Communications

External Affairs Division

Dr. Dorothy Lord Announces Retirement as President of Coastal Georgia Community College

Atlanta — December 5, 2007

President Dorothy L. Lord thumbnail
President Dorothy L. Lord

Robert Watts, chief operating officer of the University System of Georgia, announced today that he has accepted the retirement decision of Coastal Georgia Community College President Dorothy L. Lord, effective June 30, 2008. Dr. Lord has served the University System of Georgia in this role since 1991.

Watts praised Lord’s longstanding leadership in encouraging young black males to pursue higher education, noting that this work “has enabled her to play a pivotal role in the success of the University System of Georgia’s African-American Male Initiative.” He also lauded her work in securing a donated facility and endowment funds for the establishment of CGCC’s Camden Center in 2004.

“Dr. Lord has done an admirable job over the last 17 years of shaping Coastal Georgia Community College to this point in its history,” added Regent James A. Bishop of Sea Island. “We deeply appreciate her leadership of the college and all the community outreach work she initiated during her tenure.”

Lord began her duties as Coastal Georgia Community College’s third President on August 1, 1991, becoming the first woman to be president of a Georgia two-year college. Under her leadership the college has grown from a small campus of about 1,500 students in 1991 to more than 3,000 students today.

Additional milestones in the development of the college were the June 2004 opening of the Camden Center located in Kingsland, Ga., and the implementation of the Coastal Georgia Minority Outreach Program. Lord was recently recognized with an African American Male Initiative Best Practices Leadership Award during the University System of Georgia’s AAMI Inaugural Best Practices Conference held at Kennesaw State University in November. Lord was honored for her pioneering leadership in creating and operating the now 14-year old Minority Outreach Program at the college.

Lord’s accomplishments also include the 2005 Florida-Times Union Eve Award for Education, the 2003 Meritorious Service to the Commission on Colleges Award, and the 2006 Emory Dawson Award.

Lord has served as a board member of The American Council on Education Office of Women in Higher Education and on the Commission on Women in Higher Education, as a member of the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools and Accreditation Committee chair.

Her pathway to the presidency included the Higher Education Resource Services Bryn Mawr Summer Institute, the Next Step Leadership Program of the American Association of Women in Community Colleges and the Harvard University Program for New College Presidents.

“What we have accomplished together as a college and University System is largely because we are all partners in this enterprise with each person serving a role as a valued person on the team,” Lord commented. “What we accomplish as a team far exceeds what one individual can achieve alone. Please know that my heart is full of pleasure in the good things that we have been able to accomplish for the many students whose lives have been transformed by their experience at this college.”

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