University of Georgia Magazine Fall 2023

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The President’s Pen President Jere W. Morehead discusses e-mobility.

UGA

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Highlights from across the UGA community.

On the Bulldog Beat

Say hello to Uga XI!

Bulldog Bulletin

News for UGA alumni in Georgia, across the country, and around the world.

Class Notes

Catch up with a Bulldog football legend. Meet a painter and a comedian, and find out if the floor really is made of lava. These stories and more highlight our exciting collection of Fall 2023 alumni profiles.

Faculty Focus

Get to know Joseph Watson Jr., Carolyn Caudell Tieger Professor of Public Affairs Communications in the Grady College of Journalism & Mass Communication.

14 Live in the Classic City

Late night has taken on a new meaning in Athens as a creative and entertaining group of UGA students and alumni have developed a classic variety show.

16 A Conversation with President Jere W. Morehead

UGA’s 22nd president looks back on his first 10 years in office and looks forward to a future with limitless possibilities.

20 An Act of Love

The physicians, researchers, and professionals in the UGA CARE Center help patients and families navigate one of life’s most difficult journeys.

26 Dawgs in D.C.

UGA’s Washington Semester Program places students in full-time internships in the nation’s capital, leading to life-changing experiences.

CONTENTS

CONTENTS

The last time Georgia Magazine featured our nation’s capital on the cover was in 2015, just as Delta Hall was opening. After eight years, D.C. returns to the cover with an impressive photo of the U.S. Capitol by Dorothy Kozlowski BLA ’06, ABJ’ 10 Serving as models are UGA students—a few whom have since graduated—(from left) De’Omini Daniely AB ’23, Logan Williamson, Emma Brandwein, Jacob David AB ’23, and Caroline Schneider.

cover photo by dorothy kozlowski

Big Wheels

whether you’re biking, walking, riding the bus, or skateboarding into the new semester, there are lots of useful ways to get from point A to point B on campus. Recent graduate Sanisa Foungthong BSA ’23, BSA ’23 from Roswell demonstrates nice technique navigating North Campus.

VOLUME 102 ISSUE NO. 4

GEORGIA MAGAZINE

Editor · Eric Rangus MA ’94

Associate Editors · Aaron Hale MA ’16 and Leigh Beeson MA ’17 Writers · Erica Techo AB ’15 and Jayne Roberts

Art Director · Jackie Baxter Roberts

Advertising Director · Kipp Mullis ABJ ’93

Photo Editor · Peter Frey BFA ’94 UGA Photographers · Andrew Davis Tucker, Dorothy Kozlowski BLA ’06, ABJ ’10, and Chamberlain Smith ABJ ’18

Contributing Writers · Elizabeth Elmore BBA ’08, ABJ ’08, Clarke Schwabe ABJ ’08, and Cole Sosebee BS ’19

Contributing Designer · Amy Gunby BFA ’20

Editorial Interns · Ireland Hayes AB ’23 and Navya Shukla

MARKETING & COMMUNICATIONS

Vice President · Kathy Pharr ABJ ’87, MPA ’05, EdD ’11

Senior Director for Integrated Media Communications Rod Guajardo

Senior Executive Director for Operations & Fiscal Affairs · Fran Burke

ADMINISTRATION

President · Jere W. Morehead JD ’80

Senior VP for Academic Affairs & Provost · S. Jack Hu

VP for Finance & Administration Ryan Nesbit MBA ’91

Interim VP for Development & Alumni Relations Jill S. Walton BSA ’99, MPA ’03

VP for Instruction · Marisa Anne Pagnattaro PhD ’98

VP for Research · Karen J. L. Burg

VP for Public Service & Outreach · Jennifer Frum PhD ’09

VP for Student Affairs · Victor Wilson BSW ’82, MEd ’87

VP for Government Relations · Kevin Abernathy AB ’99

VP for Information Technology · Timothy M. Chester

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FINE PRINT

Georgia Magazine (issn 1085-1042) is published quarterly for alumni and friends of UGA.

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Investing in E-Mobility

Advancing a new industry through teaching, research, and service

As a public, land-grant university, the University of Georgia’s mission of teaching, research, and service never wavers. At the same time, UGA is constantly evolving to meet the needs of our home state and ensure that we are providing higher education that prepares our students to succeed after graduation. One of the most transformative industries to arise in Georgia and the United States in recent years is electric mobility—vehicles such as cars, trucks, bicycles, boats, and aircraft that use electric powertrain technologies for propulsion. At UGA, we are excited to help advance this new industry through the work of our faculty, students, and statewide partnerships.

Earlier this year, Georgia Power Co. announced a $5 million investment in UGA to support an array of opportunities that center around electric mobility and its accompanying technologies and infrastructure. Among them are scholarships to support students pursuing the Electric Mobility Certificate in the College of Engineering; funding for research on battery technology, smart infrastructure, and related topics; and resources for UGA to create strategic partnerships with other academic institutions, as well as with industry groups and local communities.

Additional efforts to expand our institution’s footprint in e-mobility include a $2 million seed grant program for innovative faculty research and the creation of an e-mobility laboratory in the Interdisciplinary STEM Research Complex. A hiring initiative aims to recruit new faculty in engineering, business, public policy, and public service and outreach to foster research ranging from the impact of electric vehicle technology on Georgia’s economic competitiveness to the regulatory facets of electric mobility. UGA also has brought together key stakeholders in research, industry, government, and economic development at two e-mobility summits to explore ways to promote this industry in Georgia.

Electric mobility-related projects have contributed $23 billion to our state’s economy since 2018, and more are coming. The University of Georgia will proudly help shape this burgeoning industry and impart significant benefits to our society for generations to come.

Jere W. Morehead President

“The University of Georgia will proudly help shape this burgeoning industry and impart significant benefits to our society for generations to come.”

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UGA Celebrates Class of 2023

A total of 7,659 students—6,008 undergraduates and 1,651 graduate students—met requirements to walk in the university’s spring Commencement at Sanford Stadium. Undergraduates were honored the evening of May 12, while graduate students were celebrated the afternoon before, also at Sanford. Of those graduate students, 265 were doctoral candidates, and 1,386 received their master’s or specialist degrees. In addition, Liza Burke, a fourth-year student majoring in marketing, received her bachelor’s degree in absentia after passing from brain cancer in April.

Dr. Leah Brown BS ’98, an orthopedic surgeon and a veteran of the U.S. Navy who won two individual national championships for the GymDogs (vault in 1996 and floor exercise in 1997), delivered the keynote address at the undergraduate ceremony. In addition to offering her congratulations to the new graduates, Brown encouraged them to boost others as they grow themselves. “Create. Collaborate. Build. And as you rise, lift others with you,” Brown said. “Listen, and make things better for more than just yourself, but for everyone you meet. That is a legacy. And that is the Georgia way.”

Charles Bullock, University Professor of Public and International Affairs, gave the graduate Commencement address.

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Highlights from across the UGA community

dorothy kozlowski

WELCOME TO THE FAMILY

UGA Earns Grad, Professional Program Accolades

The School of Law has earned its highest ranking ever in the U.S. News & World Report Best Graduate Schools.

In the 2024 edition of the rankings published in May, the law school ranked 20th in the nation, placing it in the top seven among public law schools and as the No. 1 school in Georgia for the third straight year.

A number of other graduate and professional programs earned top rankings in the broader U.S. News & World Report rankings, which were released in April.

The School of Public and International Affairs ranked No. 7 overall and has several graduate specialties among the nation’s top five. SPIA’s programs ranked third in both public finance & budgeting and public management & leadership, and fourth in local government management.

The College of Veterinary Medicine climbed three spots to No. 7 in the nation.

The Mary Frances Early College of Education moved up one spot to No. 31. The full-time MBA program in the Terry College of Business advanced seven spots to No. 31 in the nation and No. 11 among public universities. In addition, the part-time MBA program ranked No. 35 nationally and No. 22 among public business schools.

The higher education administration program in UGA’s Louise McBee Institute of Higher Education rose to No. 6 in the nation, continuing a run of top 10 rankings dating back to 2007.

TOP DAWGS Foundation Board Elects New Leadership

The University of Georgia Foundation Board of Trustees approved changes in leadership and board positions during its annual meeting in June in Greensboro, Georgia. The changes took effect July 1.

The board voted unanimously to elect Allison C. Ausband ABJ ’83, of McDonough, as chair for a two-year term running through June 30, 2025. She succeeds Neal J. Quirk Sr. BBA ’82 , JD ’87, whose term concluded June 30.

Ausband (above) is the executive vice president and chief customer experience officer for Delta Air Lines. She previously served as vice-chair, chair of the foundation’s nominating and trusteeship committee, and strategic vice-chair.

The board also elected trustees E. Howard Young BBA ’82 as executive vice-chairman, Bonney S. Shuman BBA ’80 as secretary, and James G. Cohran Jr. (Guyton) BBA ’88 as treasurer.

The UGA Foundation elected three new trustees who will join current members to comprise a 46-member board. Those individuals include: Yvette K. Daniels AB ’86, JD ’89 ; Edward R. Castro BLA ’88; and Mark L. Jennings.

Two advisory trustees, Mark A. Kauffman BBA ’84 and R. Scott Kingsfield, were also elected to assist foundation committees in defining and achieving their strategic goals.

NEW CONSTRUCTION

Residence Hall, Dining Center Slated for 2026

The University of Georgia will build a new 125,000-square-foot, 565-bed residence hall for first-year students to address student housing needs associated with enrollment increases and to support future growth. Most first-year students at UGA live on campus.

The new residence hall will be located on South Lumpkin Street near the intersection of West Wray Street. Additional plans include the construction of a new dining, learning, and wellness center at the intersection of University Court and East Cloverhurst Avenue.

A separate proposal would add a new parking deck adjacent to the existing West Campus Parking Deck south of Brumby Hall and is currently under consideration. The deck would add approximately 1,100 new parking spaces. Currently, the plan is for the design phase of the residence hall to be completed this summer so that construction can begin in mid-2024. The university aims to open the residence hall and the dining, learning, and wellness center in fall 2026.

edwin hammond

dorothy kozlowski

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY

Georgia Museum of Art Celebrates 75 Years

The Georgia Museum of Art opened to the public on Nov. 8, 1948. The museum has been celebrating its 75th anniversary all year long, with events, an exhibition at UGA’s Special Collections Libraries, and even a March Madness competition to determine visitors’ favorite works of art in the collection.

On Sunday, Nov. 5, from 1 to 5 p.m., the museum will hold an official birthday party and all-ages Family Day in conjunction with UGA’s Spotlight on the Arts. The free event will feature art activities for the entire family, prizes, a photo booth, light refreshments, and much more.

When the museum was founded, its collection consisted of 100 American paintings. Since then, the collection has grown to more than 17,000 objects. The museum now occupies a large contemporary building with 22 galleries (including a sculpture garden) on UGA’s East Campus as part of the Performing and Visual Arts Complex.

Visit GEORGIAMUSEUM.ORG for more information on 75th anniversary events or to learn more about the museum’s history.

OPENING DOORS ABROAD

A UGA Passport Initiative Helps 1,000+ Students

A passport opens doors to new countries, cultures, and communities. And every year, the University of Georgia helps hundreds of students get theirs.

Through its passport scholarship initiative, UGA’s Office of Global Engagement has awarded nearly $220,000 in support, funding 1,367 passports for UGA undergraduate students since early 2021.

To apply, students must be U.S. citizens, and they must be undergraduates in good academic standing.

Each year, around 400 students receive passport scholarships, but in the 2022-2023 academic year, UGA was able to provide an additional 200 passport scholarships thanks to funding from the President’s Office.

“I want to give tremendous credit to President Jere Morehead. He is so supportive of our students and their experiential learning,” says UGA Director of Global Education Yana Cornish. “We understand that all resources are quite limited, but this generous additional funding shows where the priorities are on campus.”

Recent Terry grad Matt Tesvich shows off the $10,000 check he received for winning first prize at the UGA Next Top Entrepreneur Competition for his odor-killing Ox Sox. Current MBA student Kristen Dunning

SOCK IT TO ME

Next Top Entrepreneur Puts His Best Foot Forward

Matt Tesvich’s mission is making the world smell better—one pair of socks at a time.

Since launching his line of odor-killing Ox Sox, Tesvich BBA ’23, who just earned his degree in management information systems, has sold nearly 4,400 pairs, and grossed $63,000.

This spring, judges at the UGA Next Top Entrepreneur Competition were impressed by Tesvich’s use of social media and word-of-mouth marketing to propel his brand in such a short time and awarded him the $10,000 first prize.

