UWG Partners with GHC

Georgia Highlands College (GHC) located in Douglasville, GA has recently worked with the UWG to develop the 2Plus2 program, where graduating GHC students are admitted into the university.  

The University System of Georgia recognized that students enrolled in college courses in the Douglas County area need more four-year degree program options. UWG and GHC forming a 2Plus2 partnership was just the first step in what seems to be a long road towards a success story.  

Academics specialists such as Chief Administrative Officer and Executive Director for Academic Affairs Camilla Gant oversees and monitors the daily progress of the program. Gant has a massive task ahead of her as she needs to oversee the implementation of UWG degree programs and track the progression of attending students. 

“The University System of Georgia asked GHC to partner with UWG to offer targeted four-year professional degree options,” said Gant. “Students in Douglas County who want to pursue four-year degree programs have very limited options. Although GHC has four-year degree programs, they have very few, and they all aren’t available on the Douglasville campus.” 

GHC’s necessity of additional four-year degree programs was evident. However, not all UWG degree programs will be implemented on the GHC campus. Strategy ultimately decides which UWG degree programs will be offered at GHC. 

“Starting next fall we are going to be offering Bachelor of Business Administration courses here in Douglasville,” said Gant. “We also decided to target communication. The reason we targeted this one is not just the pool of students GHC has but because of the statistics from the department of labor that shows that there is a high demand for communication skills.” 

Students in the Douglas County area are not the only ones reaping the rewards of the 2Plus2. The benefits of UWG’s graceful implementation process into GHC also directly benefits commuter students. 

“Many of the students are commuter students,” said Gant. “So for them, they would be bypassing the Douglasville campus to get to Carrollton. This will make it very convenient for them.”  

Regardless, when someone else reaps benefits others must sacrifice. In this case, the sacrifice comes from UWG professors who teach courses at both GHC and Carrollton campuses. 

“It’s not a different set of faculty,” said Gant. “They will teach courses at one of our instructional sites as well as the Carrollton campus.” 

Although the 2Plus2 programs are great for students, Gant knows it will ultimately be judged by its success. 

“It’s too early for us to make a judgment at this point. We’re only in our second semester,” said Gant. “What I can tell you is that we had a big increase in what we call unduplicated majors. We saw that there was a 63 percent increase in students from the fiscal year 2017 to 2018.”  

With Gant monitoring the charge, UWG and GHC should continue to be able to sustain successful degree programs together in Douglasville. Look for the student enrollment to increase as four-year degree programs continue to be implemented at GHC.