IMMEDIATE AUGUST 13, 2004

VOLLMER TO TAKE OVER DTAE POST

TIFTON—Mike Vollmer, one of the most active presidents in the history of Abraham Baldwin College, will leave his position Oct. 1 to become the Commissioner of the Georgia Department of Technical and Adult Education.

“I hope in some small way these past three years can be viewed as continuing to move the college ahead in a number of ways,” Vollmer said in a campuswide e-mail. “Any positive things which happened over this period were due to the efforts of the entire campus.”

Since assuming the post as ABAC’s ninth president on July 1, 2001, Vollmer built a legacy of unparalleled construction and growth on the 421-acre campus.

The ABAC enrollment reached an all-time high of 3,407 students in the fall of 2003, and indications are that record will be broken when classes begin for the 2004 fall semester on Aug. 23.

Construction sites have become commonplace over the campus over the past three years as the college opened the $1 million Red Hill Athletic Center, the $3.2 million Environmental Horticulture Building, the $7.1 million Agricultural Sciences Building, and the $1.5 million Pedestrian Mall. Howard Auditorium also received a $1.2 million renovation.

Perhaps the most significant achievement of the Vollmer era is the $32 million ABAC Place apartments complex, which is the largest housing project at a two-year college in the United States. Most of the units in the massive project are four-bedroom, two-bath apartments, and all 835 private rooms are filled for the fall term. The ABAC Foundation supported the project.

Vollmer has already laid the groundwork for the $6.2 million Health Sciences building, a combination public/private funded venture. The groundbreaking should occur later this year.

During his time at ABAC, the college also received a $500,000 Goizueta Foundation grant and a $1 million gift of the Forest Lakes Golf Course from Dr. Larry Moorman and his wife, Debra.

Anxious to keep ABAC up to date with technology, Vollmer encouraged a project in which ABAC students used hand-held computers, called Personal Digital Assistants in their classes. He also put ABAC in a position for a new technologically advanced phone system which is about to be used for the first time this fall.

Four-year college classes from the University of Georgia, Valdosta State University, Georgia Southwestern State University, Macon State College, and Albany State University are now available at ABAC. Vollmer wanted local students to be able to take two years at ABAC and then two years from the other units of the University System to complete their four-year degrees without ever leaving the area.

Vollmer had plans for ABAC to become a four-year state college. Those plans are going forward. “There’s no reason why ABAC can’t have a four-year degree here,” Vollmer said. “I’m going to talk to the Chancellor and the Governor about that.”

Vollmer set the stage with the University System for a $200,000 study to create a new Master Plan for ABAC. That new plan should be unveiled in February, 2005. The Board of Regents met on the campus for the first time in 20 years because of Vollmer’s invitation.

Active in the community, Vollmer is now serving as chair of the Tifton-Tift County Chamber of Commerce. He has also been named to the Georgia Humanities Council.

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