Hosted by the UGA Entrepreneurship Program, the contest attracted more than 50 student entrepreneurs from across the country. Ten finalists pitched their products to a panel of seasoned entrepreneurs and investors at Studio 225.

Current MBA student Kristen Dunning BSA ’21 placed third in the contest with her sensitive skincare line, Gently Soap, and claimed $2,500.

(right) placed third.

The best times never get old. As part of its 75th anniversary celebration, the Georgia Museum of Art will be hosting a Family Day on Nov. 5. The free event will feature art activities for the entire family, just like it did here in the 1990s.

Healthy Food Needs Colorful Boost for Maximum Online Appeal

For anyone posting food photos on Instagram, University of Georgia researchers have advice to garner more engagement. A recent study from the College of Family and Consumer Sciences found that all food photos are not created equal.

While sugary treats and fully loaded burgers have an immediate appeal, healthy foods need a little extra help in front of the camera.

Aided by a computational visual analysis, researchers checked more than 50,000 images for color composition, repeating patterns, image complexity, and approximate calorie density. Then they compared how these elements related to likes and comments. Using warm tones, such as red, orange, and yellow, helped increase likes and comments on healthy food pictures, the researchers found. Clean backgrounds and repeating patterns also seemed to increase engagement.

Researchers hope these tips help more than social media influencers.

“We believe this topic can be helpful for health communication and health practitioners,” says Yilang Peng, an assistant professor in the College of Family and Consumer Sciences. “If you have someone trying to promote a healthy diet, it’s crucial for them to pay attention to the visual aesthetics.”

Volunteers Crucial to Bird Monitoring Project

The UGA Marine Extension and Georgia Sea Grant’s bird nest box monitoring program on Skidaway Island includes some very important partners. Five volunteers track the nesting and breeding behaviors of common birds, including eastern bluebirds and Carolina chickadees.

UGA Researchers Discover New Planet

A University of Georgia research team has confirmed evidence of a previously unknown planet outside of our solar system, and they used machine learning tools to detect it.

A recent study by the team showed that machine learning, a branch of artificial intelligence, can correctly determine if an exoplanet—one that is beyond our solar system—is present by looking in protoplanetary disks, which is the gas around newly formed stars.

“This demonstrates that our models—and machine learning in general—have the ability to quickly and accurately identify important information that people can miss,” says Jason Terry, a doctoral student in the UGA Franklin College of Arts and Sciences department of physics and astronomy and lead author of the study.

The discovery highlights how machine learning has the power to enhance scientists’ work, using AI as an tool to expand researchers’ accuracy and economize their time in the vast endeavor of investigating deep space.

Between March and August, the volunteers take turns checking the small circuit of boxes on the UGA Skidaway Marine Science Campus. They collect data and submit their findings to NestWatch, a nationwide nest-monitoring program that tracks status and trends in the reproductive biology of birds.

Marine Extension and Georgia Sea Grant educators have maintained a nest box trail on campus for more than a decade. The more robust community science effort began in 2019 to engage aquarium volunteers in research and increase awareness of the island’s bird populations.

“It’s really a magical experience,” says Beth Webster (left), one of the volunteers.

“You’re in nature; you’re watching the cycle of life really unfold in front of your eyes. From the birds building a nest to the baby birds fledging, it’s a privilege to be able to peek into their world and see this cycle of life that happens so incredibly quickly.”

During the 2022 nesting season, volunteers documented 28 nesting attempts and 74 baby birds.

FEATHERED FRIENDS

andrew davis tucker

COMPLEX WEB

‘Play Deserts’ Common throughout the U.S.

Physical activity is crucial to children’s physical and mental development. But new research from the University of Georgia shows hundreds of U.S. counties are “play deserts.”

These play deserts are areas where parks and other spots to run around are nonexistent, hard to access, or in less safe locations that make parents second-guess taking their children to play there.

The study found that about 7% of the country fits into this category.

Many of the counties lacking access to play areas are clustered in the Southeast and Southwest. Additionally, pockets of play deserts were most common in rural and suburban areas throughout the country.

But in the South, even urban areas lacked adequate play space.

“Even if you have the park near where you live,” says Lan Mu, corresponding author of the study and a professor of geography in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, “if the environment is not safe or it’s difficult to access, then people will not use it.”

The researchers plan to make the interactive maps available online in the future to help local, county-level leaders determine how to create more play oases in their communities.

Joro Spiders are Actually Really Shy

Despite their intimidating appearance, the giant yellow and blue-black spiders spreading across the Southeastern U.S. owe their survival to a surprising trait: They’re rather timid.

According to a new study from the University of Georgia, the Joro spider may be the shyest spider ever documented.

The researchers compared more than 450 spiders’ responses to a brief and harmless disturbance across 10 different species.

While most spiders froze for less than a minute before resuming their normal activities, the Joro spiders remained motionless for more than an hour.

“They basically shut down and wait for the disturbance to go away,” said Andy Davis, lead author of the study and a research scientist in the Odum School of Ecology. “Our paper shows that these spiders are really more afraid of you than the reverse.”

In fact, Joros, which are considered invasive, are relatively harmless to people and pets. They won’t bite unless cornered and—even if you did manage to somehow annoy a Joro into biting you—its fangs likely wouldn’t be large enough to pierce your skin.

MAJOR TITLE

Harman Wins 2023 Open Championship

In a dominant performance, Brian Harman BBA ’11 won this year’s Open Championship by six strokes becoming the first Bulldog golfer to claim the 151-year old tournament. Fellow Bulldog Sepp Straka BBA’15 finished in a four-way tie for second place. Harman and Straka are the first players from the same school to finish first and second at The Open Championship in the same year.

Harman is the second Bulldog to win one of golf’s four major titles, joining two-time Masters champion Bubba Watson BSFCS ’08 (2012, 2014) in this elite company.

Harman opened the event at the Royal Liverpool Golf Club shooting four-under on the first day holding fourth place. He jumped to the top of the leaderboard on day two, where he birdied four-straight holes on the front nine and ended the day with an eagle on 18 to finish at 10-under, giving himself a five-stroke lead heading into the third round.

The Open championship is Harman’s third PGA Tour win. At UGA, the Savannah native was the 2006 SEC Freshman of the Year and a three-time All-American.

getty images

dorothykozlowski

FOR GEORGIA. FOR GENERATIONS.

Private support for UGA continues its upward trend, and the results are visible across campus

Sabina Ashurova AB ’22, MS ’22 is a data scientist working for one of the largest tech companies in the world. While at the University of Georgia, she launched a program that provides professional clothing to students in need, serving hundreds of students and raising more than $30,000 to support the program before she graduated.

And UGA donors helped make it all happen.

“My scholarship alleviated a huge financial burden for me and gave me the opportunity to spend time on things I truly cared about,” says Ashurova (below), a native of Warner Robins. “All of the things that I was able to do on campus—from starting initiatives to being part of organizations and leading teams—wouldn’t have been possible if it weren’t for that generous financial support.”

In fiscal year 2023, 71,223 donors gave a total of $242.8 million— 16,426 more donors and $125.6 million more dollars than 10 years ago. That expanding culture of philanthropy is inspiring young leaders like Ashurova to drive progress in many fields and deliver the fruits of that progress to communities across Georgia and beyond.

“UGA is fortunate to have such loyal, committed supporters,” says Jill S. Walton BSA ’99, MPA ’03, interim vice president for development and alumni relations. “Anywhere you walk on campus, you will find buildings, programs, labs, faculty, staff, and students who are all here because of private support.

We continue to work to open our doors wider and aim our ambitions higher, and our donors will be important partners in that work.”

In the last five years, donors created more than 65 endowed faculty positions, which provide funding to attract and retain world-class researchers and educators. Over those same five years, private support established more than 750 scholarship funds. Many remove barriers for talented students with significant financial need, while others focus on keeping Georgia’s brightest young minds in the state.

All these funds make a positive impact, and they offer reliable, secure support that helps the university weather any economic condition. But there are still more students in need, more problems unsolved, and more potential yet to be realized. Donors can fuel the university to new heights—because donors have done it before.

That commitment is demonstrated through large individual gifts, but it’s also evident in the vast number of supporters who rally behind the red and black. In the last two years, UGA has held two university-wide giving days, and each time, the effort has surpassed expectations and set records: resulting in over 9,000 gifts in 2022 and 11,000 gifts in 2023.

Strong private support will continue to be critical for the university. Through their generosity, donors can bolster experiential learning support, expand active learning on campus, strengthen the Innovation District, modernize research facilities, and so much more. If history is any indicator, UGA donors will answer the call, hunker down, and enhance Georgia for generations to come.

sara wooten

Your gift to UGA puts students on a path to prosper and enables the university to tackle the most pressing issues of our time. Rally behind the red and black at GIVE.UGA.EDU

PEOPLE

SCHOLARSHIPS OPEN DOORS TO ONE OF THE NATION’S TOP PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES AND KEEP THE BRIGHTEST STUDENTS IN OUR STATE.

OUR HANDS-ON LEARNING ENVIRONMENT, LED BY WORLD-CLASS FACULTY, EMPOWERS THE NEXT GENERATION OF BULLDOGS TO REACH THEIR FULL POTENTIAL.

THROUGH INNOVATION, RESEARCH, AND COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIPS, WE ARE PROMOTING A STRONGER ECONOMY, A HEALTHIER POPULATION, AND A MORE SECURE FUTURE.

“I am incredibly thankful for the scholarship and the community that it’s created, the financial freedom to pursue so many different opportunities both on and off campus, and the intellectual freedom to take risks,” says Claire Bunn BS ’22, a 2022 Gates Cambridge Scholar and doctoral student at University of Cambridge. “It’s a wonderful gift that I hope to spend my future paying back.”

Georgia Power has invested significantly in e-mobility at UGA. In 2022, the company gave $250,000 to create the Georgia Power Electric Mobility Distinguished Professorship, and in April, it committed $5 million to expand UGA’s e-mobility certificate program, create scholarships for e-mobility students, fund e-mobility research, and more.

A significant contribution to UGA Public Service and Outreach from Bobbi Meeler Sahm BBA ’92 in 2021 created an endowment that funds the Sahm Service and Outreach Awards. These awards provide grants to public service collaborations between UGA and Athens-Clarke County organizations. So far, 10 projects have received nearly $72,000 in funding.

andrewdavistucker andrewdavistucker

edwin hammond

FOR OUR PROMISE FOR OUR POTENTIAL FOR OUR

in the Classic City

Students and alumni leave their comedic stamp on Athens' late-night scene

WRITTEN BY COLE SOSEBEE BS ’19

PHOTOS BY CHAMBERLAIN SMITH ABJ ’18

As he walked down the stairs of his family home to pour himself a bowl of Rice Krispies just before midnight, young Cameron Kreitner had no idea that his life was about to change.

At the bottom of the steps, the middleschooler spotted Late Night with Jimmy Fallon on the living room TV and in an instant became immersed in the world of late-night comedy.

“I was in awe,” Kreitner AB ’23 says today. “I couldn't even tell you who was on the episode. It didn’t matter to me. It was just like, ‘Huh, this is really neat.’ I just kept watching it.”

As an entertainment and media studies major and a theatre minor at UGA, Kreitner grew as a person and an entertainer, eventually hosting Athens’ first live evening talk show, Late Night in Athens

Late Night in Athens is staffed entirely by UGA students and alumni and held in locations around the Classic City such as Quinn Hall and work.shop, a converted garage off Prince Avenue. Guests include local artists, celebrities, and socialites, including UGA photographer Chamberlain Smith ABJ ’18 and Atlanta-based comic Noell Appling BSME ’19

Now a full-fledged production with lighting and direction, Late Night in Athens wrapped its first season this spring after a successful run of shows.

Their penultimate show was held on April 22 at work.shop where the show also debuted.

Nick Schwarzman (on the couch) and Late Night in Athens host Cam Kreitner flank UGA alumnus and guest Noell Appling, an Atlanta-based comedian. Interviews at the desk, along with the host monologue and musical guests, were staples of Late Night’s recent run.

A SHOW TO REMEMBER

An eager crowd overwhelmed the small waiting room well before the doors opened. Just on the other side of the thin walls, they could hear Late Night’s house band, The Basement Band, tuning up and checking sound.

No empty seats remained as the 8:30 p.m. showtime neared, and the audience of townies and students alike filled every spare corner of the converted garage. Kreitner’s parents and sister sat in the front row.

