Liberal arts focus pays off for school

Take this college quiz: What public Georgia college is considered one of the best bargains in the country for a liberal arts education?

Which has the third-highest average SAT score in the state university system?

Which college has University System of Georgia Chancellor Erroll B. Davis Jr. said he’d send his kids to, if they were college-age and interested in liberal arts?

Think the answer is University of Georgia? Wrong. Georgia State University? Try again.

It’s Georgia College & State University.

The Milledgeville institution has undergone drastic changes since it was designated “Georgia’s Public Liberal Arts University” in 1996.

The college has crystallized its liberal arts mission and become an attractive place for students, Davis said.

“They provide the complete package and they excel at what they do,” Davis said when he visited The Atlanta Journal-Constitution this summer.

Students said they’re attracted to the small classes. A large class has 70 to 80 students and most average 20 to 30.

They admire the campus. They throw Frisbees on the front lawn, work on laptops in the shade of trees and read in rocking chairs lining the porches of red brick buildings with white columns.

“This place is gorgeous, like something out of a movie,” said sophomore Maggie Holtmann from Duluth. “Not everyone wants a big, loud college. I wanted something small and personal where the professors know you by name.”

The college started in 1889 as an all-girls’ two-year college. It received permission to grant four-year degrees in 1917 and became co-ed in 1967.

In the 1990s Georgia started the HOPE scholarship program, which made it affordable for students to attend college anywhere in the state. Georgia College leaders realized they needed to attract students.

The college lacked an identity, officials said. Nearly all of its students lived about 50 miles from campus. Many attended part-time. College leaders admit the institution was in the bottom third of the university system.

While college leaders were discussing changes, then-Chancellor Stephen Portch was traveling the state, asking parents and others what they thought the university system lacked.

“Quite a lot of parents told me there was a need for a liberal arts college and that many were sending their children out of state,” Portch said.

Portch realized other states had a designated public liberal arts college and decided Georgia needed the same. When he shared his plan with college presidents, Georgia College expressed the most interest, he said.

The college revamped its curriculum to focus on liberal arts. Leaders hired more faculty to offer smaller classes. They built dorms and started clubs and intramural sports.

Today Georgia College has received recognition from the Princeton Review, U.S. News & World Report and others as a liberal arts leader and an education bargain. Many of the college’s nearly 6,500 students come from metro Atlanta.

Liberal arts comprises mathematics, humanities, sciences and social sciences. Most liberal arts colleges are located in rural areas or small towns and emphasize small classes, interaction with professors and opportunities for students to conduct research.

Those characteristics helped senior Stephen Wilson, a chemistry major, decide not to transfer to Georgia Tech. Wilson visited friends there and decided it wasn’t for him.

“When you’re a chemistry major here you get help from professors, not teaching assistants,” he said. “You get to do research freshman year ... It’s hands-on here.”

Professors said they want students to get involved in their education.

Professor Stephanie McClure called the nearly 25 students in her sociology class by name.

She and the students actively discussed socialization through the lens of gender. They debated what’s expected of a “proper” young man or woman and how society views males and females based on hair length.

Provost Sandra Jordan said a liberal arts education provides a foundation. When students graduate they will know how to communicate, analyze and interpret information, express informed opinions and understand human nature and society, she said.

The college’s most popular majors are biology, nursing, management and English, Jordan said.

Beyond academics, the college offers clubs for interests from animé to yoga. About 20 percent of the students belong to fraternities and sororities.

The campus sits in historic downtown Milledgeville.

About half the undergraduates live in apartments a 10- to 15-minute walk off campus.

There’s limited parking and the college doesn’t have any of the parking decks found at campuses in metro Atlanta. A campus bus goes to Wal-Mart on the weekends.

“We’re pretty self-contained here, but our students seem to like that,” said Bruce Harshbarger, vice president for student affairs.

Every Tuesday afternoon, he drags a rocking chair off one of the porches and places it along a main walkway. He sits outside to talk with students with a sign near him reading: “Questions? Problems? Comments? See the V.P. for Student Affairs.”

During a recent Tuesday, six students stopped by in the first 30 minutes. They shared concerns about roommates, student housing, upcoming exams and other issues.

Zach Mullins, president of the student government association, said college leaders make an effort to listen to students. Students sit on committees and have a say in the planning for a new wellness center, he said.

“They cater to us and really listen to our needs,” said the junior from Alpharetta. “When we have ideas for changes or improvements, they listen.”

President Dorothy Leland said they try to make Georgia College a student-friendly campus.

She said the campus is trying not to increase its enrollment too much because doing so would jeopardize small class sizes.

“We will never be as popular as the University of Georgia because we don’t have that tradition,” Leland said. “But there are many students who will always do better academically and socially by coming here to us.”

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About Georgia College

Enrollment: About 6,500

Student make-up: About 60 percent female. About 13 percent are minorities.

Average SAT score: 1,129 (math/verbal, freshmen, fall 2008) — third-highest behind Tech at 1,335 math/verbal and UGA at 1,229 math/verbal.

Top five majors: biology, nursing, management, English and marketing.

Team name: Bobcats

College colors: Navy blue and hunter green

Famous alum: Author Flannery O'Connor

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Atlanta represented

About 3,100 of the undergraduates attending Georgia College are from metro Atlanta. Here is the breakdown:

District Enrollment

Gwinnett 897

Fulton 610

Cobb 449

Fayette 260

Henry 189

DeKalb173

Forsyth128

Cherokee 115

Rockdale 109

Newton 96