Andalusia Farm is America's newest National Historic Landmark

eorgia College & State University celebrated its second National Historic Landmark (NHL)—Andalusia Farm, home of author Flannery O’Connor, ’45.

The National Park Service recognizes less than three percent of America’s historic sites with this designation. Georgia’s Old Governor’s Mansion was the campus’ first NHL, receiving this recognition in 1973.

“There are campuses across the country that have National Historic Landmarks, but this is a rarity in Georgia to have two in a town of our size,” said Matt Davis, director of Historic Museums at Georgia College. “It’s an accomplishment we can all be very proud of.”

O’Connor and her family moved to Milledgeville when she was 15 years old. She graduated from Peabody High School in Milledgeville in 1942, before enrolling at Georgia State College for Women, now known as Georgia College.

From 1951 until her death in 1964, O’Connor would complete the bulk of her literary output at Andalusia. Many of the personalities and environs in and around Andalusia inspired her works.

In August 2017, the site was gifted to O’Connor’s alma mater, Georgia College.

The National Park Service added Andalusia to National Register of Historic Places in 1980. In 2019, the National Trust for Historic Preservation named Andalusia a “Distinctive Destination.”

“It’s so important that the places we deem nationally significant represent the diversity of the American experience,” said National Park Service Director Chuck Sams. “O’Connor’s contributions represent a unique space in American literature, and her works continue to inspire new

O’Connor’s home serves as a reminder of who she was and the lives she touched with her writing.

“We are so pleased that Flannery O’Connor’s home has gained national attention through this distinction,” said Cathy Cox, president of Georgia College. “A notable figure in the literary world, her creative works continue to impact many of our students and aspiring authors throughout the world.”

Award heralds GCSU’s entry into international research consortium

Georgia College & State University is growing its reputation as an institution focused on undergraduate research.

“At orientation, I had the parents of a biology student come up and tell me they're so excited about undergraduate research,” said Jordan Cofer, associate provost for Transformative Learning Experiences. “They wanted to know all the opportunities that are available. They wanted to go see the lab. We’re getting that reputation.”

It's not just students and their parents taking note.

Georgia College joined the Vertically Integrated Projects consortium and won an award for interdisciplinary collaboration in undergraduate research.

The Vertically Integrated Projects (VIP) consortium is a group of over 40 universities operating in 13 countries across the globe. The consortium promotes and supports projects that sustain long-term research activities.

This summer, Georgia College joined the University of Georgia and Georgia Southern University in winning the Innovation in Partnership Building Award at the VIP Consortium’s 2022 Annual Meeting. Georgia College received the award for cultivating a group of multi-year, interdisciplinary research projects that bring people together to tackle societal challenges, explore innovative technology and develop new understanding and knowledge.

The award recognizes the environment of collaboration Georgia College researchers foster across multiple research projects. By recruiting talented student researchers from different colleges and departments, Georgia College researchers benefit from a variety of perspectives at project conception, a larger skill set when designing and facilitating research and a greater reach when communicating the results.

The research teams that helped Georgia College win the award amplify those attributes by following the VIP model of inviting undergraduate students to dedicate themselves to projects over multiple years. Through sustained involvement, student researchers have the opportunity to participate in a project from ideation to dissemination and benefit from closer relationships with their peer researchers and faculty mentors.

“Most of the time we do undergraduate research in senior year—it might be a kind of capstone experience,” said Hasitha Mahabaduge, associate professor of physics and director of Georgia College’s VIP program. “Verticallyintegrated projects help them to make that connection to their team—to start as a freshman or sophomore and continue for two or three years.”

Mahabaduge said Georgia College’s liberal arts mission provides an ideal foundation for VIP projects because it encourages students to engage the issues they’re passionate about with the curiosity to explore the topic in ways that are not confined to a single discipline.

Experiences students gain by participating in these verticallyintegrated, multidisciplinary research projects better prepare them for the work environment they’ll encounter after graduation.

“Employment is less about major than it's ever been—a lot of employers are no longer looking at specific majors,” Cofer said. “Our students stand out because they've had these really unique experiences; they’ve been able to disseminate the research; and they’ve got the communication skills so they can go out and talk about them. It’s so much more engaged than if it was just theoretical.”