‘There’s so much more’ ahead for Augusta Tech, exiting chief says
AUGUSTA, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) - Dr. Jermaine Whirl is leaving as president of Augusta Technical College to lead Savannah State University.
On Monday, we sat down with him for the first time since he made the announcement.
He talked with us about what he wants for Augusta Tech, even after he says goodbye.
When he looks back on his start at Augusta Tech in 2020, he calls it “unique” because that was at the beginning of the COVID pandemic.
“We had a lot of students who were virtual learners. We had employees that were remote,” he said. “We had a lot of business partners that were not allowing me to come to do visitations, coming to the plants and coming to different sites. So a lot of my work in that first month was really just getting to know the team.”
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That allowed him to build plans for what he wanted to accomplish, he said.
Those plans have elevated Augusta Tech into a destination school as he’s overseen initiatives like the launch of a unveiled a plan for student housing.
The staff has helped make that happen.
“The employees are very well-connected in the community,” he said.
“It was really just taking those connections and expanding on it and really trying to make sure that we were an anchor institution and ensuring that the institution was a part of the community in a broader sense. So it was really adding into what was already happening here.”
He calls the partnerships he’s built “a win-win” because community organizations are looking for talent.
“Number one, they wanted graduates to be able to feed into their workforce. But secondly, they were looking for a partner that can help them innovate, that can help them upscale their current workforce, and also do some things that had not been done prior,” he said.
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“Being an educational institution with great talent, employees and students really provided an opportunity for us to come to the table and say, ‘Hey, you’ve got this challenge. You’ve got a workforce issue. How can we partner? But let’s also do something that’s never been done.’”
Augusta National Golf Club was one of the college’s many partners early on.
“And they were very interested in community impact. And said, ‘You know, what are some things you all would like to do if you had some financial ?’”
The automotive center is one of the ideas Whirl presented, and the golf club said that made a lot of sense, he said.
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And it has become a “global opportunity with the new Boys and Girls Club and the HUB for Community Innovation all being on Laney Walker Boulevard,” he said. “So it was really connecting those ideas and saying, ‘How we can create a corridor of innovation?’”
Also during his time, the college has expanded its nurse training program to Piedmont Augusta hospital’s Summerville campus.
“They had a workforce need with nurses, especially during COVID, and they were like, ‘We want to try something different. We don’t want to start a nursing school. You have one. How can we help you to grow it?’” he said.
Achievements like these have been the result of businesses having challenges and being open to innovation, he said.
“It does take partnerships. We really didn’t have the space on campus to do it. They had a hospital. They had clinical instructors that were available. And they made a commitment. They also helped us to raise over a million dollars to cover the cost for nursing education,” he said “That’s true partnership. That’s true collaboration. But it’s also true visioning. ... They understood that this is a community effort. It was a community benefit.”
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The Augusta Municipal Golf Course project was a partnership with Augusta National and First Tee.
“We’ve had a golf management program for over 20-plus years, and the opportunity to really expand and become a national powerhouse with those two organizations was something that I could have only had dreamed of when I first got here,” he said.
“That project in particular will have a tremendous transformative impact for many, many years to come. People will come here to play at the golf course, but more importantly, talking about the history of the caddies, the history of those that have come and played. They’re going to be well-represented, and they’re going to be very proud of what’s going to happen here and really the impact to grow the game for our young folks and old alike.”
And next up in March is the launch of Accelerate Augusta, a downtown small business incubator and micro-enterprise center.
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“A lot of downtown was really messed up because of COVID. We lost so many small businesses, a lot of empty storefronts. And, you know, downtown is the heart of the city,” he said.
And the idea came to fruition in partnership with the Downtown Development District and SRP Credit Union, he said.
“We need to grow a small business community. We need to create more entrepreneurs in this community. Over 80% of our small businesses really flourish in the greater CSRA. And so those who have great ideas, those who are currently in business, how can they expand?” he said.
“If you just go on that side of Broad Street, the properties that are adjacent have already been purchased, housing is coming, restaurants are coming, retail is coming. We’re seeing the same, um, impact over there by the automotive facility. ... We’ve seen the same impact, um, at the hospital and we’re going to see the same impact at the golf course.”
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When he thinks of the impact of these projects, he says, “it’s not just the education; it’s everything that’s around that as an anchor.”
And he’s thankful the board has given him the green light for these projects.
Augusta Tech’s vision is being nationally recognized, and the goal is to transform lives, organizations, and communities, he said.
“But there’s so much more for this institution,” he said.
“People are saying, ‘I want to go to Augusta Tech because they really have something that’s pretty special. They have programs, they have great faculty and staff and I want to be a part of that because I know when I go there when I have a great experience, but I also want to get a job when I leave and that’s important,’” he said.
We talked a lot about the legacy he leaves behind, and wanted to talk to him about his future at Savannah State.
He told us the Board of Regents says he can’t talk about that move, but his advice to whoever is filling his shoes at Augusta Tech is to listen to the community and stay plugged in.
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