University Council implements cornerstone themes

Students, faculty and visitors at Georgia College & State University will soon be able to identify campus events and their link to the university’s mission.

GC&SU’s University Council adopted a system of using four cornerstone themes to help define the various programs and activities held at the university on Nov. 22, 2002.

According to Dr. Bruce Harshbarger, vice president of student affairs at GC&SU, the four cornerstones, or symbols, will represent global issues and diversification, service and civic engagements, fine arts and wellness.

By definition, a cornerstone is something that is essential, or is the chief foundation on which something is developed.

The cornerstones will be used to identify the various types of activities at the university and to “link student learning in and out of the classroom,” said Harshbarger.

Harshbarger said the Student Affairs Council originally suggested adopting the cornerstones and will be called together in mid-February to serve as the “promotion and implementation committee” for the project.

“I would anticipate that the group would begin promoting the cornerstones right away, and we may start using the symbols to
designate cornerstones as soon as the symbols are designed,” he said.

Mitch Clarke, associate director of University Relations and Jon Scott, manager of GC&SU’s print shop, have the job of creating a design to correspond with each of the cornerstone themes.

“We’ve had some preliminary discussions about what each icon should be,” said Clarke, adding that he and Scott will be developing sample designs in coming days and presenting them to Harshbarger.

“The benefit to students and faculty is that it will be easier to target specific activities and programs to supplement courses or to suit students’ specific interests,” said Dr. Anne Gormly, vice president and dean of faculties.

“From a marketing and promotion standpoint, using these small icons will provide a quick and easy way for people to recognize and learn about the university’s cornerstones,” said Mitch Clarke, associate director of University Relations at GC&SU.

“Once the icons are in place, faculty and students will be able to immediately recognize the cornerstones by just glancing through whatever publications we use them in,” said Clarke.

The theme for housing was also an accepted part of the cornerstone plan. Currently, Terrell Hall is “Casa Mondo” and is representative of the first cornerstone, global and international diversification.

Harshbarger said the idea to create the new system stemmed from an Academic and Student Affairs Leaders Retreat in the fall of 2000 and was discussed in the fall of that year by GC&SU faculty and staff.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Jan 24 2003. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry