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Marketing & Communications University of Georgia 286 Oconee Street Suite 200 North Athens, GA 30602-1999
Vol. 50, No. 23
January 30, 2023
POWERED BY PURPOSE
We also added nearly two and a half million square feet of new facilities and renovated over one million more. From the Science Learning Center, the I-STEM Research Complex, and the Terry College’s Business Learning Community to the Veterinary Teaching Hospital, the film studio in the Grady College, and new and renovated residence halls, UGA provided state-of-the-art facilities designed to maximize our students’ potential. When we embarked upon the past decade, our commitment extended beyond the learning environment, however. Embracing our critical research mission, we envisioned a dynamic ecosystem of exploration and creativity, where UGA scholars would be supported with every feasible resource as they tackled society’s most daunting challenges.
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ood afternoon. Thank you to all the faculty, staff, students, alumni, and friends joining me today. The State of the University Address is a longstanding UGA tradition, and I am honored once again to report on the state of our great institution. Though it is hard for me to believe, this academic year marks my tenth year leading the University of Georgia. By any measure, it has been a tremendous decade for our University community, distinguished by historic milestones and unprecedented success. It has been a decade of deep transformation and expanded impact, of bold progress and relentless innovation. For our University—the birthplace of public higher education in America—it has been a decade defined by the power of shared purpose, by the limitless potential of a community linked by a noble mission and propelled by a fierce devotion to service. In preparation for today’s remarks, I spent some time reviewing one of my first speeches as president: my investiture address, delivered in 2013. During that speech, I posed two closely related questions as I contemplated UGA’s immense potential: Where will we ultimately go as an institution? What is next for the University of Georgia? Today—during this, my tenth State of the University Address—I would like to revisit these simple yet consequential questions, using them as a guide to consider our institution’s past decade and to imagine the one to come. Today, let us ask ourselves: Where did we go as an institution over the past ten years? What did we achieve together as an academic community? Then, let us cast our gaze ahead and consider: What is next for the University of Georgia?
A DE C A DE OF IM PA C T
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et me begin with the most vital aspect of our mission: educating tomorrow’s leaders. Throughout the past decade, the University of Georgia embraced a bold, ambitious vision of teaching and learning in the twentyfirst century. Together, we imagined an institution where students would flourish amid cutting-edge instruction, robust support, and learning opportunities extending to the far corners of the world. To realize this vision, we transformed classrooms into dynamic learning spaces and became the largest public university in America to ensure that students gain experiential learning beyond the classroom. We recruited additional faculty to reduce class sizes and expanded our corps of advisors to give students more personalized attention. We added tailored support for first-generation students and others from underrepresented backgrounds. We launched the Double Dawgs program, providing more than 250 pathways for students to earn a bachelor’s and master’s degree in five years or less. We infused data literacy and writing throughout our curriculum and built an entrepreneurship program to give students additional tools for success in today’s world. The results have been extraordinary.
news.uga.edu/columns
“Throughout the past decade, the University of Georgia embraced a bold, ambitious vision of teaching and learning in the twenty-first century. delivered by
President Jere W. Morehead January 25, 2023 president.uga.edu/sotu universit y of georgia Over the past decade, the percentage of first-year students returning for their sophomore year averaged 95%, dramatically exceeding the national average, while our students’ four-year completion rate rose to a record 75%, an astonishing increase of almost 13 percentage points. Our six-year completion rate also reached a new high of 88%, eclipsing many of our peers. U.S. News & World Report ranked the University of Georgia as a top 20 public institution for seven consecutive years, and our students secured many of the nation’s most distinguished awards. In the last year alone, UGA was the only public institution to have two students selected for the Marshall Scholarship and was one of just three state institutions to have a Rhodes Scholar. And throughout this remarkable decade, while the academic strength of our student body continued to rise, applications for admission surged by more than 100%, and our enrollment reached an all-time high. Our graduate and professional students also achieved new heights of excellence. Numerous UGA graduate and professional programs earned top 10 national rankings, while several online graduate programs ranked in the top five in U.S. News & World Report’s best online programs rankings.
Together, we imagined an institution where students would flourish amid cutting-edge instruction, robust support, and learning opportunities extending to the far corners of the world.” —pr esiden t j er e w. mor eh e a d Driven by this vision, we bolstered support for investigators, expanding pre- and post-award services and adding new resources and personnel to our Office of Research. Through 11 hiring initiatives, we recruited more than 150 additional scholars in fields of strategic importance as well as nine new Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholars. We fostered interdisciplinary research and industry partnerships, and we fashioned a place—an Innovation District—where dreamers and innovators could translate ideas into the products and enterprises of tomorrow. What were the results of these ambitious efforts? The University’s annual R&D expenditures rose more than 50% over the last decade, surpassing half a billion dollars last year for the first time, while the number of sponsored awards secured by UGA scholars more than doubled. These results were driven by our extraordinary faculty—the heartbeat of our campus—who earned countless accolades, including a MacArthur Genius Award, CONTINUED on page 2