The Combo

Georgia Health Sciences University (GHSU) President Ricardo Azziz and Augusta State University (ASU) President Bill Bloodworth came before the commission to give then an update on just how things have been going lately. It was fairly open-ended mission, so it was tough to find out if they intended to brief the commission on the merger/marriage of the two schools, or if they just missed the attention since being upstaged by the TEE Center and its related controversies. Unlike the joint meetings they held across the two campuses when news of the merger first become public, the two presidents of the ever-morphing institutions were listed separately on the agenda and had, for the most part, individual messages. It was kind of a higher education song and dance, only broken down into a song and then a dance. Azziz used his first few minutes to make sure everyone understood that the governor had anointed GHSU as the state’s academic health center. Not only is GHSU the state’s academic health center, GHSU is going to be the hub of the hub-and-spoke model for the health professions education in Georgia. Additionally, he explained that the governor intended GHSU to have a National Cancer Institute-designated cancer center, joining Emory University as the only such designated cancer centers in the state. If it had been a drinking game, one more GHSU would have had the entire commission, minus Rev. Hatney, under the table. When it was Bloodworth’s time to speak, he focused on the economic impact of education, forwarding a simple formula: more students will spend more money in the community. Beyond that, he talked a lot about how they were going to create a stronger institution by joining together, making it very clear that it was a situation of consolidation, not of one institution absorbing another. He made it so clear, in fact, that he sounded like Jonah yelling from the belly of the whale. Azziz stepped back to the microphone, but instead of adding to the hangover by talking more about GHSU, he started talking about the how the greatest growth potential of the combined university is actually in the undergraduate degrees. While that sounded fairly magnanimous, considering the fact that GHSU has no undergraduates, given Azziz’s aggressive appetite since arriving in Augusta, it’s hard not to think of those undergraduates as anything but fuel pellets going into a really hungry stove.You Might Also Like: