flo.rankin@gaflnews.com



TIFTON – New Abraham Baldwin College President Michael Vollmer met with the local press Monday during his first day on the job, laying out objectives in several areas.

Vollmer, the former executive director of the state Office of Education Accountability, said he plans to focus on facilities at ABAC; recruitment and retention of students; bringing more opportunities for four-year degrees to South Georgia; technology; economic development and faculty.

“ABAC will be 100 years old in seven years,” said Vollmer. “With that comes some aged facilities. The building we are in now (Tift Hall) is supported by 55 jacks.”

He said ABAC’s recent placement on a priority list for state funding will allow the school to renovate its three oldest buildings, Tift, Herring and Lewis halls, before its 100th anniversary in 2008. Privatized residence halls, a pedestrian plaza through the center of the campus and expanding the nursing program are other priorities.

Recruiting non-traditional students will be important to the state’s future, Vollmer said. “It’s like the governor said Saturday, we can build every road possible and bring in all the water you need, but without education we’re not going to be up there with the other states,” he said.

“I think we have a lot of young folks who leave high school, trying to get in the job market, and they’re not finding anything out there.”

Vollmer said he expects to see ABAC “faced with a brain drain” within the next five years as faculty members retire. “What we want to look at ABAC is recuiting a very diverse faculty,” he said. “We also want to look at the possibilities of endowment chairs in the coming years.

The most important task for Georgia’s institutions of higher learning is “getting more and more of our kids into post-secondary education, whether it’s technical school or college,” said Vollmer.

“Every year, there are about 27,000 kids in Georgia who drop out. There are some counties in Georgia that don’t have 27,000 people living in them. So we’re losing the equivalent of one of those counties every single year.

“We know, quite honestly, that there are no jobs out there for those kids, because the world is changing.”

Vollmer replaces Dr. Harold Loyd, who retired in July 2000. Dr. Homer Day served as interim president through Friday.



To contact city editor Florence Rankin, call 382-4321, ext. 209.