James March-April 2024 online - Flipbook - Page 9
For those who took Georgia history
in middle school, we should know
Milledgeville was the state capital
from 1804 to 1868. Located along the
fall line, the city was at the edge of the
frontier when it was founded in 1804.
Its position on the Oconee River made
it an ideal location for a new city and
its more central location made sense
as the capital. A planned town, it was
modeled after Savannah and Washington D.C. and was a hub of economic
activity, with goods being shipped
downriver to the coast in the days before railroads dominated shipping.
The Capitol building itself was
built in 1807, at the top of a hill that
makes up downtown— the highest
point in Milledgeville. It was the first
building in the United States built in
Gothic Revival style.
In 1868, though, state government pulled up stakes and moved to
Atlanta. After a period of use as the
Baldwin County Courthouse, in 1879
the building became home to a new
college created by the General Assembly: The Middle Georgia Military
and Agricultural College.
The school’s mission: “To educate
young men and women from the Middle Georgia area in an environment
which fosters the qualities of good
citizenship.”
Originally intended as a kind
of feeder school for the University
of Georgia, by 1900 the name was
changed to Georgia Military College (GMC) and its board was given
independence to act as a standalone
college. Today, the Georgia Military
College is one of only four U.S. military junior colleges designated as
such by the Department of Defense
(Marion Military Institute in Alabama,
New Mexico Military Institute and
Valley Forge Military Academy and
College are the others).
It offers a liberal arts-based,
two-year curriculum for an associate
degree with the goal often to give
students a better opportunity for transferring to a four-year college to earn a
bachelor’s degree.
In addition to the college, there is
also the K-12 preparatory school with
nearly 900 students from Milledgeville’s
Baldwin County and other surrounding
counties. Baldwin High School itself
only has 1,200 students and is a little
outside of town, so the footprint of
GMC Prep is big in Milledgeville.
Excellent online courses
GMC also offers a robust online
program, nearly 15 years old now, with
around 6,000 students and is ranked as
the best online community college in
Georgia. GMC has been ranked as the
best in the state for Associate in Psychology degree programs and number
two in the state for Associates degrees
awarded to African-American students. Nationally, it was ranked as the
most affordable online college for business degrees, number three for best
online pre-nursing program (something
particularly notable considering the
state of our healthcare workforce and
demographics), and number five for
most affordable healthcare administration degrees.
GMC is also a recognized Predominantly Black Institution (PBI), with
56 percent of the student body being
minority students. Combined with
Georgia State University (which has
the largest population of black students for any four-year school in the
country), Kennesaw State and Georgia Southern are in the top 20 for all
colleges. So Georgia could perhaps be
called the capital of black education
in the country.
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