Cox outlines future of YHC
By JARED PUTNAM Union Sentinel Editor

Sentinel photo/Jared Putnam Former Georgia Secretary of State Cathy Cox is the 21st President of Young Harris College.

As former Georgia Secretary of State Cathy Cox went through the selection process en route to becoming the 21st President of Young Harris College (YHC), it became apparent to her that the Board of Trustees was not looking for a "caretaker" president. Instead, the trustees wanted to do big things, and needed the right person to spearhead the campaign.

Selected by Georgia Trend Magazine as one of the 100 Most Influential Georgians for 7 straight years, Cox feels that she is the right kind of person for the job.

"I really do feel blessed to have the opportunity to lead this great college in a very different direction," Cox said as she spoke to the Union County Rotary Club last week. "That truly is what excited me about the opportunity of taking on this position. I'm kind of a project person. I like putting the pieces together. That's one thing that I think and hope I can bring to the table at Young Harris because we have a big project on the table."

Sentinel photos/Jared Putnam Union County Rotary Club Sergeant of Arms Bill Foster jokes with guest speaker Cathy Cox.

The "big project" that Cox referred to is the fact that in April the Board of Trustees voted unanimously to grow Young Harris from a two-year institution into a four year college.

"We are on a fast track to do that," Cox said. "I am delighted to have arrived on campus and found that a lot of the preliminary work is already done." She said that the hardest part of a transition like this is meeting the accreditation process, but that the accreditation agency has told the school that they are in really good shape. Cox said much of that stems from the fact that the college has for a number of years been hiring faculty with P.H.D.s that could teach at a four-year college level.

Cox hopes that a master plan for the growth will be prepared by next spring. "Under an ideal timetable, by fall of 2009 [we could offer] a chance for the first group of sophomores to stay over to their junior year," she said. "That means this year's freshmen class could be the first graduates in 2010, with a four year degree from Young Harris College. It's a very ambitious schedule, but you are going to see a lot of exciting things happening."

UC Rotary President Michelle Hudler with Bill Foster.

Last fall YHC's enrollment stood at 612, with 92 percent of those students coming from Georgia. A particularly strong percentage came from an eight county region around here, including Clay and Cherokee counties in NC. In all, the student body represented more than 100 counties in Georgia. Next year Cox hopes to tap into all 159 Georgia counties. "I can tell you there are reasons why south Georgians would like to get away from gnats," she jokingly stated.

YHC is affiliated with United Methodist Church, and over half the school's students are either Baptist or Methodist. Cox said the college actually has more Baptist students, though the demographics are close. She characterized the college as being "very diverse," pointing out that the population growth in Georgia lies in minorities, and that the school has to "branch out and provide a product that these students really want and can serve them well for the rest of their lives."

The President also explained that the internet age has changed the way students enroll in college. According to Cox, students now "paper the landscape" through free online applications. They often apply to dozens upon dozens of schools. Cox said, "Our applications are way up, and the number that actually enroll is down proportionally," due to the nature of things. YHC wants to be especially efficient in going after students who are interested in what they have to offer, as Cox said that less than two percent of the students that graduated high school last year are even thinking about attending a two-year college.

"If you are a two-year college, you instantly shrink the pool of students who even want to talk to you," she said. "A twoyear degree won't really get most students what they need to succeed. Very, very few students stop at a two-year program. That is particularly tough on private schools."

The president said that it is "kind of sad that on the first day of school we have to ask them, 'Where are you going when you leave?' Then we have to pattern the next 2 years of a curriculum so it will suit them and transfer for them wherever they ultimately want to go, as opposed to be able to offer them a complete degree program." Because YHC is not part of the university system it is not an automatic transfer.

"We have basically had to go out and spend a lot of money to entice students to a two-year program," Cox said, describing a "discount rate" of how much the college has to offer in scholarships to entice a student to come. "We have had to offer a lot of money to get people to look at our two-year product, but ultimately that is not going to serve us well down the road."

