala was an unforgettable event honoring a governor who made a college education a reality instead of just a campaign promise.

Martha Fay Daily, assistant to the dean of the College of Graduate Studies and associate vice president for academic affairs, Georgia Southern University, added, "The program was probably the highlight of this decade for me: I was deeply moved by the presentations and the music at the dinner.

HOPE scholars, students, faculty, staff, administrators, legislators and civic leaders from each of the 34 institutions across the state attended the gala, and were treated to student entertainment including the Valdosta State University Jazz Combo and a University System-wide chorus.

The governor was lauded by University of Georgia senior Elizabeth Stephens; Mary Jo Fayoyin, director of Library Services at Waycross College; and Georgia Southern University Associate Professor Larry Burton. He also was "roasted" by his longtime friend and current chair of the Board of Regents, Edgar Jenkins, who provided some unique and humorous insights about the governor.

"The choir directors must have felt like they had gone to heaven. Imagine having the best singers from each campus in the system, in one place," commented an unidentified Southern Polytechnic State University attendee.

"The student chorale's performance made one feel as if rehearsal had occurred for weeks not just hours. BRAVO!!!" raved Nancy Sullivan, assistant to the president at Kennesaw State University.

"The evening was special. I appreciate being asked to participate in this wonderful celebration. I've never seen anything like it in my 30 years in the system," remarked Dr. Harriett Whipple, long-time biology professor at Georgia College & State University.

"The entire evening was a celebration of the Governor's vision of Georgia as the preeminent state in the nation in education, and the voices of hundreds there provided evidence that the vision is becoming a reality," said Dr. Bettie Horne, vice president and dean of Academic Affairs at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College.

Rick Skinner, president of Clayton College & State University spoke to the significance of the evening. "Our guests were primarily persons from outside our institution who serve on various boards of ours. Without exception, they were impressed by the sincerity of the appreciation expressed for and to Governor Miller. But they were taken equally by the spirit of cooperation and collaboration that marked the occasion", he said.

Others expressed similar viewpoints. "I attended with one of my students, Kim Guffey," said Dr. Lelia Mullis, assistant professor of Early Childhood Education and Reading at the State University of West Georgia. "It was a life-altering event for Kim. I watched her develop a poise I haven't seen in her before."

At the evening's close the Governor and his wife, Shirley, left the room through a corridor of System HOPE scholars.

One of these, Macon State College student Kevin Floyd, said, "It was very much an honor for me to be able to pay tribute to Governor Miller for all his work in creating and nurturing the HOPE Scholarship Program."

But Skidaway Institute of Oceanography's Tina Walters summed up the evening perfectly: "It was truly Miller time," she said.

. . . But Portch Says 'We're Not Done Yet!'

Interview Conducted by Greg Jones, Edited by Arlethia Perry-Johnson.

More than four years have passed since University System of Georgia Chancellor Stephen R. Portch first arrived in Atlanta, Georgia - rescued from the wintry climes of Wisconsin by a late evening telephone call.

The members of the Board of Regents were extremely effective in their recruitment effort. They presented Steve Portch with a clear picture of the investment that Georgia's Governor and the General Assembly were willing to make in higher education, and outlined the leadership role they expected a new chancellor to assume.

The challenge put before Portch was one that he could not resist. The rest, as they say, is history!

Portch's message has been that while great progress has been made during the past four years, there is still much work to do. "We're Not Done Yet" has become Portch's mantra - and he has just completed a 120-day, 34-campus tour of the University System to convert followers to his pilgrimage toward continued progress.

Launched in Swainsboro at East Georgia College on August 13, the "WNDY" tour breezed Portch onto every campus to touch a wide swath of the System's constituents. Audiences included campus faculty, staff and students; business, industry and civic clubs; press briefings with reporters and meetings with editorial boards; and meetings with candidates for elected office and existing members of the legislative delegations in every county he visited.

Portch wants to make sure that the momentum achieved by the System during the past four years - thanks to the dedication and generosity of Governor Zell Miller and the General Assembly - will be continued during the next four. His perspective, and that of the regents, is that too much time, effort and resources have been invested in the University System for the state to stop now -midway to national recognition.

The system has moved to the top of the Southern region on many fronts, but continued investment is required, in Portch's view, to provide nationally competitive programs. Portch is not willing to settle for average, he says Georgia can be, and deserves to be, nationally ranked for the investment the state has made in higher education And if Portch and his board members have their way, Georgia will get there.

During his campus visit to Georgia State University in Atlanta, Chancellor Portch paused to spend some time with Greg Jones, managing editor of publications at GSU. Jones queried Portch on the System's current progress, his plans for its continued elevation, and the goals of the "We're Not Done Yet" tour. That interview is excerpted here. - AP-J

Jones: You are traveling around the state telling faculty, stuff and students that we (University System employees) have a lot more work to do. How far does (the Board of Regents) vision extend in terms of substantive growth?

