New Eggs & Issues year kicks off with GMC

Sep. 20—The Milledgeville-Baldwin County Chamber of Commerce kicked off this year's Eggs & Issues series last Wednesday.

The monthly gathering welcomes Chamber members and the public in for a breakfast where attendees also hear from a guest speaker.

Wednesday's presenter was Lt. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, 21st president of Georgia Military College. He gave current enrollment trends for the longstanding institution and also shared some pretty big plans for the college's future during his 45-minute talk.

Caldwell began by touting the job GMC has done in keeping COVID-19 from running rampant on its main campus here in Milledgeville. The school reopened to in-seat education as soon as it was allowed to in June 2020 with summer programming.

"We knew that the most critical thing for our students was in-seat," Caldwell said. "If you're not in-seat, it's very difficult to gain the full impact of education."

Before the decision to return was made, the institution's administrators sat down together to hash out ways to bring students back safely. The result was a five-step program, the most key parts of which encouraged students and employees to stay home if there were any doubts about their health, and also the investment in air-cleaning technology across GMC facilities. There was a mask mandate in place to begin the 2020-21 school year, but masks were made optional in May and have remained that way since, even with the recent case spike locally and across the state.

"Today we have five active COVID cases," Caldwell said Wednesday. "We have two in the Prep School out of 950 people. We have two in the college Corps of Cadets, and we have one on the institutional staff. That's it, and we've been that way for a couple weeks now."

The president then dove into GMC's main mission, educating its prep school and college students. At the college level, GMC has 12 physical campuses spread across the state as well as an "online campus." The college has seen a huge uptick in online enrollment over the last eight years or so.

"When I got here, it was probably about 18% of our student credit hours," said Caldwell. "It's now up to 50%. We've invested heavily into that program ... We've really made that a priority of ours because we see that as a demand that students have."

Investments will continue to be made toward what GMC refers to as its global online college. Caldwell shared that the institution is currently seeking funding from the state to build a new facility on the Milledgeville campus specifically to support online learning.

"If we get the funding from the state to build this global online college building, we'll expand by another 20 or 30 more people that we'll need in order to run all that," the GMC president said.

With the growth of the online college has also come an increase in diplomas awarded. Ten years ago, Caldwell said about 1,200 students earned their associate's degrees from GMC. Last academic year, that number was right around 2,000.

At the prep school level, enrollment has never been higher as GMC Prep has in recent years expanded downward to include elementary grades. K-2 classes came into the fold at the start of the current school year, bringing GMC Prep to 844 students. While there are military elements like uniforms and morning formations the middle and high school grades, Caldwell referred to GMC Prep as a "leadership academy," rather than a traditional military school.

"That's the best way to describe the preparatory school," he said of the leadership academy term. "Many of you all may have attended there or have children that have gone there. I can tell you today, it is a leadership academy. If you want your son or daughter to be a leader in America, you send them to this Prep School."

The school's president cited some statistics to back up his claim. GMC Prep for 11 straight years has had a 100% graduation rate among its senior classes, and within six years of graduation, 80% have earned a college degree.

Other than the proposed global online college facility mentioned earlier, GMC does have a couple of other ongoing and upcoming construction projects. A track and field facility is currently being built down around the school's football practice fields. Caldwell expects it to be completed within the next month or so. There's also the previously announced Center for the Education of the Arts, an 840-seat theatre venue that will be located on Greene Street. GMC has award-winning fine arts programs, so the institution is throwing support in that direction in an attempt to further enhance them with a new facility. The Center for the Education of the Arts, or CEA, will also be able to house professional theatre companies that travel the country playing to paying audiences. Caldwell said GMC plans to break ground on the venue in early November and it could be open around this time next year. The takeaway — more growth expected for the longstanding local fixture.

Looking ahead to next month, the Chamber's Eggs & Issues event will welcome the deputy commissioner and a location scout from the Georgia Film Office. October's Eggs & Issues will be held Oct. 27 at Central Georgia Technical College.