Facts about the Administrative Mergers
of 13 TCSG Colleges
Updated March 2009
1. First and foremost, these mergers are necessary to create greater operational efficiencies that will assure that the service level that the TCSG provides to our students can remain strong on every campus.
2. The mergers are intended to protect faculty positions in order to keep instructors in the classrooms while the TCSG has continuing enrollment growth.
3. This action will also assist the TCSG to meet our required budget reductions of between 8% and 10% for Fiscal Year 2010.
4. The state board that oversees the TCSG approved the mergers during their monthly meeting in September 2008 and reaffirmed the decision during their November 2008 meeting.
5. The mergers will not result in the closure of any campus or any college facility; the larger and improved colleges that will result from the administrative mergers will reflect a new, more efficient way of managing TCSG campuses.
6. None of the administrative mergers should be construed as one college assuming control over another. This is an administrative merger of colleges that will continue to provide the best in technical education, adult education and workforce training to every one of our students, to the businesses and industries served by the colleges, and throughout every Georgia community.
7. The merged colleges’ leadership will include a president and a campus provost. The campus provost will be the local leader of the college campus that will not house the office of the president. The provost will report directly to the college president and will have significant leadership responsibilities both at his or her location as well as in the local communities served by the campus.
8. There are 13 colleges that have been identified for administrative mergers as soon as July 1, 2009. The new names for those colleges have been proposed and approved by the local boards that help to oversee the colleges. The new leadership was chosen by the TCSG commissioner and approved by the TCSG State Board:
§ Northwestern and Coosa Valley Technical Colleges will become Georgia Northwestern Technical College on July 1, 2009 under President Craig McDaniel and Northwestern Campus Provost Jeff King.
§ Chattahoochee, North Metro and Appalachian Technical Colleges will become Chattahoochee Technical College on July 1, 2009 under President Sanford Chandler, Appalachian Campus Provost David Simmons and North Metro Campus Provost Ron Newcomb. (Fannin County will move from the Appalachian Tech service delivery area to the North Georgia Tech SDA on 1-1-09)
§ West Georgia and West Central Technical Colleges will become West Georgia Technical College on July 1, 2009 under President Skip Sullivan and West Georgia/LaGrange Campus Provost Perrin Alford.
§ Swainsboro and Southeastern Technical Colleges will become Southea stern T echnical College on July 1, 2009 under President Cathy Mitchell and Swainsboro Campus Provost Larry Calhoun.
§ Griffin and Flint River Technical Colleges will become Southern Crescent Technical College in early 2010 under President Bobby Arnold and Flint River Campus Provost Jim Wheeless.
§ Valdosta and East Central Technical Colleges have yet to be renamed; the merger is projected to be complete by July 2010 under President Ray Perren.
9. Some positions will be impacted by the mergers for possible elimination but those jobs will primarily be at the administrative level with little, if any, impact on classroom positions. The TCSG will work diligently to reduce the impact on positions as we move these merger plans forward.
10. The local boards of the merged colleges will be combined. All counties in the service delivery area of the merged colleges will be represented on the combined board as they are now.
11. There are a host of issues to resolve before the mergers will occur, including accreditation, college workforce plans, merging of programs, PeopleSoft and banner consolidations, etc.