Cox acknowledged that Young Harris College has what she believes is one of the top five endowments of any two-year college in the country, but added "We are very well set, but nobody wants us to just spend down the endowment until 40 years from now there is no endowment and no college," she said. "Believe you me, two-year private colleges have been going into bankruptcy and just shutting their doors around the country. I applaud the trustees at Young Harris for looking ahead [to see] how can we really flourish in the future."

In looking at all the hurdles and future hurdles that the school will face, the resolution was very clear to the YHC administration. "The answer to that from every angle is to become a four-year college," Cox said. [But] Young Harris doesn't want to be just another four-year college. As we are a world class two-year college, we want to be a world class four-year liberal arts college. That is the dynamic of where we are going."

The first decisions to be made involve assessing where the college has the most depth in potential major areas. "Fine arts is probably one of those," Cox said. "That may be the easiest to transition from an Associates Degree to a Bachelors Degree. More than likely what we will be doing is phasing in degrees. We won't just wake up one fall and every degree we offer will be four years. We will do that very methodically so everyone knows where we are going."

Athletics are another key area where big decisions will be made. Cox said that the school could go to Division III, which is not as competitive but does not allow the school to offer athletic scholarships, or Division II, which is very competitive but does allow for scholarships. "[Division II] may be a better fit for us," Cox said, emphasizing the importance of YHC athletics, due in part to the success of the men's baseball team, which went to Junior College World Series last season, and the women's soccer program, which won the National Championship last year. "We have a very strong athletic program that enhances college life and is a big draw to students, so I want to make the decisions that can help us grow our athletics rather than put them in any kind of diminished role," Cox said.

The school must also plan campus changes based on the number of students it will grow to accommodate. In that realm, the school wants to keep the small, intimate "Young Harris experience" intact.

"What seems to be the very strong consensus among the trustees and the alumni is that nobody is contemplating growing Young Harris College into a University of Georgia or into a Kennessaw State," Cox said. "Nobody is contemplating that we would have 10,000 students or 5,000 students. Our realistic goal is probably more like 1,000 students or doubling or enrollment to 1,200 students."

No matter how large or small the number, Cox said that in facing the potential of doubling an enrollment, a lot of decisions would have to be regarding facilities. Those include looking at either building housing or working with a private developer, as well as examining what facilities may need to be updated. There are also plans to enhance the college's image along highway.

On the personal side Cox said she actually toured the YHC campus in her own days of seeking to further her education, but at that time believed that her future was in horticulture. She switched majors after interning at Callaway Gardens. "After pulling weeds in 105 degree heat with people with P.H.D.'s in Botany, I said, 'You know, having a job in air conditioning isn't altogether a bad thing."

She then became a journalism student when she transferred to the University of Georgia. She began her career working as a police reporter for The Times in Gainesville. "I was blood and guts and did everything from the murder scene to the courtroom and had no idea what the D.A. was talking about, what the judge was saying, that I was supposed to be writing about, so I went back to law school really just to get the education and go back to the newspaper." Instead she ended up going into private practice before serving in the House of Representatives and later as Secretary of State.

Her husband, Mark Daylor, is an attorney who is opening a practice in Hiawassee. "As I often introduce Mark, to make sure you get the name right, its Mark Daylor, not Mark Taylor," Cox said, jokingly referencing her opponent in the 2006 Democratic Primary.

Cox also has a long history with Rotary Club, as her father and grandfather were lifelong Rotarians. When she and her sister became members, they broke new ground in their hometown. "My sister and I were the first two female Rotarians in Bainbridge [Georgia]," Cox said.

While she broke new ground in that respect, Cox pointed out a little known fact about her new position. "I am not the first female president of Young Harris College," Cox said. "I am the second. The last one, not many of you would probably remember, was in 1930. Mrs. Edna Sharp served as president of the college for a year after Dr. Sharp passed away."