Georgia State University and Georgia Perimeter College will consolidate to form a new institution to be named Georgia State University. The Board of Regents approved a proposal from Chancellor Hank Huckaby recommending the consolidation of these two institutions to improve student success.
“Georgia State is a recognized national leader in improving student retention and graduation rates and will be able to apply its best practices,” said Chancellor Hank Huckaby. “Combining these attributes with Georgia Perimeter College’s leadership in providing access to students across the metro area presents a major opportunity to improve student success.”
The decision to consolidate the two institutions, whose combined enrollment this fall is 53,927 students, follows the six guiding principles for consolidation approved by the board in Nov. 2011.
Georgia State President Mark Becker will serve as the president of the new institution. The consolidation timeline calls for the approval of the plan by the board of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges by the end of this year, followed by Board of Regents approval of the new institution in early 2016. An implementation team with representatives from both institutions to work out the many details associated with consolidating the two universities will soon be formed. The implementation team will also be responsible for submitting the required documents for accreditation.
Georgia State University, the second-largest university in the University System of Georgia, is a research university located in downtown Atlanta with a national reputation for graduating students from diverse backgrounds. The university celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2013.
Georgia Perimeter College, located on five campuses throughout metropolitan Atlanta, was founded in 1964 for the citizens of DeKalb County by the DeKalb Board of Education. Georgia Perimeter is the top associate-degree-granting institution in Georgia.
Segregation
Georgia Perimeter College has currently 3,496 students paying prices as international students, according to the office of research and political analysis of the Board of Regents; 2,140 of these are Hispanic and 420 are undocumented from other origins or DACA beneficiaries, these are those who would be affected negatively by 4.1.6 policy.
The Georgia Board of Regentes 4.1.6 Admission of Persons Not Lawfully Present in the United States: A person who is not lawfully present in the United States shall not be eligible for admission to any University System institution which, for the two most recent academic years, did not admit all academically qualified applicants (except for cases in which applicants were rejected for non-academic reasons).
If all goes according to the plans of the Georgia Board of Regents, the accreditation for the new institution will begin this year and will be completed at the beginning of 2016. The affected schools belonging to Georgia Perimeter College are in Newton, Clarkston, Decatur, Alpharetta and Dunwoody.
This is not the first time in which the Board of Regents surprise students with decisions like this. Last year the Board of Regents also made official the consolidation of Southern Polytechnic State University with Kennesaw State University despite opposition from students and teachers from both schools.
However, none of these two institutions prohibited students entry to undocumented students.
When Medical of College of Georgia and Augusta State University (Currently combined called Georgia Regents University-GRU) were consolidated a few years ago GRU stopped accepting students without legal status. Even students beneficiary of President Obama executive order known as DACA are not being enrolled in this combined institution of high education but others also.
The University of Georgia celebrated their 54th anniversary of desegregation at UGA. Yet, still today undocumented students are being ban from attending this institution.
On January 9 undocumented students held a class together with documents students of different colleges learning together just how it has to be, according to immigrant activists. They were doing a sit-in and waiting for the president to publicly state he's against the ban. Nine of them were arrested.
Legislations
The bill SB6 by Sen. Josh McKoon, R-Columbus, currently at the Georgia General Assembly, seeks to deny access to driver's licenses to those who qualify for DACA and DAPA under President Obama's Immigration Action. The legislation also seeks to give permission to the DMV to collect DNA samples.
In Congress, House Republican leadership, along with U.S. Rep. Doug Collins (R-Gainesville) have already passed a legislation that would eliminate President Obama's Immigration Action. This would directly attack Georgia DREAM'ers who have already qualified and any new potential applicants. Nevertheless this legislation would have a difficult time to get 60 votes required in the U.S. Senate, according to the Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials (GALEO).
—> Edited by Anibal Ibarra
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