The University of North Georgia hopes to have its first classes in its renovated facilities on old Lanier Technical College campus by next fall.
Most of the renovations should be complete by the end of this calendar year, but Richard Oates, vice president of the Gainesville campus, said Tuesday that because classes are scheduled far ahead of time, it wasn’t possible to get classes scheduled for next semester.
“While we may be able to move some offices in there over time, we schedule classes out about eight months in advance and so we wanted to make sure we didn’t schedule something in there that may have rushed the schedule,” Oates said.
Five areas – include film and digital studies, nursing and information technology – will occupy the renovated spaces once the project is completed, Oates said.
Oates gave the update Tuesday morning during a virtual meeting of the Greater Hall Chamber of Commerce’s South Hall Business Coalition.
Oates said that since Gainesville State and North Georgia College consolidated, the Gainesville campus has seen a decline in the number of students seeking a two-year associate degree and an increase in students seeking bachelor’s degrees.
The Gainesville campus has also many students who are the first in their families to attend college, which has led the school to start a first-generation initiative to help those students adjust to college life.
Jennifer Herring, who heads the initiative as special assistant to Oates, said 30 percent of the Gainesville student body are the first members of their family to attend college. About 80 percent of those students will never graduate.
“First generation college students not only experience financial challenges, but they also have to learn how to navigate a world that is completely new to them, often with very little assistance from home,” Herring said.
The First Generation Initiative brings these students together, so they know they are not alone. It also matches the students with adult mentors who can answer questions and provide support. And it also helps students find and use campus resources that will help them succeed.
On COVID-19, Oates said the campus has had fewer than 500 cases, an infection rate of less than 1 percent. He said buildings are fumigated each morning.
“One case is too many, but I think the mitigation factors we are doing on campus are showing off and paying off in the numbers,” he said. “To my knowledge, we have not had an on-campus contamination when we’ve been doing the campus tracing. Most of it has been community exposure, not campus exposure.”
