Dr. Hugh Mills told a standing room only audience in the Continuing Education Center that in 1965 GC. was yet to earn the respect it has now.
Two-year schools in the University System of Georgia were just starting up, Mills said.
"I had to establish that this was a college, indeed."
During his tenure from 1965 to 1983, Gainesville College enrollment grew from 419 to 1,569 students.
Current enrollment is 5,780 students.
Dr. Mills was a strong advocate of open enrollment and believed the college should be available to all applicants regardless of background or preparation.
He says he challenged his faculty to be student-oriented.
Gainesville College's senior faculty member said the school's 40th Anniversary celebration was like a family reunion.
Steve Blair started teaching in 1972 and said two-year colleges had to overcome a false perception.
"We were called junior colleges but there was nothing secondary or junior about this," Blair said.
Blair credited Dr. Mills with getting the "junior" dropped from two-year college names because they offered the same courses as four-year schools.
Gainesville College President Dr. Martha Nesbitt said Dr. Mills wanted his faculty to be student-oriented when it was chartered as a two-year junior college in 1964.
"He was really interested in starting a teaching institution and he hired the kind of faculty who would really help our students," Nesbitt said.
Past and present students and faculty members and others gathered for the celebration.
Two founding members of the school, retired banker James Mathis, Sr. and retired attorney James Dunlap, both of Gainesville, were present, as was the school's first staff member, Eleanor Crawford.
http://accesswdun.com/article/2004/10/148702