Laughter spilled from the building as Kreitner went through rapid fire bits including a story about a messy bathroom incident at a friend’s sleepover, clever segments interwoven with details from current events, and banter with guests from the new Atlanta-based web series Young For Your Age (all recent UGA graduates and members of the UGA sketch troop as students) and musician MEANRUSE (another recent graduate).

BEHIND THE CURTAIN

Keegan Westra AB’ 21, a theatre alumnus, started It’s Good to See You Productions (IGTSY) during his last semester at UGA.

“I had to put on a show for class, and I just decided to attach a production company to it,” Westra says. “Then I started talking with people involved with the show and was like, ‘What if we started doing more things?’”

Westra and Kreitner started developing the idea for Late Night in Athens in August 2022 after a chance encounter between the two in their acting class. Kreitner hosted the first show three months later.

Sydney Wakeford BS ’21, AB ’21, now the production/stage manager for the show, joined in December for the second show to elevate the production value.

Nick Schwarzmann AB ’21, Kreitner’s co-host and right-hand man, is also a big part of the show’s success.

“He’s my Steve Higgins, my Andy Richter; I love him to death. We talk for hours on end and just say these jokes over and over until we feel like they’re right,” Kreitner says. “Without Nick, it’d be impossible to put the show on."

A BRIGHT FUTURE

Even though Late Night in Athens closed its curtains for the last time on May 20, Westra has high hopes for the future of his production company in Athens.

“The goal is to grow and get bigger, but we’re trying to bite off pieces that we can chew right now,” Westra says.

Westra has his own ideas in the works, but he encourages others to make their pitches for a production. According to Westra and Wakeford, the primary goal of IGTSY Productions is to make the introduction into show business as painless as possible for up-and-coming artists and professionals.

Plans include a continuation of their podcast, more film projects, and other live productions.

Information on future shows and how to get in touch with IGTSY Productions is found on their Instagram at @igtsyproductions, but they also encourage people to approach them at Hendershot’s or anywhere around town and have a casual conversation about ideas.

Who knows? It may just lead to the next Broadway hit or late-night success story. GM

Sydney Wakeford, Cam Kreitner, and Keegan Westra were the backbone of Late Night in Athens and left their mark on Athens’ comedy scene.

A CONVERSATION WITH President Jere W. Morehead

On July 1, Jere W. Morehead JD ’80 marked his 10th year as president of the University of Georgia. To note the occasion, Georgia Magazine sat down with UGA’s 22nd president to discuss highlights from the past decade and where the university is headed.

July 1, 2013: Jere W. Morehead becomes the 22nd president of the University of Georgia.

20 14

August 2014: The Center for Undergraduate Research Opportunities (CURO) Assistantship Program (now called the CURO Research Award) debuts, providing $1,000 research grants to 250 students. In 2023-24, 500 students will receive $1,000 grants. 20 13

August 2013: The Presidential Interdisciplinary Hiring Initiative launches to recruit additional faculty members to UGA. It is the first of 11 faculty hiring initiatives throughout the decade.

January 2015: Delta Hall opens in Washington, D.C., as a home base for UGA’s Washington Semester Program (see page 27).

September 2015: Correll Hall is dedicated, completing Phase I of the Business Learning Community (BLC). The third and final phase of the BLC is completed in 2019.

GEORGIA MAGAZINE: Congratulations on celebrating your 10th anniversary as president of the University of Georgia. In those 10 years, what are the accomplishments of which you are proudest?

PRESIDENT JERE W. MOREHEAD: The past decade has been a remarkable period of achievement for our university.

What I’m proudest of is that UGA has reached new levels of excellence in every facet of its mission. We’ve been ranked among the top 20 public universities for seven consecutive years, and the number of applications for admission has more than doubled.

Three out of four UGA students now complete their degrees in four years—a completion rate 13% higher than a decade ago—and our six-year completion rate has reached 88%. We also launched initiatives like the experiential learning requirement and the Double Dawgs program. Annual R&D expenditures have risen more than 50%, surpassing half a billion dollars. UGA also recently received the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities’ highest award for public service.

Our university community has come together like never before to push UGA to record heights, and I am incredibly proud of our accomplishments.

GM: To what do you attribute UGA’s sustained record of excellence over the past decade?

JWM: The foundation of our success has been the commitment of our stakeholders to expanding UGA’s impact. We’ve created a state-of-the-art research and learning environment, adding nearly 2.5 million square feet of new facilities.

Our award-winning faculty are a key part of our success, providing innovative instruction and cutting-edge research. We’ve increased the personal attention students receive from professors, advisors, and mentors while ensuring that every undergraduate benefits from experiential learning. We’ve greatly expanded financial support for students, creating nearly 700 endowed, need-based Georgia Commitment Scholarships, which helps make UGA financially accessible for more students regardless of their family’s income. We’ve also added over 100 endowed chairs and professorships to help us recruit and retain the very best faculty.

20 16

March 2015: The Veterinary Teaching Hospital opens.

September 2016: UGA implements the Experiential Learning Initiative.

January 2017: The Georgia Commitment Scholarship Program launches. To date, UGA supporters have committed over $100 million to the program, establishing nearly 700 need-based scholarships. 20 17 20 15

August 2016: The Science Learning Center is dedicated.The Entrepreneurship Certificate Program debuts.

November 2016: The public phase of the Commit to Georgia Campaign launches.

September 2017: The Center for Molecular Medicine moves into its new, state-of-the-art facility.

dorothy kozlowski

All of these achievements begin with the incredible generosity of our alumni and friends, strong support from state leaders, and the hard work of our remarkable faculty and staff.

GM: A hallmark of your presidency has been the rise of research and innovation at UGA. Why are these areas so important?

JWM: As the state’s flagship research university, we have a responsibility to meet the needs of Georgia and elevate quality of life through our research enterprise.

Therefore, my goal as president has been to make the University of Georgia the No. 1 destination for faculty, students, and industry partners who desire to improve lives through research and innovation.

Our faculty’s dogged pursuit of life-changing discoveries has significantly expanded our research footprint. And thanks to initiatives like Innovation Gateway and the Innovation District, UGA is uniquely able to translate research breakthroughs into tangible benefits, such as smart irrigation, therapeutics for neurodegenerative diseases, and many other vital technologies.

GM: You’ve worked closely with students your entire career at UGA, and even as your administrative responsibilities have grown, you’ve kept these ties. Why has it been important to you to remain engaged with students?

chad osburn

December 2017:

The Presidential Task Force on Student Learning and Success submits a final report that includes 12 recommendations to enhance undergraduate education at UGA.

September 2018: The ALL Georgia program is established to provide support to students from rural parts of the state.

February 2019: The university reaches its original $1.2B goal for the Commit to Georgia Campaign 16 months early.

JWM: Throughout my career, my greatest joy has been teaching. As president, I have continued to teach a FirstYear Odyssey Seminar every fall. The students inspire me with their optimism and ingenuity, and interacting with them in the classroom is extremely rewarding. Students also are the foundation of our mission. They represent our future, and UGA has no higher calling than 20 18 20 20

February 2018: UGA’s new Indoor Athletic Facility is named for legendary alumnus Billy Payne and his late father, Porter.

October 2018: A newly restored Lake Herrick reopens.

20 19

March 2019: Studio 225 opens, marking the debut of the Innovation District. The Delta Innovation Hub, Small Business Development Center, and other facilities will soon join the stillgrowing district.

June 2020: The Commit to Georgia Campaign concludes, having raised a total of $1.45B.

February 2020: The College of Education is named for Mary Frances Early, the university’s first African American graduate.

andrew davis tucker

January 2021: The university celebrates the 60th anniversary of integration. Events to mark the occasion continue in the months that follow.

to equip them with the knowledge they need to become leaders in their professions and communities.

GM: You have served as president of the Southeastern Conference, and you continue to hold various leadership roles with the NCAA, including chair of the Division I Board of Directors. How do you approach these responsibilities?

JWM: I start by asking, “What is in the best interest of our student-athletes?”

The landscape of college athletics is complex and challenging, and there are no easy answers. However, we have to remain focused on the success of our student-athletes in the classroom as well as in competition.

My work with the NCAA and SEC has given me the opportunity to improve the college experience of UGA student-athletes and other student-athletes across the nation. These roles also have kept me apprised of innovations in college sports while allowing me to promote the fantastic work being done on our campus.

GM: What do you think the next 10 years will hold for the University of Georgia?

JWM: I am very optimistic about our future. UGA is positioned like never before to lead the way in teaching, research, and public service.

Over the next 10 years, our new Active Learning Initiative will continue enhancing UGA’s world-class learning environment. Hiring initiatives to increase the number of renowned teachers and scholars and further investments in state-of-the-art facilities

will build on our tremendous momentum in research and innovation. UGA Public Service and Outreach will continue leveraging new partnerships to strengthen communities all across our state.

November 2021: The first phase of the Interdisciplinary Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (I-STEM) Research Complex is dedicated. Phase II follows nine months later.

August 2021: More than 40,000 students, a record, enroll for the fall semester at UGA.

October 2021: The Morehead Honors College is dedicated, becoming UGA’s 18th college. President Morehead was a previous director of the Honors Program.

February 2021: The university creates the John H. “Johnny” Isakson Chair for Parkinson’s Research and Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar position supported by $4.5 million in private commitments. The Johnny Isakson Center for Neurological Disease Research opens the following year.

The UGA community is ready to boldly shape the future, and that’s exactly what we’ll continue to do in the decade to come. 20 22

August 2022: The incoming freshman class numbers more than 6,200 students—the largest ever. Black-DialloMiller Hall, a new residence hall named in honor of the first three African American graduates who entered UGA as freshmen, is home to 525 of those new incoming students.

July 1, 2023: Jere W. Morehead completes his 10th year as the University of Georgia’s 22nd President.

20 23 20 21

January 2022: The Bulldogs win the first of two consecutive College Football Playoff National Championships.

An Act of Love

WRITTEN BY LEIGH BEESON MA

The CARE Center's lobby isn't like other doctors' offices—and that's intentional. Paintings by the center's first patient, Barbara Bankston, line one of the brightly colored walls in the waiting area, welcoming new patients to a place that feels less medical and more personal.

’17

Mel Garber remembers the phone call clearly.

“How do we turn off the fireplace again?”

His wife, Barbara Bankston, was on the other end of the line. She’d turned that fireplace on and off a thousand times.

It’s a gas fireplace, so all you have to do is turn the knob, Mel told her.

Maybe it was a one-time slip of the mind, he thought.

They were getting older.

As the weeks passed, neither mentioned the fireplace conversation. But Barb’s texts to friends and family became increasingly garbled. Mel didn’t know that, though.

Barb had her own phone, and he never looked at it. Why would he?

When Barb said she was having trouble with her device one day, Mel asked her to hand the phone to him. He’d figure out the problem.

Then he saw it. Barbara was struggling to find the right words in her text conversations. A former schoolteacher and principal, Barbara had never stumbled with diction. Something was wrong.

“That early point is startling because all of a sudden this person who is so capable,

so independent, and her ability seemed to just drop like that,” Mel snaps his fingers to illustrate the point.

He had recently retired from his 25year career at the University of Georgia, serving as the head of UGA Cooperative Extension and later founding the Archway Partnership. But Mel still had connections.

So he picked up the phone and called his friend Marsha Davis, dean of UGA’s College of Public Health.

“Marsha, I need your help,” Mel said. “Maybe one of your MDs in the college could just talk to me and kind of guide me as to where I start to help Barbara.”

But Davis had a better idea. The college was starting a new clinical, research, and outreach center called the Cognitive Aging Research and Education Center, or CARE Center for short.

Would it be OK to have one of her researchers call him?

Within an hour, he was talking to Lisa Renzi-Hammond BS ’03, MS ’05, PhD ’08, an associate professor and director of the Institute of Gerontology. They scheduled Barbara for testing with Dr. Don Scott, a geriatrician and the center’s medical director.

He diagnosed Barb with mild cognitive impairment at the time. But unlike most cases, Barbara’s was on an accelerated track.

Just a few months later, her score on the memory assessment plummeted.

There was no denying it. Barb had dementia.

Her mother had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s decades before, so Barbara knew what was coming.

They were in the car when Barb looked at Mel and said, “You better hope it’s not what they think it is because your life’s going to be hell.”

It had been hell for Barb taking care of her mother.

Now she was preparing her husband of almost 30 years for the battle ahead.

A Growing Need

More than 6 million Americans are living with Alzheimer’s disease. By 2050, that number will more than double, according to the Alzheimer’s Association.

Additionally, over 11 million people provide unpaid care for loved ones with Alzheimer’s and other types of dementia, amounting to $350 billion in health care and related expenses.

