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Thursday, October 11, 2007
“College has clear goal: get’em jobs”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
When she first considered Gwinnett College, Tinice Smith wasn’t so sure.
It has a low-key reputation. It’s a non-traditional campus, located in a Lilburn strip mall, next to a pawnshop.
But after talking to administrators, Smith, a 23-year-old single mom, decided to enroll at the private school off Lawrenceville Highway. She’s a second-semester student in the legal administrative assistant program.
“I won’t have a problem getting a job anywhere I go,” she told me.
You’ve probably wondered about Gwinnett College - the type students it serves, the programs offered. I’d wondered the same thing for some time and decided to check out the institution after seeing local TV commercials and overhearing a student in a restaurant sing its praises.
The school was founded in Lawrenceville in 1976 as a bookkeeping and secretarial school. Michael Davis bought it in 1995. It offers associate degrees or diplomas in 12 programs, including the medical, legal, business and computer fields.
Davis serves as president. His son, Lenny, is the vice president. The school has 35 full- and part-time instructors as well as other administrators. It’s a for-profit, family business, with one goal.
“The students are here to get a job,” Michael Davis said. “To learn skills and get a job.”
According to Lenny Davis, the junior college just filed a 2006 accreditation report that documents a 92 percent placement rate. The school is accredited by the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools. It has offered associate degrees since 2003.
“This is a steppingstone for a lot of students,” Lenny Davis said. “Placement drives our programs and most of the decisions we make.”
To that end, a new program went online in January. Massage therapy. The family recently acquired the Rising Spirit Institute of Natural Health, a massage school with locations in Dunwoody and Marietta. A logical step was to offer the study at the flagship “campus” in Lilburn.
“The American Massage Therapy Association says there are more people [age] 24 and under getting massages than any time in history,” Michael Davis said. “If we offer a program, our students have to be able to get a job in it.”
Nearly 350 students attend Gwinnett College. They are nontraditional students, working parents, twentysomethings who, for whatever reasons, didn’t take right to college. Admission requirements are lenient - a high school diploma or GED.
The way Michael Davis sees it, not everybody is college material. Not everybody earns the SAT scores, has the finances, and in some cases, the academic wherewithal to plunge into a four-year institution. Sometimes, they need decent employment first. That takes skills.
“To make you think you’re nobody if you don’t get a bachelor’s degree is a bunch of crap,” he said.
Unfortunately, society does it all the time.
Gwinnett College has a family feel, as the Badie Tour observed Wednesday. Michael and Lenny knew the names of every student we saw in the halls and classrooms. Every semester, the school hosts a “Fun Day” or “Fun Night.” That’s when classes are canceled, and students and faculty go bowling or something.
That personal touch is just another reason Smith, the student in the legal administrative assistant program, is sold on the nondescript school.
“This is the real deal,” said Smith, who works full-time at a local day care center. “At first, you think it’s just a small little school.
“I would tell anybody to come sign up. Just try it out.”
For more information about Gwinnett College, visit www.gwinnettcollege.com. Rick Badie’s column appears on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Contact him at 770-263-3875 or e-mail rbadie@ajc.com.
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