Chancellor Portch: The measurable period that I'm looking at now goes through 2001. Our strategic plan, that we adopted in 1994, really had so many of its' measured tied to 2001. Certainly, we will be updating it long before then. But in that period, we envisioned that in the first three-and-a-half years that we needed to be consistently among the Southern leaders (in educational indices). And that our company would be Virginia and North Carolina . . . We had to be in the top echelon in the Southern states, and we've done that!

Now, in my view, we need to he in the top quartile nationally on many measures. We won't be able to accomplish all that in the next four years - because the policies take time to show results. For example, our new admission standards -which won't get fully implemented until 2001 - you won't see the full results of them until 2006, when the first class that came under those new standards graduates. I'm not sure that in every measure we'll be in the top quartile of the nation, but that's what we need to aspire to now - to move from the national average to the top quartile.

Jones: What was the state of Georgia's higher education system four years ago? Assess what you inherited.

Chancellor Portch: I'd like to put that into context because I looked at that very carefully (when considering the chancellor's post). I am not someone who has succeed in a situation where there's poor quality or a crisis or things are bad. I know myself. I think I thrive in coming to something that is already very solid and sound and fundamental, but has yet to fulfill its true potential.

Part of my job was to say that we are very solid, and that we could very quickly move to a (higher) level. . . And because that coincided with Zell Miller's second term, he was chomping at the bit to invest in making this one of the top higher education systems.

Jones: But it wasn't just Zell's vision, was it? Isn't it a shared vision ... the governor's, your's and others?

Chancellor Portch: And the Board's. You cannot underestimate how much a number of things came together at exactly the right time, and I was the beneficiary. During Zell Miller's second term, he was committed to putting more really good people on the Board of Regents . . . a board that was hungry to develop a strategic plan and get moving. And, then when I came, they gave one the freedom to provide leadership; they also were willing to work with me, and worked very hard to make change. At the institutional level, we've had strong leadership with strong presidents. We also had some opportunities to bring in 15 new presidents in the last fotor years. And again, because Georgia has such an attractive reputation, we were able to attract really top-notch people. Added together with the quality people who were already here, there has been a lot of energy generated.

If we had had a governor who was not supportive, who did not verbalize his commitment and then commit resources, we would not have achieved what we've achieved. (Gov. Miller) has to take an enormous amount of that credit.

Jones: What are you going to push for in this legislative session?

Chancellor Portch: Increasing the number of faculty. Focusing on class sizes in key freshmen and sophomore courses. And increasing the size of faculty in areas where we need to grow the state's economy.

Jones: And the measurable indices for that would be?

Chancellor Portch: For the first, it would be retention and graduation rates. For the second, it would be our increase on the production of people with degrees in high-demand workforce areas.

Jones: Are you inclined to tinker . . . with things that can be tweaked or fixed in midstream?

Chancellor Portch: Well, we began with an explosiveness at the beginning. We've settled down a little bit now. . . . In the next phase, we know where we've got to go. We know what the measurements are. We know where we've got to concentrate, at least foot the next four years. We did a loot of things in which we had to grasp that window of opportunity - taking advantage of an energy for change. So, I don't think you'll see the (broad) approach in) the same number of areas. . . If we keep imposing yet more new initiatives, one after another, and the original ones haven't been foully integrated into the culture, we'll be making a mistake. You've seen now a shift . . . Each of the last few years, we've chosen a significant policy area - one area - and spent our year on that. Last year, it was teacher preparation. This year, it's technology. That's likely to be the pattern) now. The plan through 2001 is aimed at full implementation of the things we already have under way, complemented by a focus on areas such as teacher preparation and technology.

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Kenneth W. Cannestra
Atlanta
VICE-CHAIR

Thomas F. Allgood, Sr.
Augusta

David H. "Hal" Averitt
Statesboro

Juanita Powell Baranco
Lithonia

S. William Clark Jr.
Waycross

J. Tom Coleman, Jr.
Savannah

Hilton Hatchett Howell, Jr.
Atlanta

Warren Y. Jobe
Dunwoody

Charles H. Jones
Macon

Donald M. Leebern, Jr.
Columbus

Elridge W. McMillan
Atlanta

Edgar L. Rhodes
Bremen

Glenn S. White
Lawrenceville

Stephen R. Portch
CHANCELLOR

Gail S. Weber
SECRETARY TO THE BOARD

Arlethia Perry-Johnson
EXECUTIVE EDITOR
John Milsaps
MANAGING EDITOR
Gail Eubanks
WRITER

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