The U.S. doesn’t have the workforce to address those growing needs.

That’s where the CARE Center comes in.

When Renzi-Hammond and Jenay Beer joined UGA’s Institute of Gerontology in 2017, they knew they wanted to help fill that health care gap.

The two researchers envisioned a place where clinical treatment and expertise were available to the community in a compassionate way, where it wasn’t all just about medical testing and diagnoses but about living with an incurable condition that will transform a patient’s life and the lives of those who love them.

“CARE’s approach is rooted in science, but it’s also rooted in our own experiences,” says Renzi-Hammond. “If you walk around this building, we’ve all been there. We know what it’s like to navigate these conditions. Even with all the education that we have about the conditions, it was still hard. In fact, it was too hard.”

The women had lived parallel experiences before they met, both watching as their grandmothers were slowly robbed of their memories and, in some respects, dignity.

Hired at the same time in 2017 as new faculty, Renzi-Hammond and Beer clicked immediately after meeting during their first week on the job. They both knew they couldn’t let other families struggle the way theirs had.

So, they jumped heart first into territory neither had broached before and started working on a plan.

More than 11 million Americans are caregivers to loved ones with Alzheimer’s disease and other types of dementia. UGA researchers Lisa Renzi-Hammond and Jenay Beer want those people to know they aren’t alone.

peter frey Mel Garber and his wife, Barbara Bankston.

Building a Memory Care Clinic from the Ground Up

Beer and Renzi-Hammond knew they needed to find others who shared their passion for helping people face cognitive decline with grace and dignity.

When they met physician Don Scott, they knew they'd found their medical director. An associate professor of medicine at the Augusta University/University of Georgia Medical Partnership, Scott also serves as campus director of geriatrics and palliative care at the medical partnership.

When Scott was born, his father was 57, and by Scott’s late teens, his dad had developed Alzheimer’s. “My dad, who was a successful attorney and a judge, went through a lot toward the end of his life that was really difficult to see. It just felt like things should have been a lot better for him than they were.”

That’s why he became a geriatrician.

The CARE Center provides him something rare in the medical profession: time. He sees fewer patients than a primary care doctor, which means Scott can spend 90 minutes or

more answering questions and discussing options with patients and their loved ones. He’s easily reachable by phone or email and quick to connect patients to other services when needed.

“When it comes to the topic of dementia in our society, one of the most important things I think that people need to know is it's common,” Scott says. “It is not the end of life when you get this diagnosis.”

But there is stigma.

“We hear people say things like, ‘Well, it became really hard for Mama because Mama didn’t want to take Daddy out anymore because she was afraid he wouldn’t act right,’” says Renzi-Hammond, paraphrasing almost verbatim what she commonly hears in the communities CARE serves.

It’s a common refrain among families, the desire to protect their loved ones’ reputations.

Their goal in creating CARE was to create spaces where people with the disease and their loved ones can go for help and resources without judgment.

What is the CARE Center?

Based in the College of Public Health on UGA’s Health Sciences campus, the Cognitive Aging Research and Education Center is about seeing dementia differently. It’s a comfortable space where researchers and health care providers deliver education on dementia risk reduction, conduct cuttingedge research, and provide planning and support for persons with dementia and their care partners.

Simply put, the interdisciplinary group spreads the word about dementia, provides a diagnosis, and delivers support to patients and their loved ones while training the next generation of gerontological workers.

For Lisa RenziHammond (left) and Jenay Beer, dementia care is personal. Both of their grandmothers developed dementia, and that experience inspired the two researchers to create a new kind of aging and dementia resource center.

“When it comes to the topic of dementia in our society, one of the most important things I think that people need to know is it’s common. It is not the end of life when you get this diagnosis.”

dr. don scott, medical director of the care center

The CARE Model

“It all starts with a phone call,” says Stephen Correia, the CARE Center’s director of neuropsychology. That sounds easy, but picking up the phone is harder for many families than you might expect.

That phone call means facing an undeniable truth that life is about to change forever.

But it also gets patients and their families the help and support they need.

The center connects patients to Scott, Correia, and Devin Lavender, a clinical assistant professor in UGA’s College of Pharmacy. Patients get a full workup, from physicals and blood work to a medication assessment and sometimes MRIs.

Then the team follows up with CARE’s director of social support services, Sarah Saint Hamilton, a clinical assistant professor in the College of Public Health, who supervises student interns in UGA’s School of Social Work. Together, Saint Hamilton and her team direct community members to the resources available to help them cope with a diagnosis.

The CARE Center reaches out monthly to assess a patient's needs and offers support groups for caregivers. The center even works with Jennifer Denk Stull, an assistant professor of music therapy at UGA's Hugh Hodgson School of Music, and her students to provide music therapy for patients.

All of it is free of charge.

“We are never going to ask people to pay out of pocket,” RenziHammond says. “If you have insurance, lovely. We’re going to work on that. But what we’re not going to do is charge a ton of money.”

Dr. Don Scott's father developed Alzheimer's when Scott was still in school. Seeing the difficulties his father and family experienced as the disease progressed inspired Scott, the CARE Center's medical director, to become a geriatrician.

A Community for Aging

In Athens, the CARE Center works closely with the Athens Community Council on Aging (ACCA). One of the center’s graduates, Kellye Call Morgan AB ’12, MSW ’21, MPH ’21, recently helped develop ACCA’s Dementia Resource Center, which provides Athenians and those in

surrounding counties with resources and support, respite care for caregivers, enrichment and social connection opportunities, and dementia education.

“It’s kind of a continuing mentorship,” Morgan says of her relationship with Renzi-Hammond and Beer. “Something that was really

instilled in me during my time at CARE is that there’s a lot of life to live after a diagnosis. It’s a different chapter, and you have to adapt.”

CARE and ACCA’s new resource center aim to help people with dementia and Alzheimer’s and their loved ones do just that.

A Family Condition

When Glenda Lance’s mom was diagnosed with dementia, she knew what she was in for. After all, she’d watched her mother go through the same thing decades earlier with Glenda’s grandmother.

“I don’t fear getting dementia as much, I don’t think, as I did before I went through it with my mother,” says Glenda BSEd ’73. When asked why, she pauses.

It was a fear she’d left unvoiced for years, worried the hardships of caregiving would wear out her patience and emotionally exhaust her. And sometimes it did.

“I could still love her,” she says. “We sometimes say, ‘That person is no longer there’ when they develop this disease, and there’s some truth to that. But there’s still love there.”

Even so, she’s keenly aware that her family history means a higher chance of developing dementia herself.

“I hope I don’t put my daughters through that, but I really think they will step up if they need to. And I don’t think it will ruin their lives—that’s a fear you have when you’re told you have the disease.”

When her husband retired from his law practice, Jack Lance AB ’70, MA ’72 realized he’d started forgetting things. That diagnosis was in the back of both of their minds. After consulting with his physician, Jack was concerned he was experiencing more forgetfulness and concentration difficulties than typically expected for someone his age.

It wasn’t dementia or Alzheimer’s, just age-related memory loss, so that was a relief.

But there were some things the doctor wanted to keep an eye on.

It got them thinking: What could they do to protect their brain health?

During a class at UGA’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute on brain health and aging, Glenda learned about the CARE Center. Since she was worried her forgetfulness had increased as well, she and Jack decided to head to the center to get evaluated.

Hours later, they each had a baseline analysis of their respective cognitive health and a game plan for how to keep their minds active, hopefully safeguarding against further decline.

Now they plan to check back in with the medical staff at CARE annually to monitor their status.

Jack and Glenda Lance were concerned about their increasing levels of forgetfulness, so they made appointments at the CARE Center to get a baseline analysis of their cognitive health.

Warning signs of memory loss? Learn more at NIA.NIH.GOV/UNDERSTANDING-MEMORY-LOSS

Increasing Awareness

In a recent survey by the Alzheimer’s Association, 80% of older adults don’t know the warning signs of Alzheimer’s disease or dementia, which means they miss the opportunity to get themselves or their loved ones the care they need.

The CARE Center is working to change that.

Along with their team of staff and students, Beer and Renzi-Hammond created a curriculum to educate communities and health care providers about Alzheimer’s and dementia prevention and the need for diagnosis.

“If research isn’t meaningful and improving the state of health here in Georgia, then it’s not public health,” Beer says. “When you're researching dementia, it involves people’s families. It involves the community. It involves addressing stigma. And it involves a more educated public.”

To help get that curriculum in front of rural communities and providers, they turned to UGA Extension faculty. With offices serving all 159 Georgia counties, Extension’s statewide network connects university research to residents, offering programs, services, and health education that support local businesses and families.

In 2022, the CARE team started training Extension agents on

A Different Ending

As Mel Garber continues to care for Barbara as her disease progresses, he continues relying on Davis, RenziHammond, and Scott for support.

“Lisa (Renzi-Hammond) tells people, ‘We’ll always be there for you,’” Mel says. And she means it.

It took a little convincing on Mel’s part to get Barb to agree, but they knew as her condition progressed that 72-yearold Mel was going to need some help. So with Renzi-Hammond’s encouragement, Barbara and Mel moved into a senior living community in 2022.

Her dementia did what the disease does, gradually eating away at her ability to do the things she loved. An artist at heart, Barb can’t paint or sculpt anymore. And Mel loaned her extensive painting collection to the CARE Center for safekeeping.

Alzheimer’s and dementia topics—like spotting the early signs of dementia and the importance of eating well to help prevent cognitive decline—that they could fit into existing nutrition and wellness programs. The team has also created tailored curricula and resource guides to reflect the needs of those rural communities.

The center is also working with the Archway Partnership, a UGA Public Service and Outreach unit that empowers communities to address long-standing and critical community development needs. Additionally, a partnership with the State Botanical Garden of Georgia, another unit of Public Service and Outreach, piloted curriculum incorporating nature and nutrition education into CARE programing for communities around the state.

And they will soon implement telehealth services for rural counties, with the support of grants from the National Academy of Medicine. UGA is also investing in the program through the Rural Engagement Faculty Workshop and Presidential Interdisciplinary Seed Grant programs.

So far, Renzi-Hammond and Beer have brought CARE to 11 Georgia counties, with more on the waiting list.

About a year after moving into their cottage at the continuous care community, Barb was admitted into memory care there. Mel sees her daily, sharing meals and moments with her.

It’s hard, but he makes do.

Is it the hell Barbara foretold in the car on their way to that appointment years ago? No. Not really. It’s just different than what Mel had pictured for their golden years.

Barb can no longer speak, but she still enjoys music. She lights up when Mel enters the room.

“Every day, I tell her how lucky I am to have met her and how much I love her,” Mel says, smiling somberly. “Somewhere in there, I think she gets it.”

Support the UGA CARE Center and improve dementia education, diagnosis and support at GIVE.UGA.EDU/CARECENTER

William Cano (above left and inset) meets with staff and fellow interns at the American Foreign Policy Council on Capitol Hill.

Dawgs in D.C.

UGA’s Washington Semester Program places students in full-time internships in the nation’s capital, leading to life-changing experiences.

WRITTEN BY AARON HALE MA ’16

PHOTOS BY DOROTHY KOZLOWSKI BLA ’06, ABJ ’10

William Cano had a simple and practical plan.

The University of Georgia international affairs major would graduate in Fall 2022 at age 23. Then he would work at The Home Depot for a few months before getting a foreign policy-related master’s degree.

Cano, a Mexican immigrant and son of a single mom, is all about practicality. That’s why he joined the Army at 17, knowing it would help pay for his education.

But as practical as Cano is, he’s also very curious.

So when his girlfriend suggested he delay graduation and consider applying for UGA’s Washington Semester Program, he was intrigued. The program connects students to full-time internships in Washington, D.C., while living and learning in UGA’s Capitol Hill residential facility, Delta Hall.

Cano just made the application deadline for the spring 2023 semester.

“I didn’t think I was going to get in,” he admits. And even if he did, he wasn’t sure he could afford to live in Washington.

Instead, he found that not only had he been accepted into the program, but he would also receive scholarships and fellowships that would cover tuition and provide stipends for expenses. The path to D.C. was getting a whole lot easier. He landed an internship opportunity at the think tank American Foreign Policy Council and then had to decide. Would he stick with his original plan or take a chance in Washington?

“For me, it was just taking that leap so that I didn’t stay stagnant,” Cano AB '23 says.

Providing Opportunities:

Several scholarship funds help students lower the costs of living in Washington for a semester.

They include:

• Chambliss Scholarship

• Coyle Scholarship

• Morehead Scholarship

• Pennell Scholarship

• Russell Scholarship

In addition, the UGA Foundation provides each student in the program with a $500 scholarship.

