University System of Georgia chancellor lauds Columbus State

A week after announcing he will retire at the end of this year, University System of Georgia chancellor Hank Huckaby lauded Columbus State University and the support it receives from the community.

Huckaby made his remarks during the “State of Education” luncheon the Greater Columbus Chamber of Commerce conducted Tuesday for an estimated 130 local business, civic and education leaders in the Columbus Convention & Trade Center.

The chancellor recalled telling Chris Markwood, while hiring him as CSU president last year, “You’re going to a community that there is no other equal in terms of the level of community support in our system.”

A year later, Huckaby added, “Recently, he told me, ‘You’re absolutely right.’”

Huckaby also called CSU one of the system’s “hidden jewels,” along with the University of West Georgia and Georgia College & State University.

“I made it clear to Dr. Markwood that our expectation, quite frankly, is that over the next couple of years, in terms of size and confidence, Columbus State becomes another Georgia Southern,” the chancellor said.

Besides praising CSU and Columbus, this was a sort of valedictory speech for Huckaby, who will have been chancellor for 5½ years when he retires Dec. 31. Steve Wrigley, executive vice chancellor of administration for the USG since 2011, will be interim chancellor.

In his speech, Huckaby highlighted the chapters of what he called “a great story to tell” as he compared the USG’s condition to what it was five years ago. Among them:

▪  Increased the number of graduates by 14 percent, from 54,855 in 2011 to 62,545 in 2016.

▪  Through consolidation, reduced the number of institutions from 35 to 29, redirecting $19.6 million in administrative costs to student programs and support services. That number will be down to 28 in January, when Albany State University and Darton State College merge. He praised the regents for doing what they deemed best for the system despite receiving criticism in their hometowns, especially from folks who lost their job or their alma mater.

▪  Expanded the use and availability of open educational resources that provide free or low-cost e-textbooks. USG estimates students saved $16.5 million in textbook costs last school year, a figure Rice University-based publisher OpenStax rates as the highest in the nation. “It’s not unheard of sometimes, particularly in the sciences, to cost $200-$300 for one textbook,” Huckaby said.

▪  Increased the number of online courses from roughly 1,500 to more than 6,000 while lowering the cost.

▪  Launched the Georgia Film Academy, a partnership between USG and the Technical College System of Georgia, as the nation’s first statewide effort to train students to work in the film industry. CSU, Clayton State University and Gwinnett Technical College are the three sites in the academy’s inaugural year.

▪  Transformed the process for constructing facilities. In 2011, USG was $3.6 billion in debt after 175 construction projects since 1997. Using what’s known as P3, the USG’s public-private partnerships are expected to reduce the student-housing debt by nearly $300 million.

▪  Implemented a campus safety initiative that mandates system-led training and centralizes oversight. Starting this academic year, each institution has its own campus safety committee.

Huckaby has served as a teacher and administrator in USG, as a senior policy coordinator and director in the Governor’s Office of Planning and Budget, as commissioner of the Georgia Department of Community Affairs and as executive director of the Georgia Residential Finance Authority. He represented Georgia House District 113 as a Republican during the 2011 legislative session before the USG Board of Regents appointed him chancellor.

Huckaby is the 12^th chancellor in USG’s 85-year history. He oversees an annual budget of $8.1 billion, approximately 47,000 faculty and staff and 318,000 students. The system had 298,510 students when he became chancellor on July 1, 2011.

Chamber president and chief executive officer Brian Anderson called Huckaby “an extremely intelligent, thoughtful and compassionate leader.” Georgia Trend magazine named Huckaby as the 2015 Georgian of the Year.

Anderson put in perspective how crucial education is to workforce development when he told the crowd, “I just returned from the American Chamber of Commerce Executives convention, where every city our size and larger said the one thing that keeps them up at night is workforce. … It’s up to us to make sure every young person, every person who’s in the workforce who could do more, we’ve got to make sure they’ve got the education and training to do what they need to do.”

The chancellor agrees.

“We are responsible, we have the obligation, the opportunity, to play a major role, if not the major role, in workforce development,” Huckaby said.

A 2011 Georgetown University study, which sparked Gov. Nathan Deal’s Complete College Georgia initiative, found that Georgia must increase its percentage of residents with some level of college completion from 42 percent to 60 percent to meet the projected workforce needs. That means the state must add 250,000 postsecondary graduates by 2020.

“At one time, 20-30 years ago, in terms of quality of workforce, the United States ranked No. 1 in the world,” Huckaby said. “The last time I looked, it was down to No. 15.”

Another area of concern Huckaby expressed is tougher to quantify but equally crucial: the so-called “soft skills” of USG graduates, such as communication, punctuality, dress and etiquette, he said.

“Too many of our graduates come out of our institutions not really prepared for the workforce in this respect,” Huckaby said. “… We’re working to find ways to for us to inculcate those kinds of skills throughout the curriculum. It’s not just a 30-minute video in career services.”

Overall, however, Huckaby said he is “very proud of what we’ve been able to do together. The thing I’m most proud of is the quality of the staff that we’ve built in the University System of Georgia. They’re second to none.”

This was the fourth of five topics in the “State of …” series the chamber is conducting this year. The previous events focused on the city, small business and economic development. The final one will be “The State of Fort Benning” on Oct. 25 at 4 p.m., also in the trade center.

This story was originally published August 16, 2016 at 5:25 PM with the headline "University System of Georgia chancellor lauds Columbus State."