Local News
College To Expand Presence In Atlanta Area
Published: November 4, 2004
MOBILE, Ala.—Spring Hill College announced plans to expand its higher education presence in Atlanta by providing accelerated degree completion and graduate courses for adult students in the Gwinnett County area. The college’s board of trustees approved plans for the expansion efforts at its fall meeting.
“I am very excited about the opportunity to expand the presence of Spring Hill College into Atlanta and to provide a Catholic Jesuit education to the people in the metro area there,” said Spring Hill College President Gregory F. Lucey, SJ. “We’re taking the Jesuit college of the South to even more people of the South.”
Building on the success of its eight-year-old theology program in Atlanta, the college’s new adult education program will likely feature classes in teacher education, professional nursing or general business.
Spring Hill trustee and alumna Lee Doyle (class of ‘66), a member of Sacred Heart Church, Atlanta, said the college is working with employers in the Gwinnett area to identify workforce needs before settling on a particular curriculum. Doyle said the college is not looking to begin another four-year institution in Atlanta but will instead offer the accelerated degree completion and graduate programs to help adults achieve their goals and move forward in their careers.
The search for a director of the Atlanta program will begin immediately, and several suitable sites for the program’s offices have been identified. Spring Hill trustee and alumnus Mike Coghlan (class of ‘77), a member of St. Brigid Church, Alpharetta, said the college administration will make the final decision on office space but the population growth in Gwinnett County made the area an obvious choice for Spring Hill’s expansion efforts. Along with hiring a new director, Coghlan said the college is committed to hiring adjunct professors from the Atlanta area—instructors who are familiar with the workforce needs and who have had extensive career experience in their various fields.
Father Lucey said financing for Spring Hill’s Atlanta expansion is expected to come from private sources and that the college has already begun efforts to raise a substantial portion of the program’s initial costs. The Atlanta program is not expected to impact the fund-raising efforts or financial status of Spring Hill’s Mobile campus, he said.
Spring Hill hopes to begin offering accelerated degree completion or graduate programs by the fall of 2005. The college will continue to offer its theology courses on the current schedule.
For more information on Spring Hill College’s Atlanta expansion efforts, contact Father Lucey in the office of the president at (251) 380-3866, Lee Doyle at (404) 881-1717 or Mike Coghlan at (770) 989-3429.