Donate to support Washington Semester Program scholarships at GIVE.UGA.EDU/WSP.

Delta Hall, a three-story Colonial on Capitol Hill, serves as a residential and learning center during the Washington Semester Program.

A Home Base

At any given time, there are thousands of undergraduate students from across the U.S. interning in our nation’s capital. They work for federal agencies, congressional offices, think tanks, museums, and law firms, to name a few opportunities.

Many internships don’t pay, and unless students attend D.C.-area universities, they’re generally on their own to find a place to live in the high-rent area.

UGA’s Washington Semester Program creates a simpler path for students to intern in the District. UGA is one of the few non-D.C.-based universities offering housing for students. Delta Hall, a three-story residential and learning center, is a 10-minute walk from the Capitol Building. The Colonial-style brick building serves as a home base for students to live, study, and share their experiences with fellow UGA students.

And UGA’s dedicated Washington Semester Program helps students make the most of this opportunity by providing internship coaching, networking opportunities, and classes that challenge them to learn and grow from their experiences.

Emma Brandwein (above left) and De'Omini Daniely (right) chat in one of the common areas of Delta Hall, where students live, eat, study, and relax during their semester in Washington, D.C.

Interning in Washington

For students like Ashni Patel, who interned at the U.S. State Department in the spring, living in Washington was a dream come true. But the reality of working 40 hours a week plus completing her coursework took some adjustment.

“It's very different than just being a student,” says Patel, a senior international affairs and economics major from Douglas. “In Athens, I stay really busy with extracurriculars in school and friends and everything, but it's totally different when your life and schedule are dictated by going to work at 9, coming home at 5, and then also going to school right after that.”

Because of the challenge, the Washington Semester Program staff aims to select students who’ve shown a strong work ethic.

“We want to be sure that every time someone interacts with a University of Georgia student, they're impressed by

them, that they feel like we are representing the best of all students across the country,” says Don DeMaria, director of the Washington Semester Program.

A few weeks into the spring semester, Patel settled in and started enjoying the fascinating experience. Sitting through hours-long hearings and taking notes might not sound like a highlight of anyone’s week—much less semester. But Patel geeked out when she attended a five-hour congressional hearing of Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

“Just being in the room with some very important people and hearing them talk about what's going on in the world,” she says, “you learn so much.”

But it’s not just being in the room with world leaders that pushes these students forward. Like many students in the program, Patel was charged with taking

meeting notes or researching topics for her supervisors. So she had to learn the new skill of condensing an hours-long hearing into readable, bite-sized snippets for officials in their office to digest on the go.

“You can't write anything more than one page or no one’s going to read it,” Patel says. “So learning how to do short-form policy writing for senior officials has been really valuable.”

That form of communication is common in the government and policy world and gives students an advantage when seeking a job.

But Patel’s most valuable takeaway was a confirmation of her career goals.

“I always thought I'd be a civil servant and work here in D.C. But being here has truly opened my eyes that doing something in the foreign service is really exciting,” she says.

Ashni Patel worked as an intern in the Bureau of Counterterrorism at the U.S. State Department.

Don DeMaria, below, director of the Washington Semester Program.

Living and Learning

Even after a 40-hour work week, UGA students in the program aren’t done. Twice a week, students meet for required courses taught in Delta Hall. One is a weekly seminar that brings guests to talk about their careers and answer students’ questions.

Many speakers are UGA alumni, like Leigh Hildebrand JD ’00, the U.S. Senate’s senior assistant parliamentarian.

“There’s a reason why we have a seminar, and one of the biggest ones is to get the students all together once a week to talk about their experiences, share their success, meet someone who has had a career on Capitol Hill, and learn from that person and their experiences,” says DeMaria.

DeMaria points to the body of education research that has examined high-impact learning practices.

“It’s clear that student reflection means students don’t just get valuable experiences but that they learn from them,” he says. “Each week is an opportunity to gain a deeper connection between coursework and their internship, so they continue to grow.”

Of course, with full-time jobs and a full course load, there’s not always a lot of downtime. But students still find time to visit museums and historic landmarks, maybe catch a Washington Nationals baseball game, or dine out together at a restaurant.

“Basically managing being a full-time student and working full time is not for the faint of heart,” says Caroline Schneider, a senior who interned at the Justice Department in the spring. “Sometimes fun is just a movie night or a game night here because we're all in the same boat.”

Leigh Hildebrand, a UGA alumna and the Senate's senior assistant parliamentarian, speaks with students after a Q&A at Delta Hall.

Caroline Schneider walking near the U.S. Department of Justice, where she interned for the Civil Rights Division.

Caleb Smith, who graduated in May with a degree in health promotion, interned at the international law firm Dentons' K Street office with senior counsel Randy Nuckolls.

Nuckolls, who once served as chief counsel and legislative director for U.S. Sens. Herman Talmadge and Sam Nunn, also teaches a course in the Washington Semester Program.

History on the Hill

Students spend a lot of time at Delta Hall, which has been the home base for UGA activity in Washington since 2015. But the university has had a presence in the capital for more than 25 years.

It’s only gotten stronger over time.

In 1997, UGA launched the Congressional Agricultural Fellowship program, which brings UGA students to Capitol Hill to serve as agricultural liaisons. In 2002, Jere W. Morehead JD ’80, then the director of the Honors Program, expanded UGA’s footprint with the Honors in Washington summer internship program, which DeMaria was hired to lead.

Over time, other UGA schools and colleges initiated their own programs, and

in 2008, then-Vice President of Instruction Morehead made these opportunities available to all undergraduate students through the Washington Semester Program and put DeMaria in charge.

UGA established a home in a building called The Congressional, but it lacked the common area and modern classroom space to ensure students connected with each other and the learning experience.

With the limitations at The Congressional and rising housing costs in D.C., Morehead and William D. Young BBA ’78, the UGA Foundation chair at the time, agreed the university needed a new space.

A building a few blocks away was identified as a possible new home.

The three-story, 20,000-square-foot building was once a church society and club. When Morehead and Young toured the facility, they saw a lot of promise.

The purchase and renovation of Delta Hall were funded by private gifts to the UGA Foundation; not a single state dollar was used on the facility.

Allison C. Ausband ABJ ’83, the executive vice president and chief customer experience officer at Delta Air Lines and the current UGA Foundation chair, helped secure a $5 million grant from The Delta Air Lines Foundation to support UGA in Washington. Delta Hall was named in honor of that gift.

Building a Network

Over the years, the program has helped expand the university’s reach in the capital.

Today, a vast network of UGA alumni work in Washington. DeMaria estimates that at least 60 Bulldogs, many program alumni, are involved in activities at Delta Hall and beyond. Some come to Delta Hall to share their career paths and experiences; others introduce students to people of interest.

At the center of all that activity is DeMaria, who has been a constant in UGA’s activities in Washington. Though not a UGA alumnus (he got his bachelor’s from George Washington University in D.C. and a master’s at Clemson), DeMaria is a walking Rolodex of Georgia connections, and he’s not shy about introducing them to students with shared interests.

For some students, networking opportunities are nearly as important as their internship experiences. Caroline Schneider, who plans to attend law school after she graduates in the spring, found herself ritualistically asking D.C.-area alumni out for coffee.

“I don't drink coffee,” she admits. “So I'm always asking people to coffee and then not ordering coffee.”

Michael Shinholster AB ’23, who interned for Rep. Buddy Carter, likens networking in Washington to “drinking from a firehose.” He was constantly surprised by the extensive UGA connections in Washington.

“I had someone stop me when I was on my way to work because I was wearing a Georgia sweatshirt,” he says. “He gave me his business card and told me he was from the class of ’97.”

Shinholster has plenty of time to make other connections in Washington. He accepted a position in Carter’s office running the representative’s internship program.

Cano, who took a leap to get to Washington, is also staying in the District post-graduation. His gamble is paying off.

During the spring semester, Cano wrote policy briefs for the American Foreign Policy Council and took advantage of networking opportunities.

Thanks to connections he made with a Delta Hall speaker, Cano earned a fellowship with a program called HillVets. So this fall, he’ll be working on veterans affairs policy in Congress while attending graduate school at American University.

Considering Cano almost didn’t apply for the program, he’s certainly made the most of his experiences.

“I feel like I just can keep building off of this and hopefully achieve something bigger,” he says. “It's like a whole new deck of cards.” GM

Michael Shinholster (center and inset) poses for a selfie with classmates in front of Delta Hall.

Find a short documentary about the Washington Semester Program at STORIES.UGA.EDU.

Here Comes the

BOOM

UGA’s Bulldog faithful welcome a new mascot

WRITTEN BY ERICA TECHO AB ’15

Just ahead of the 2023 G-Day game in April, Boom, a 10-month old English bulldog, received the title of Uga XI and stepped into his new role. Boom inherited his title from his father, Que, who served as Uga X from 2015 through the Bulldogs’ 2022 National Championship win.

At his collaring ceremony, Boom already weighed the same as his 65-pound dad, but he has a big jersey to fill. Uga X retires as the university’s winningest mascot, with a 91-18 record, back-to-back National Championships, two SEC titles, and multiple bowl wins.

Uga XI descends from a long line of solid white English bulldogs, which started with Hood’s Ole Dan, also known as Uga I. He was born in December 1955 and gifted to Sonny BBA ’56, JD ’57 and Cecelia Seiler in 1956. He made his first appearance at UGA’s 1956 home opener and was later collared as the university’s official mascot.

Since then, the Seiler family has served as caretakers of the Uga line. Both Uga XI and Que live with the Seiler family in Savannah, as one prepares for his first season on the field and the other enjoys his retirement.

Uga XI makes his regular season debut on Sept. 2, when the Bulldogs host the University of Tennessee-Martin Skyhawks in Sanford Stadium.

dorothy kozlowski

Don’t Miss Out!

GAME-WATCHING PARTIES

Alumni chapters will host gameday watch parties for local Bulldog faithful looking to cheer on the two-time defending national champions. Find a gathering near you at alumni.uga.edu/gamewatchings

BEAT WEEK VS. FLORIDA

Week of October 21-28

See

The opponent for UGA’s third-annual Beat Week will be the University of Florida. Make a gift of any size between Oct. 21 and 28 and help us garner more support than those chomping reptiles to the south. give.uga.edu/beatweek

FREE CAREER WEBINARS

UGA offers free career webinars and other online resources to help take your professional journey to the next level. Details at career.uga.edu/alumni

HOMECOMING

November 4

Return to campus to relive your glory, glory days. Visit alumni.uga.edu/football to see a lineup of events hosted by UGA schools, colleges, student groups, and the Black Alumni Leadership Council.

UNA NOCHE UNIDOS

September 21

The Latino Alumni Leadership Council invites all alumni to its annual fundraiser in support of the Latino Alumni Scholarship Fund. Celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month with fellow Bulldogs in the Atlanta area. Details at alumni.uga.edu/latino-alumni

ATHENS AREA CHAPTER

Chapter President: Erin Mullis BFA ’02

Number of Local Alumni: 35,888

Learn more: linktr.ee/ugaathensarea

The Athens Area Alumni Chapter enhances the UGA network in the Classic City. Regular networking opportunities include exclusive tours of alumni-owned businesses, group outings to UGA hockey games and Winter WonderLights at the State Botanical Garden of Georgia, and football game-watching parties.

In addition, the chapter hosts an annual G-Day Tailgate when members collect personal care items for UGA students in need. Another volunteer opportunity is Dawgs Ditch the Dumpster, which redirects materials from landfills during residence hall move-outs. The chapter has also launched a scholarship fund to help a local student attend UGA.

Congratulations to the 40 Under 40 Class of 2023

They are movers, shakers, and industry leaders. They give back both professionally and philanthropically to improve others’ lives. Making the annual list of UGA young alumni under 40 is no small feat, and we’re proud to recognize their commitment to their organizations, communities, and alma mater. Check out this year’s list at alumni.uga.edu/40u40.

Zell Becomes Alumni Board President

Thank you to Yvette K. Daniels AB ’86, JD ’89 for serving as president of the UGA Alumni Board of Directors for the past two years.

On July 1, C. Lee Zell AB ’96, a national account executive for WBD Sports in Atlanta, began her term as president. Serving alongside her on the executive board are Vice President Corey Dortch BSA ’03, MEd ’05, PhD ’11 and Secretary Todd Phinney BBA ’88, MBA ’96.

View the full list of Alumni Board of Directors at alumni.uga.edu/board-of-directors.

