Ga. State-Perimeter to merge

AACC Community College Daily, Jan. 6, 2015

A proposal to merge Georgia State University with Georgia Perimeter College was approved Tuesday by the state Board of Regents. The new institution will keep the Georgia State University name as well as its president.

Earlier this week, Georgia Perimeter Interim President Rob Watts said in an email that the then-proposed merger was “an exciting prospect” and outlined steps that will be taken in the next year if the board approves the consolidation. Those include a steering committee, a website and teams formed to work through the practical and technical matters of the merger.

The consolidation would make the new school the largest within the state’s system of public colleges and universities with almost 54,000 students.

“This would create a new type of institution in the University System of Georgia: A research university that also has an access mission,” Watts wrote in the email.

“We have the opportunity in the year ahead of working with the Chancellor’s Office and our fine colleagues at Georgia State University to create a new type of institution in the USG that continues our important mission, maximizes the opportunities for student success at all levels, values the work of employees, and increases operational efficiencies,” Watts wrote.

The impending merger is historic and holds great promise for the university, Georgia State President Mark Becker said in a memo to students. The move, he said, “would create the largest university in the state and one of the largest in the nation.”

The consolidation timeline calls for the approval of the plan by the board of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges by the end of this year, followed by Board of Regents approval of the new institution in early 2016.

Georgia Perimeter, a two-year school, reported more than 21,000 students enrolled in the fall 2014 semester, with the full-time equivalent of about 15,400 students among its five campuses.

Georgia State’s main campus is in downtown Atlanta. The university offers 250 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in its eight colleges and schools, according to its website.