GAINESVILLE – University of North Georgia Gainesville Campus Vice President Dr. Richard Oates addressed members of the South Hall Business Coalition Tuesday about the current status and future considerations of the growing multi-campus school.
With a student population on UNG’s five campuses now exceeding 20,000, and expansion underway onto the former Lanier Technical College complex abutting the Gainesville campus, Oates said choices made by UNG leadership, faculty, students and the communities involved are of great importance and will carry significant impact into the future.
“With a $667-million economic impact annually…we try to be a good economic partner working with the workforce development in those areas,” Oates said. “We’re still primarily an undergraduate institution; we’re trying to grow our graduate program opportunities.”
But growth, Oates said, is taking place across the board for UNG, not just in courses being offered. And with that, Oates explained, UNG Gainesville is striving to be ready in advance for the needs that inevitably will arise.
“For this campus, we continue to prepare for growth,” Oates said.
Oates said work is underway converting the former campus of Lanier Technical College (something he refers to as the Northeast Campus Expansion) so as to align the renovation with program growth and other expansion plans of UNG.
He said a completion date of January, 2021, in predicted.
One of the programs that will locate onto the new site is one Oates described as “very, very popular”: film and digital media. “We’re going to be putting in some sound studios and green rooms into those areas.”
“We are proud to be a part of the Georgia Film Academy.”
The remodeled campus will also host a first-of-its-kind venue. “We found another opportunity that we needed on campus…in talking with our students and what are our needs,” Oates said.
He continued, “Students said, ‘We will vote ourselves a fee to have health services provided on campus.’ So we’re going to have a clinic on campus. In January that facility will open up to provide student health services on this campus for the first time in the history of this campus.”
Ribbon cutting for the new health services center is slated for January 27, 2020.
Oates said UNG’s participation with area high schools in dual-enrollment programs has blossomed. (Dual-enrollment allows qualifying high school students an opportunity to earn college credits while still attending high school.) “We are number two in the (Georgia) university system for the number of dual enrollment students.”
“Dual enrollment is something that we have embraced…last spring…we had several students that received their Associate Degrees from UNG at the beginning of May, and at the end of May they received their high school diplomas.”
Oates was asked from the audience to comment on the need for student housing and if UNG Gainesville planned to construct any. “The need is currently being met by private developers who are marketing toward a student experience to meet those needs.”
“I’d rather, right now, rent than own,” Oates said of any plan to construct student housing.
Oates joked and told the audience he was surprised - and glad - that no one asked him about football. He then said, “We currently have an athletic strategic plan that identifies the potential for adding athletics to the campus, but we’re not to that stage yet.”
“But long term, down the road, I would say that, yes, we would be looking at adding athletics to this campus.”