UGA Bookstore Discount for Alumni

Alumni receive 10% off year-round at the UGA Bookstore in person and online. To access the online promo code, visit alumni.uga.edu/alumni-benefits.

Alumni trivia

Check out what's going on for alumni and update your email or mailing address with UGA.

class notes

Compiled by Ireland Hayes AB ’23

Signal Caller

Bulldogs fans love their quarterbacks. Bulldogs fans love all their players. On every team. In every sport. No doubt.

But there really is a special place for quarterbacks, and few Bulldogs who ever played the position are more beloved than D.J. Shockley AB ’05

He was the first player recruited by Mark Richt. From 2002 through 2005, he played for four Georgia teams that finished in the top 10. Shockley also won two SEC titles, including one in his senior year when he threw two touchdown passes and ran for a third as the Dawgs romped over LSU 34-14 in the title game. He remains in the Bulldogs’ top 10 in several categories, including passing yards, passing touchdowns, and QB rating.

“When you leave, you realize that this is a special place to be,” says Shockley, a native of College Park. “I try to tell the players now how important it is to have that ‘G’ on your helmet or say that you represent the University of Georgia. You take pride in it.”

Shockley continues to take pride in the red and black, although he does need to keep a certain professional distance. He’s been a sports broadcaster for more than a decade, and, since 2021, Shockley has served as a sports anchor with Atlanta’s FOX5 news.

But the broadcast booth was not Shockley’s first destination after graduation.

Shockley was drafted in the 7th round of the 2006 NFL Draft by the Atlanta Falcons, and he won the third-string quarterback job in training camp. In his second year, while competing for the starting job, Shockley tore his ACL and missed the season. He spent the next two years bouncing on and off the Falcons practice squad

ALUMNI PROFILE

1960-1964

Wm. Hovey Smith BS ‘63 published his second novel, The Goldfarb Trilogy, and fourth business book, Real Wealth: How to Obtain, last spring.

1965-1969

Murray Poole ABJ ’65 received the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame’s J.B. Hawkins Humanitarian Award in February for his work covering Georgia sports for The Brunswick News and Bulldawg Illustrated.

C.E. Wynn Teasley AB ’66, MA ’69, PhD ’73 released the song “Stetson the GOAT” in February.

1970-1974

Kit Bradshaw BBA ’71 is a licensed attorney in Georgia and Texas, and

before being let go in 2009, four years after he was drafted.

He never got into a regular season game. But that was far from the end of the story.

Shockley had studied speech communication at UGA, in part because he wanted to be a good interview after games. He never expected those skills would come in handy as an interviewer. While he was still an active player, the Falcons asked Shockley to contribute to their weekly show. For Comcast Sports’

A Day in the Life, he interviewed teammates and handled other features, proving to be a natural in front of the camera.

It made for a smooth transition to a broadcasting career.

He paid his dues. Shockley started by broadcasting high school football on Georgia Public Television.

he is currently of counsel to R. M. Jackson & Associates in Colorado. Ron F. Hale BBA ’72 received the 2023 Georgia Cemetery Association Lifetime Achievement Award for his years of service in the industry.

Then he moved to regional college football games, the Big Ten Network, the ACC Network, the SEC Network, and, finally, debuted at ESPN in 2018. Shockley loved the job, but wasn’t sure if the six months on/six months off schedule was sustainable. That’s when Atlanta’s FOX affiliate asked about his availability.

“I never saw a sports anchor job anywhere in my future,” Shockley says. “But I talked to my wife, and she said that this is exactly where God wants you to be.”

Shockley is quick to credit his wife of 14 years, Portia, and their children, Milan, 13, and Mekhi, 11, for their unwavering support.

“We’ve been together since high school. She’s my backbone, my supporter, and my encourager,” Shockley says of Portia. “Without her, there is no way I’d be where I am.”

Anchoring has been a great move and one that has pushed Shockley outside his comfort zone. He’s called basketball games. He regularly talks soccer, NASCAR, and golf. Shockley also served as FOX5’s lead broadcaster for the Atlanta Braves’ World Series title run in 2021.

“I love it because now I’m not pigeonholed as ‘the football guy,’” he says.

Even with all the new assignments, Shockley is never far from the sport—and team—he loves most. He served as on-stage emcee for both Bulldogs’ national championship celebrations.

“Everybody is watching, and you are running the show,” he says. “It goes back to every time that you are nervous or unsure of yourself, but then you do the job and you are successful. To be able to stand on that stage is one of the highlights of my career, and I enjoyed every moment of it.”

Written by Eric Rangus MA ’94

D.J. Shockley AB ’05

chamberlain smith

Former Bulldog quarterback and current Atlanta sports anchor D.J. Shockley has been making history in Sanford Stadium for two decades.

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Homecoming Show

Karen Morgan BFA ’86

“My favorite part of the process is finding a shared experience with human beings and then showing them that it can be funny, and it’s OK to laugh at it,” says Morgan.

It was only when Morgan took a break from private practice to raise her three children that she joined a local comedy workshop on a whim.

At the end of the workshop, Morgan’s teacher sent her tape into Nickelodeon’s Search for the Funniest Mom in America Before she knew it, Morgan became one of seven finalists out of over 1,000 applicants nationwide and officially launched her accidental career in stand-up.

“I’ve always had a good sense of humor and enjoyed funny things, and so it just sort of turned into another career that I wasn’t expecting,” Morgan says.

She was supposed to go on tour after the release of her first special, Go Dawgs!, in 2020, but the COVID-19 pandemic ground those plans to a halt.

Adecade into a successful practice as a trial attorney, Karen Morgan never expected to begin a career in comedy.

But nearly 20 years after taking that leap, there she was headlining a standup show in Winterville’s Marigold Auditorium.

An Athens native who now lives in Maine, Morgan’s excitement about performing at home and the crowd’s familiarity with her work created an infectious energy. She commanded the stage with the striking presence that typically accompanies seasoned performers such as herself.

Written by Navya Shukla

For the next hour, the laughter didn’t stop. Afterward, Morgan BFA ’86 hung around the lobby of the historic theater for a casual meet and greet, chatting with fans and posing for group photos.

Since embarking into comedy, she’s appeared on live television and Sirius XM Radio and has released two comedy specials.

With influences like Brian Regan and Jim Gaffigan, her comedic style is clean and relatable for her audience, covering everything from family life and generational gaps to her experience as a Southerner living in New England.

So Morgan shifted. She stayed connected with her audience by posting original content on her social media accounts. She also started her own podcast, The Purple Bike, about nostalgia from growing up in the ’70s and ’80s.

The material from the podcast inspired her second Drybar Comedy Special, Rub Some Dirt On It

.

Morgan returns to Athens again in October. She plans to record the set for her new album but is really just looking forward to interacting with her audience.

“That’s why I still do this and why I’ll probably keep doing this forever,” she says. “Because it’s a human connection with people, which you don’t get if you’re just making funny voiceover videos, you know?”

ireland hayes

Standup comedian Karen Morgan loves working UGA into her act. And she loves coming back to her home state, as she did in April when she performed in Winterville.

ireland hayes

Jack Butler BBA ’74 has been appointed chair of the Standards & Codes Committee for the American Institute of Building Design and its industry representative on the International Code Commission.

1975-1979

Jones Hooks BBA ’75 retired in June from his position as executive director of the Jekyll

Island Authority after 15 years of service. He is the longest tenured executive director in the authority’s history.

Robert Adams BS ’77 retired after 35 years from his position as management development consultant at AIMM Consulting.

1980-1984

Fred Leich ABJ ’80 was named vice president of internal

communications for New York-Presbyterian, a nonprofit integrated academic health center in New York City. Billy Durham BMus ’81 is the director of prayer, mentoring, and leadership development at Park Avenue Baptist Church in Titusville, FL. He is also a certified coach, speaker, trainer, and founding member of the John Maxwell Team, a coaching

and training development program.

Robert “Buzz” Law BBA ’83 is president of Creative Financial Group and has been with the company for 39 years. He was also reappointed by Gov. Brian Kemp BSA ’87 as the 7th District representative of the State Board of the Technical College System of Georgia.

Boyd Austin AB ’84 is the executive director of the Northwest Georgia Regional Commission, which serves 15 counties and 49 cities. He previously served as the mayor of Dallas, GA, for more than 24 years.

1985-1989

Rick Hanner Jr. BS ’85 is a senior principal specialist, SIS engineering, at aeSolutions in Greenville, SC.

John S. Hayden BS ’85 is a university geology program evaluator for the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology.

Gary Moore AB ’85 serves as an associate judge for the Rockdale County Magistrate Court, as an associate judge for the Municipal Court for the City of Conyers, and as a judge pro hac vice for the Municipal Court for the City of Covington.

Paige Andrews BSEd ’86 retired from her position as principal at Poole’s Mill Elementary School in Cumming. Before becoming a principal, she taught for 22 years.

The Future of Food

Ertharin Cousin JD ’82

In recent years, estimates for the amount of people affected by global hunger has risen to more than 800 million. That’s 10% of the global population. For Ambassador Ertharin Cousin JD ’82, transforming our food systems has been her life’s mission and what she believes is the key to ending world hunger.

As a CEO and educator, Cousin, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Agencies for Food and Agriculture, travels from country to country in pursuit of a single goal: creating a malnutritionfree world.

Cousin earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 1979 and, after receiving a three-year scholarship, graduated from the University of Georgia’s School of Law. From 2012 to 2017, she served as executive director of the United Nations World Food Program, an ambassador-level position, working from Syria to the Sahel to help feed 80 million people a year in roughly 80 countries.

For more than 40 years, Cousin has been tackling the global food insecurity issues brought on by conflict, climate change, and food deserts, which are defined as areas where people do not have access to healthy, affordable food.

Written by Jayne Roberts

“There were places where babies didn’t starve because of the work that we did,” says Cousin.

Now, as the founder and CEO of Food Systems for the Future, her day-to-day is still far from the norm.

“I’ve had these moments where I’m sitting with a mother in South Sudan and she’s telling me, ‘Because of the work that you did, my children are healthy.’ It’s a pretty powerful feeling,” she says.

Food Systems for the Future invests in policy development and financial support for businesses—like grocery stores and farms—that can increase access to food and eliminate food deserts. Cousin believes the key to solving world hunger lies in building an infrastructure that allows people to support themselves.

Cousin’s work has earned her appearances on some impressive lists: Forbes’ 100 Most Powerful Women, Time’s 100 Most Influential People, and the 500 Most Powerful People on the Planet by Foreign Policy magazine. But while Cousin appreciates when the news spotlights the issues dear to her, many hunger crises can go unnoticed by the public.

With growing numbers of food deserts worldwide and several billion people who

lack access to affordable, nutritious food, Cousin’s work is now more important than ever. It includes making the case for investments across the food value chain – from creating an equitable food system that provides for all to ensuring the financial return for everyone who supports the food system. The process begins with farmers and runs all the way to investors.

“It’s all connected. Taking these issues as a whole—sustainability, our environmental health, market-driven agriculture—is critical.”

Every day, Cousin invests more of herself in the future of food security but doesn’t do it alone. Her team members, volunteers, peers, and mentors are all part of this journey toward creating resilient food systems for a better, more sustainable world.

“It’s important that people recognize these issues are not somebody else’s problem. You cannot have a stable society if the people in it are hungry and malnourished,” Cousin says. “That’s why this is work that I do on a full-time basis. But it is an effort that requires support from every corner, and I’m proud to work with so many people working to make a difference in people’s lives.”

Ertharin Cousin, a global leader for solving food insecurity, visited Haiti in 2016 during her time as executive director of the U.N. World Food Programme.

Being Rutledge

Afew years into his television career, Rutledge Wood met with some executives to discuss new opportunities.

By then, Wood BBA ’02 had been grinding away as an on-air NASCAR analyst nearly every weekend for several years running. And he’d recently gotten a big break starring in the U.S. version of the car show Top Gear, which aired on the History Channel.

With his trademark beard, horn-rimmed glasses, and dressed-down persona, Wood even occasionally found himself recognized in public. Television producers were taking notice too.

Wood, then mostly known for being a car enthusiast, was looking to branch out.

“I can go anywhere and talk to anyone about anything,” Wood proclaimed to the executives.

And what couldn’t he do?

“I can’t tuck in my shirt and wear khakis.”

It was an off-the-cuff but honest answer. Rutledge being Rutledge.

The executives started laughing, and that’s when he realized they were wearing khakis with their shirts in.

Fortunately, Wood has found a career where just being himself is a path to success.

