How Mike "Champagne" Adams saved the University of Georgia...
- Thread starter DawgHammarskjold
- Start date
Don't take this the wrong way, but in my day UGA was a fallback school. Adams elevated the school immensely. He may not have been a great guy, but he did a great job IMO.
The ascension has been steadily going up for a long time. The previous president Charles Knapp was a aloof and aristocratic, but he really started the movement along with the HOPE scholarships that allowed more to attend and raise the standards. Adams was was arrogant and was hired for his fundraising ability, but the positive trend continued. adams certainly deserves credit for what the University accomplished under his watch, but there could have been much more progress on the athletic side had he pushed that a little more.
What good is a state University if your kids can't get in with decent grades? I would not have been accepted under the current requirements. The University of Georgia is not Harvard or even Vanderbilt, nor do we want it to be. It's ridiculous!
There's no reason the state of Georgia shouldn't have a state university held in the same regard as those in NC, VA, or even FL. If that university isn't UGA, which one should it be?
Frankly, UGAs rise coincides with that of Atlanta and Georgia as a whole. Many, many, many people could have overseen UGAS rise and I have to think most would have done it with more class and professionalism than Adams.
EXACTLY Lewis!
Further, many people moved here because of HOPE. I know a couple of people who did exactly that. Eventually, they put a rule on there that you had to have lived here for 5 yrs, don't know if that's still the case.
Colleges, including UGA don't seem to have a problem lowering the admission requirements for some based on their goal of "diversity". What would be wrong with also accepting the highest ranked students from the "poorer" school districts in Georgia as long as they meet a minimum standard? It seems those students are penalized for not living in a "rich" Atlanta suburb where they'd have access to more and better resources. People who live in those areas pay taxes to support UGA and I don't know what would be wrong with reserving a few spots for deserving students (regardless of race) who live in economically depressed areas of the state. It's been 25+ years since I lived in Georgia, but looking from the outside I do see the current admission policy somewhat biased to Metro Atlanta and not working to the best benefit of the whole state. FWIW I haven't necessarily seen the correlation of higher admission standards graduating smarter students. JMO based on the recent college grads who've worked for me.
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I think it had much more to do with the HOPE scholarship encouraging students who might have left the state before, to attend UGA instead. Thus more students competing for less spots was bound to cause the admission standards to rise. The question remains, is the level of instruction better than 20, 30, 40 years ago once they get there. That's debatable IMO and worthy of a totally different discussion. Are colleges overall producing better graduates? That's debatable as well and if so is it because of better educated students from U.S. high schools? Not if you believe the world rankings you see and not when you hear how colleges are dependent on foreign students to fill their doctoral programs.
