History
In its 36-year history, Georgia Highlands College has served the Northwest Georgia community with a solid educational foundation for the first two years of college. Founded in 1970 as Floyd Junior College, GHC is a two-year unit of the University System of Georgia. It serves students who commute from throughout a large portion of Northwest Georgia and Northeast Alabama.
In 1968, the Board of Regents of the University System authorized the establishment of Floyd Junior College in Floyd County. Under the board’s policy, the local community provided a campus site and funds for the construction of the initial facilities. Led by the Junior College Committee headed by Rome attorney J.D. Maddox, Floyd County citizens responded enthusiastically by approving a $3.2 million bond issue by a margin of nearly three to one. Construction began in early 1970. The college’s first classes were offered during the fall quarter of 1970 in temporary facilities. At the end of 1970, all operations were moved to the new campus on Highway 27 (Cedartown Highway), six miles south of Rome.
Dr. David B. McCorkle became the first president of Floyd Junior College on January 1, 1970, and served in that position until June 30, 1991. Following Dr. McCorkle’s retirement, Dr. Richard Trimble was appointed acting president of the college and served until the November 1992 selection of Dr. H. Lynn Cundiff as the college’s second president. Dr. Cundiff left the college in August 2000. During the 2001 academic year, Robert Watts served as interim president. The Board of Regents named Dr. J. Randolph Pierce the third president of Floyd College on June 15, 2001.
Now enrolling about 3,800 students in transfer and career academic programs, Georgia Highlands College operates additional sites in Cartersville, Marietta and Carrollton. The college began offering classes in Marietta on the campus of Southern Polytechnic State University fall semester 2005. The college has also pioneered cooperative programs with Coosa Valley Technical College as early as 1972.
In recent years, the college has become more innovative with its outreach and programming, offering more courses via nontraditional means to meet the needs of its diverse student population and initiating programs that serve as models for college across the country.
In 1994, the college opened Heritage Hall in downtown Rome to be more accessible to the working student. GHTV, a 24-hour cable television station went on the air that same year. It offers classes that could be viewed multiple times a week for students with scheduling conflicts. An open-access channel, GHTV is broadcast in Floyd County through the Comcast cable system.
In 1999, construction was completed on a new classroom building on the central campus in Rome. In addition to classrooms, the Lakeview Building features an art lab, an art gallery and an exhibit hall. The college’s student center has also recently undergone extensive expansion and renovation.
As fall semester 2005 was beginning, the college dedicated our new campus and building in Cartersville, on Route 20, just west of I-75. Immediately, enrollment there jumped by 50 percent. The 100-square-foot facility, which houses a soaring library, biology and physics labs and the latest technological advances, can accommodate about 2,000 students. During the first semester, Cartersville enrollment reached 1,181. By fall 2006, enrollment there rose by 23 percent, jumping to nearly 1,500 students
The first major-gifts campaign in the college’s history, titled Legacy, was launched in 2005. And extraordinary 100 percent of faculty and staff contributed to the campaign, demonstrating their belief and commitment in the institution. Recently, GHC received an unrestricted bequest of $1 million and named the library at the Cartersville campus the John F. Jr. and Ann Felton Collins Memorial Library. Additionally, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Strickland, also from Cartersville, donated a significant gift, resulting in the naming of a large tiered classroom on the same campus.
Georgia Highlands College, which has grown significantly during the past three years, continues to offer an advanced educational foundation to its expanding student body. On August 1, 2005, the institution officially became Georgia Highlands College to reflect the regional nature of the population it serves.