Written by Aaron Hale MA ’16

In addition to appearing in Top Gear and covering NASCAR for Fox and NBC, Wood has hosted a handful of other car-themed and cooking shows. But his most popular project to date is hosting three seasons of the Netflix sleeper hit Floor is Lava

Wood’s latest project, Hot Wheels: Ultimate Challenge, premiered this summer on NBC. The car makeover competition show allows contestants to create life-size Hot Wheels cars—as in the miniature Mattel toy hot rods—out of ordinary vehicles.

GETTING STARTED

Hot Wheels: Ultimate Challenge was tailor-made for Wood, whose earliest memories include playing with toy Hot Wheels.

Wood grew up near Birmingham, Alabama, and moved to Peachtree City in high school. His love of cars stuck. As he got older, Wood learned how to tinker with and fix up old cars and vehicles, which he still does today; about seven or eight cars sit in his driveway in Peachtree City, and that doesn’t count what’s parked in the garage or barn.

Wood attended the University of Georgia and studied marketing. There, he found ways to incorporate auto tinkering into his studies.

He once bought an old gas-powered scooter at a party and took it home to give it a loud, multicolored paint job, adding “Stud Muffin” to the back. He rode it into class as part of a group presentation and the students loved it, Wood says. That is, until the smell of gas fumes started filling the classroom and hallway.

“It had no business being in there,” Wood admits with a chuckle. “But boy, it sure was fun.”

After graduation, Wood’s career took plenty of turns. He went from mobile marketing at Country Music Television to a sales job at Hertz to a couple of gigs in radio

peter frey

peter frey

TV host Rutledge Wood has built his career by being himself. (Above) Wood drives his restored K5 Blazer in Peachtree City and (right) poses in his driveway with a homemade lava lamp he built for a parade in honor of his Netflix show Floor is Lava.

Rutledge Wood BBA ’02

and karaoke in metro Atlanta.

Thanks to a Craigslist posting, Wood landed a job on the cable and satellite channel Speed. Though he started behind the camera in marketing roles, Wood eventually talked himself into an on-camera role covering NASCAR.

RIDING A HOT STREAK

Wood got a new opportunity when producers of the classic British car show Top Gear wanted to bring the franchise to the U.S. With Top Gear came opportunities to star in other non-scripted shows, including Lost in Transmission, Southern and Hungry, and The American Barbecue Showdown

Based on the name alone, Wood agreed to host Floor is Lava for Netflix.

That show premiered Father’s Day weekend in 2020.

For those unfamiliar, Floor is Lava takes inspiration from the rainy day household game that bored kids have concocted for generations. All it takes to play is leaping from couches and pillows to armchairs and ottomans, trying not to touch the ground because, in this game, it’s not carpet or hardwood anymore. It’s lava.

The show turns that activity into a largerthan-life obstacle course made from props that look like household furniture and knickknacks and a floor made of a steamy red, bubbly liquid that looks an awful lot like lava.

As adult contestants struggle through the course—slipping on, banging into, and barreling off obstacles—Wood provides a steady stream of commentary, encouraging contestants while injecting the kind of corny quips that either make you groan or snort with laughter.

Floor is Lava appeared as Netflix’s topwatched show for 13 straight days. And Netflix renewed the show for two more seasons.

“And I’m just there cracking dad jokes and being silly,” he says. “It just blew my mind.”

Wood hopes Hot Wheels: Ultimate Challenge, which combines his love of cars with his passion for telling people’s stories, makes a similar connection with audiences.

Because deep down, Wood just wants to make people happy. It’s why he got into TV to begin with.

“I felt like it was the best way to make the most people smile at once,” he says.

It also helps that he gets to do it all without tucking in his shirt.

Tracy Bell BSPH ’86 retired from her position as a pharmacist with Advent Health.

Claire Hubbard Mann BSEd ’87 retired from her position as a theater teacher at Gwinnett County Public Schools.

Bryan Keith Robbins AB ’87 earned a doctoral degree in history from Liberty University and is the district safety administrator for Southwest Florida in the Florida Department of Transportation.

Deborah Lawrence ABJ ’88 is a Realtor with Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Georgia Properties.

Gail Stowers BSW ’88 is an instructor at the University of Georgia Center for Continuing Education and a human resources project manager and

employee relations specialist with the State Personnel Administration in the legal services division.

1990-1994

Freeman Elliott AB ’90 retired as president of Orkin in Atlanta in January following a 32-year career.

David Tyler AB ’91 is the national managing partner for Grant Thornton’s healthcare practice and serves on the board of directors of Youth Villages, a nonprofit behavioral health provider.

Hillary S. Bressler ABJ ’92 is a commercial real estate broker for SVN Saunders

Ralston Dantzler in Orlando, FL.

Cecilia Russo Turner BSFCS ’94 is founder and CEO of Cecilia Russo Marketing, which celebrates its 15th anniversary this year.

my georgia commitment

Paul “Paton” Faletti BBA ’99 and his wife, Carrie BS ’01, enjoyed life-changing opportunities and mentorship while attending the University of Georgia, experiences that laid the groundwork for their successful careers as president/CEO of automotive consultancy NCM Associates and as a real estate professional with the Faletti Group at Atlanta Fine Homes Sotheby’s International Realty, respectively.

In appreciation of that support during their college years, the couple from Atlanta is committed to improving student well-being and success at UGA. It’s why they have contributed to several scholarships, including the Let All The Big Dawgs Eat Food Scholarship, which provides meal plans to students in need. The initiative addresses food insecurity by allowing students to concentrate on academic pursuits without the worry of securing their next meal.

“The fact that some of these students are working multiple jobs and are dealing with hunger, it just really struck a chord with us,” Carrie says. “It made me think, ‘What if the kid sitting next to me in biology was hungry?’”

As the Falettis planned their giving to UGA, they made it a point to concurrently honor Bulldogs who have left marks on their personal journeys. Paton, a member of the UGA Alumni Association Board of Directors, says that passing on the kindness they received to others is a driving force in whom they honor.

Therefore, the couple has established a variety of scholarships in honor of personal mentors such as UGA President Jere W. Morehead JD ’80, one of Paton’s most beloved professors, and Victor K. Wilson BSW ’82 , MEd ’87, UGA’s retiring vice president for student affairs who was

the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity advisor when Paton was a student.

“These are people who left a huge mark on my university experience; they were incredible champions,” Paton says. “You knew if you needed them, they were there, and I can’t say enough of the impact they continue to have on me and my family.”

Others whom the Falettis have honored through named scholarships are Neal J. Quirk Sr. BBA ’82, JD ’87, immediate past chair of the UGA Foundation Board

of Trustees, whom Paton got to know as a member of the UGA Board of Visitors. The couple also established a scholarship honoring Kirby BBA ’98 and Mary Beth Smart BBA ’03, recognizing the energy, positivity, and championship success the duo has brought to the UGA community.

“We have students in need and thankfully some generous people put together an avenue to fund that need,” Paton says. “We’re trying to do our part while recognizing people who have made an impact on us through these gifts.”

Scholarships change lives—they make the dream of a UGA education a reality, enhance academic success, fund hands-on learning experiences outside of the classroom, and help to retain the best and brightest young people in our state. Join the Falettis today in supporting UGA students.

Carrie and Paton Faletti support student well-being while honoring fellow Bulldogs

1995-1999

Eric Bradley BSEH ’95 is the deputy director at Linn County Public Health in Cedar Rapids, IA. He is also the executive secretary/treasurer and a diplomate laureate of the American Academy of Sanitarians.

Jennifer Carter BSEd ’96 is a Spanish teacher at Apalachee High School in Winder and has taught Spanish for 27 years.

Amy Winn ABJ ’96 started a new position as senior communications manager at Vote Run Lead, a nonprofit organization that trains women to run for public office.

Jessica Miller BSEd ’97 started Color and Chat, a learning program aimed to help girls 8 to 12 build confidence and share art. Color and Chat was featured on The Today Show

Jason M. Shepherd AB ’98 was appointed to the Development Authority of Cobb County in March.

2000-2004

Douglas Butler BBA ’00 started a new position as a partner in the corporate & securities group at Womble Bond Dickinson in Atlanta.

Sara Greeson Mitchell BMus ’01 received the New York City Council citation for her

leadership in public education in the Bronx. She is a two-time recipient of this honor.

Jennifer Dixon BFA ’02 is deputy state historic preservation officer for the State of Georgia Department of Community Affairs’ historic preservation department.

Amanda Glennon BS ’02 is an analyst with the U.S. Department of Defense Missile Defense Agency.

Andy Hall ABJ ’02 was named principal of Cherokee High School in Canton.

Katie Myszka BSFR ’02 started a new position in January as volunteer outreach manager at Ride Connection, a nonprofit

providing responsive, accessible transportation in Portland, OR.

Jon Ostenson BBA ’02, MBA ’06 is the CEO of FranBridge Consulting in Atlanta. His new book, Non-Food Franchising, was published in October 2022.

Joseph Magyer BBA ’04 founded a new venture capital firm, Seaplane Ventures, in Austin, TX.

2005-2009

Carmen Champagne AB ’05 is the owner of Grail Bra Specialists, a body-inclusive bra fitting boutique in Athens.

Charles Renwick AB ’05, AB ’05, BBA ’07 is the founder and managing director of CMR Associates in

Bear Down

Rebecca Reid BBA ’09

Reid enjoyed the theater experience but was skeptical of the career path, so in her junior year, she transferred to UGA, where her older brother had graduated and her younger sister was attending.

She earned a degree in marketing from the Terry College of Business and moved to Chicago immediately after graduation. She quickly landed a job at the Executives’ Club of Chicago, a networking forum for the city’s business leaders. Reid worked there for eight years in a variety of roles, all of them directly interacting with the club’s powerful and influential members. The experience gave her expert-level networking skills and an authentic ease in dealing with the Windy City’s elite.

It was also an ideal training ground for her current role, which she started in 2018.

“I love sales. And I fought that for a really long time. I was, like, ‘I’m not a seller. I don’t want to go into sales,’” she says. “But then I realized everything I was doing was sales. And even if you’re not specifically in a sales role, you’re still selling because you’re selling your ideas.”

Reid is on a team of four suite sales managers augmented by a three-member service team. Soldier Field, the Bears’ home since 1971, boasts 132 luxury suites ranging in size from 8 to 50 people, plus a skyline suite that can handle up to 180 guests. The team’s clientele is varied to say the least.

For Chicago Bears home games, Rebecca Reid has one of the best seats in Soldier Field. Not that she sits very much.

Reid is a suite sales manager for the NFL team, and she spends game days and nights darting from suite to suite checking in with her clients, who can range from a dad taking his family out for a special afternoon to CEOs entertaining/showing off for their clients.

It’s not the typical way to enjoy a game, but Reid BBA ’09 loves every minute.

“You definitely stand out when you’re in a suit in a stadium, but the atmosphere is electric. It’s so fun,” Reid says. “My friends

Written by Eric Rangus MA

ask me all the time if I hate working games on weekends, but that’s one of the benefits.”

Reid’s job is equal parts customer service, brand marketing, corporate relations, event planning, and real estate agent. Which part steps to the forefront depends on the conversation. The job requires a broad skill set, something Reid had collected across her academic and professional journey.

A native of Gwinnett County, Reid started college at Florida State intending to be a theater major. That theater background helps her today when she is talking in front of people, delivering a presentation, or discussing a $300,000-a-year suite with a CEO.

“My approach is very tailored,” she says. “We’re not selling season tickets, it’s almost like buying real estate. So, I’m not going to like hop on the phone with somebody for 20 minutes, and then they buy a $300,000 suite. You have to build trust and a rapport and really understand what our customers want.”

After suites are sold, Reid shifts into the customer service aspect of her job, whether it’s off-season gatherings for season ticket holders on St. Patrick’s Day or Draft Day, or a Week 6 matchup against the Vikings.

“We can only control the suite experience, so we always focus on that,” she says. “So for me, the hot dogs will always be hot. The glass will always be clean when fans are looking out. And even if there’s a loss, people will have a good time.”

’94

Rebecca Reid is living the suite life working with the Chicago Bears.

Third Culture Kid

Zuzka Vaclavik has called Athens home since she came to UGA in 2005. But the painter recently heard a term that she’s quickly applied to herself.

Third Culture Kid.

“It’s when your home culture is different than the one you grew up in,” says Vaclavik MFA ’08, whose parents escaped the Iron Curtain before she was born. “And you’ve

Written by Eric Rangus MA ’94

lived in other places and you recognize their culture in yourself, but you don’t ever quite belong anywhere. And I really feel that.”

Vaclavik has lived, painted, and taught around the world. She speaks English, Slovak, and German fluently and Spanish and Italian conversationally. She’s presented her work at dozens of shows in Europe, Southeast Asia, and across the U.S. And Vaclavik’s paintings can also be found

in the Central Library in Atlanta as well as in the High Museum of Art’s permanent collection.

The search for one’s identity is central to any artist’s work, and Vaclavik’s story begins with intrigue.

In the early 1980s, Vaclavik’s parents defected from what was then Czechoslovakia to Austria, crossing the border by bribing the guards with a carton of Marlboros. They made their way to the U.S.—Zuzka was born in Virginia—before returning to Europe and settling in Germany.

Vaclavik was just a toddler when she discovered her love of art.

She started by coloring with crayons and markers on the underside of a table. More formal instruction followed. Her parents connected with a Czech expat artist who taught her on the weekends.

When she reached middle school, the family returned to the States with Vaclavik well on her way to a career as an artist.

Her father’s engineering career took them from Florida to Minnesota to Texas, and Vaclavik eventually earned her art degree from the University of Texas at Austin. She followed that up by moving to Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The move inspired her, and Phnom Penh is where Vaclavik presented her first solo exhibition, Tales of Impermanence

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Zuzka Vaclavik’s exhibition Sanctuary opens in September at the National Czech and Slovak Museum and Library. Her paintings, which she completes in her Athens studio, have been displayed around the world.

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ALUMNI PROFILE

Zuzka Vaclavik MFA ’08

During that exhibition, Vaclavik decided to return to the States and began researching graduate art programs. She came to Georgia, sight unseen, and—in contrast to her first 20-odd, nomadic years—settled down.

“Athens is a very supportive community. The artists support each other, and it doesn’t have the stressors of big cities,” Vaclavik says. “I have the energy to create.”

After earning her master’s in painting, Vaclavik continued teaching in the Lamar Dodd School of Art and has taught in UGA’s program in Cortona, Italy. Vaclavik’s studio in the Chase Park Warehouses is ringed with brightly colored canvases, big and small, and a variety of ceramic cups and bowls. Vaclavik began working with clay a few years ago and loves the physical and communal aspect of it. She’s also adorned several wood panels with florals; they almost resemble stained glass windows in a cathedral. Those pieces are the focal point of Sanctuary, an upcoming solo exhibition that will run Sept. 16 through Dec. 31 at the Smithsonian-affiliated National Czech and Slovak Museum and Library in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

The style of the paintings takes its inspiration from traditional Slovakian folk crafts, and their creation has been not just a labor of love for Vaclavik but also an opportunity for introspection.

“I was thinking it’s like a personal sanctuary,” says Vaclavik, who still has many family members in Slovakia and visits often. “It’s like the third culture thing. Where is your home? Where do you belong? That’s something a lot of people can relate to. Ultimately, the sanctuary is what you find inside yourself.”

Vaclavik pauses to consider the description she’s just delivered.

“As cheesy as that sounds,” she laughs.

Covington, LA. He published his book, All the Presidents’ Taxes, in February.

Dr. Disha Spath BS ’07 is an internal medicine physician and founder and CEO of The Frugal Physician, a blog that teaches physicians about personal finance.

Jake Evans AB ’09, JD ’12 joined Greenberg Traurig as a first-chair litigator and shareholder in the firm’s litigation practice in Atlanta.

Lindsey Shelton AB ’09 was promoted to assistant manager of the impressions section of the crime lab at GBI Headquarters in March.

2010-2014

Brent Hallman BSFCS ’10 was named partner at Manry Heston, one of Atlanta’s oldest full-line independent insurance agencies.

Clay Stafford BSBE ’10 completed residency in anesthesiology and perioperative medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina. He is an anesthesiologist at Mid-Louisiana Anesthesia Consultants at Rapides Regional Medical Center in Alexandria.

Taylor Henriquez ABJ ’12 is one of eight emerging TV writers selected as fellows for the 2023 pilot accelerator created in March by the Women’s Weekend Film Challenge.

Evey Wilson Wetherbee AB ’12, ABJ ’12 recorded and produced a weekly investigative podcast called Prison Town with Jessica Szilagyi MPA ’13 last spring. Wetherbee is a journalist in residence at Mercer University. Her 2022 film, Saving Juliette, earned a regional Emmy nomination and made her a finalist for the Livingston Award in local reporting.

Jamie Lincenberg BBA ’13 was named to Variety ’s 2023 Legal Impact Report as part of the Weintraub Tobin audio team. She is an associate in the firm’s entertainment and media group.

Dr. Derek Haden BSA ’14 is the new owner and CEO of the optometry practice Doss Eye Care in Commerce.

2015-2020

Erica Techo AB ’15, AB ’15 is the new CFO of the optometry practice Doss Eye Care in Commerce.

Charlie Abraham ABJ ’17, BBA ’17 graduated with a juris doctorate from Seton Hall University School of Law and has joined the corporate practice group at Mayer Brown in New York City.

Willem Styles BSW ’18, MSW ’19 is a therapist at Yale Hospital’s Intensive Outpatient Adolescent Services.

Bria Bowen BFA ’19 is the owner of Creatively Brie, a custom graduation cap business.

Catherine Carter BBA ’19 has been promoted to relationship manager at The

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Trust Company of Tennessee’s Knoxville office.

2021-2023

Davis Baker AB ’21 is sports director at KTEN-TV in Denison, TX.

Robert Freshour BS ’21 earned a master’s in preclinical sciences from Mercer University and is working as a medical assistant with an eye toward medical school.

Skye Hinteregger AB ’21 is a financial representative at Northwestern Mutual in New York City.

Sarah McNair BSFR ’21, MNR ’22 is a research and outreach technician for the Warnell

School of Forestry and Natural Resources.

Will Mathison AB ’22, AB ’22, MIP ’23 started a new career in global trade consulting with Deloitte on the Global Trade Advisory team in Washington, DC.

Orhan Eribac BSEH ’23 is pursuing a master’s of environmental health from the University of Washington through a traineeship with the Northwest Center for Occupational Health and Safety.

Matthew Tesvich BBA ’23 launched OX SOX, a business that sells odor-free socks, last fall through the UGA Entrepreneurship Program.

grad notes

ARTS & SCIENCES

Chandler Sims Chang MS ’05, PhD ’07 is founder and CEO of Therapy Lab, a California-based firm that offers short, solutionfocused therapy for common life problems.

Subham Das MS ’21, PhD ’22 is a quant modeling associate at JP Morgan Chase & Co. in Mumbai, India.

EDUCATION

Jason Reagin MEd ’98 started a new position in August as

the middle years program coordinator and middle school curriculum coach at the Western Academy of Beijing in China.

BUSINESS

Joseph P. Stoner MBA ’72 was awarded the 2023 BMGT Nexus Award, which recognizes strategic and sustainable contributions to the American Chemical Society Division of Business Development & Management. He also received the 2021-2022 ACS Henry Hill Award and retired from Shimadzu Scientific Instruments in 2021.

Recovery and Resolution

Dr. Pat Scannon BSCH

Dr. Pat Scannon BSCH ’69 has spent the last three decades serving those classified as missing in action (MIA) since World War II.

As co-founder of Project Recover, he conducts missions around the globe to locate the remains and personal effects of MIAs and return them to the United States in order to bring closure to their families.

“The families never forget, and I’ve almost seen an amplified sense of loss from generation to generation as the years pass,” says Scannon, who also founded a biotech company in the 1980s, utilizing his doctoral and medical degrees. “The results of our efforts, and the ability to finally have this individual’s remains returned home, are profound.”

Founded as the BentProp Project, the work started when Scannon came across a wreckage site while scuba diving in the western Pacific Ocean.

“In 1993, I found a wing of a bomber in Palau and nobody knew anything about it,” Scannon says. “And to me, that was an epiphany—when an overpowering emotion causes you to do something you may or may not be

Written by Erica Techo AB ’15

prepared for.”

While Scannon was not able to identify individuals associated with that first site, his quest for answers has advanced several other MIA cases. In the last 30 years, Project Recover has conducted missions in 21 countries, locating more than 60 World War II aircraft associated with hundreds of missing pilots and air crew members. They have repatriated the remains of nearly 20 servicemembers, helping provide families closure after decades of questions.

From research to recovery, each case includes a team of archaeologists, scuba divers, historians, and volunteers who come together to locate and search wreckage sites.

“We’re creating a record for those missing in action,” Scannon says. “We can tell you where that individual was and tell you what happened to them. We’re closing the history of that event on that day, and I think we’re still evolving to know how, on a larger scale, history might be affected.”

At times, progress can feel slow, but the importance of Project Recover’s mission keeps volunteers and team members moving

forward. In January 2023, a U.S. Navy aviation ordinanceman from New Jersey was formally accounted for, providing closure almost 80 years after his crew took off in 1944.

The wreckage of his plane was first located and documented in 2015, and his remains were recovered in 2021. From there, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency was able to confirm his identity and notify family.

And with each reunion, the impact of Project Recover grows.

“We’ve seen families come together, some who have never met each other,” Scannon says. “We’ve seen communities come together. It’s an outpouring of support that happens, a time to come together, reflect, and remember somebody who now won’t be forgotten.”

Scannon served as president of Project Recover until 2018, when U.S. Marine Officer Derek Abbey, who served for 23 years before joining Project Recover’s team in 2004, took over as president and CEO. But Scannon is not slowing down. He continues to go on two to three missions per year, facilitating progress on cases across the globe.

Since 2019, Scannon has also toured the country to share a documentary that highlights Project Recover and its mission. To What Remains was screened at UGA in February 2023.

“We believe anything we can add is important, and the more cases we’re able to contribute to, the better. We just want more MIAs to come home—that’s our real mission,” Scannon says.

’69

Through Project Recover, an organization he founded, Pat Scannon and his team have recovered the remains of nearly 20 U.S. service members lost in wartime. They are pictured here during a mission in Palau.

Micheal J. Young MBA ’13 is the project director for the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta’s Miami Campus and Cash Modernization project.

SOCIAL WORK

Ron Scroggy MSW ’85 published his book, A Collection of Lowcountry Birds, in 2022.

Anna Sonoda MSW ’06 is a licensed clinical social worker in Atlanta, with a focus on teaching caregivers about child grooming. She also published a book, Duck Duck Groom: Understanding How a Child Becomes a Target, to spread awareness about this issue.

Extriara Gates MSW ’11 was featured in Shoutout Atlanta Magazine as part of the community spotlight in March.

PUBLIC HEALTH

Laura A. Heth MPH ’16 was promoted to program director for Northern Indiana Maternal & Child Network’s disease intervention specialist team.

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LAW

Sonya Lee-Coggins MSL ’20 was promoted to district courtroom deputy to United States District Judge Steven D. Grimberg in the U.S. District Court, Northern District of Georgia, Atlanta Division.

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Joseph Watson Jr.

Carolyn Caudell Tieger Professor of Public Affairs Communications

Grady College of Journalism & Mass Communication

As the inaugural Carolyn Caudell Tieger Professor of Public Affairs Communications in the Grady College, Joseph Watson Jr. oversees the first undergraduate program in the nation to provide students with practical, hands-on training in public affairs communications.

When Watson left a lucrative executive role at a Fortune 100 corporation for academia, many of his friends and colleagues thought he was crazy. But his time working in corporate America and on Capitol Hill prompted a revelation: We need a new generation of leaders. Without a new generation eager to change our political culture, the decline in civility in our nation’s politics won’t improve.

Why did you decide to transition from working on Capitol Hill and with corporations to teaching? And what do you hope students get out of your classes?

I came to the University of Georgia to instill in our students a sense of mutual respect and teach them how to disagree without being disagreeable.

By instilling these values in our students, we can renormalize civil discourse, get them involved, and prepare them for the real work of public servants—solving problems.

What is “public affairs communications,” and why does it matter?

Public affairs communications describes the intersection of public relations and political campaign strategies and tactics. It is integral to winning elections and changing public opinion on important policy issues.

Effective use of public affairs communications helps elect our nation’s leaders and brought about monumental achievements from women’s suffrage to the enactment of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Why is public affairs communications an important specialty for Grady to offer to our students?

For future generations to preserve our freedom, they must be skilled in tools like journalism, public relations, and advertising. The honest and ethical dissemination of information is essential for policymakers and the public to make sound decisions.

Endowed chairs—positions that receive supplemental support generated from private donations—are essential to recruiting and retaining leading faculty who are committed to world-changing research and preparing the next generation of problem-solvers, pioneers, and leaders. Learn more about supporting UGA’s leading faculty at GIVE.UGA.EDU