GC President Cathy Cox

In her new role as President of Georgia College, Cathy Cox is impressed with the aspirations female students are pursuing and is looking forward to the future

In her new role as the head of Georgia College, which was historically created to educate women, Cathy Cox is impressed with many things, but the brave and ambitious young women who have approached her to discuss their education and career aspirations certainly stand out.

“The students who have reached out to me and said, ‘President Cox, could I come and have a conversation with you? I’m interested in going to law school or I want a little guidance on my career,’ have all been women…,” Cox says. “I’m so proud of that, in a way, that these are young women who do have the confidence to email the president or call my office and say, ‘Could I talk with you? Could I have a conversation with you?’”

Cox has plenty of knowledge to impart, particularly in the areas of law and politics, of course, and being an approachable president is something she is proud to be.

“I’m happy to talk to any students about what they might want to do inlife or politics when they have an interest in those things that I’ve had the opportunity to do, but so far, it’s all been brave young women who’ve come to see me.”

With an enrollment of 6,763, Georgia College is made up of 65% female and 35% male students in graduate and undergraduate programs combined. Cox easily identifies with those motivated women she has had the opportunity to mentor. Becoming Georgia’s first female Secretary of State back in 1998, she has been a trailblazer for women in the state’s political arena. “I have to laugh when I think back to running for Secretary of State because when I first ran, almost every week I had to answer the question to somebody about whether a woman could actually do the job,” she says. “My joke was, ‘Yes, the job does not involve heavy lifting,’ because people had not seen it, and so there were lots of people in the state of Georgia that just were not sure a woman could be Secretary of State.”

Through those experiences, Cox felt that she had to work harder to prove herself than her male counterparts at times during her career. The questions could be more trivial at times as well.

“Whenever I did an interview on TV, people would call my office almost never to talk about what I had to say but to ask about where I got my hair cut or where did I buy my suit that I was wearing,” she laughs.

And so, for Cox, being the first female in that particular role came with a different weight of responsibility.

“I did want to make sure I didn’t make things any harder for women than they were at the time, and I wanted to be somebody who could keep the door wide open for women to follow me, and I wanted to help young women and young girls and boys understand that it was not a gender thing to serve in leadership, that anybody – any girl, any boy – could grow up to be in leadership with an equal opportunity in this state.”

By the time Cox ran for governor in 2006, she was happy to see the climate begin to change.

“I was glad in 2006 that people didn’t ask that question as much,” she says. “They still asked whether we were ready for a woman and that kind of thing, but I’m glad that time had passed

and maybe I had settled that question in the minds of a lot of Georgians, and one day we surely will have a woman governor, but I hope I helped open that door for people to see that women can serve very effectively in constitutional offices and other roles of leadership in this state — just as effectively, if not more so, than men, and it makes it sort of extra sweet to come to a place like Georgia College where we’ve already had two women to serve as presidents. So, I’m happy not to be the first woman president here.”

Cox follows in the footsteps of former female GC presidents Dr. Rosemary DePalo (1997-2003) and Dr. Dorothy Leland (20042011).

“There’s a good track record of women who have led this university with success, and I’m happy to stand on their shoulders here and that it’s not even a big deal at all that we have a woman president,” she says. “I think that itself is a real mark of progress.”

Since beginning her role as president in October, Cox has been busy diving into a schedule at a university that she says is already rolling fast. She launched a series of listening tours in which she met with all members of the college’s faculty and staff. It was an opportunity to hear from them about what they felt the college was doing well, what they believed made Georgia College special, and where they thought there were opportunities to improve.

“I wanted to break these into small enough groups that I could have real conversations with everybody, so it took a lot of time in my schedule, but ultimately I found it to be a really productive time to get a sense of what was really happening on the ground here at the university, and I’m glad I spent that time.”

In just a few short months, Cox has seen several things that make Georgia College unique. Particularly, she has found a faculty and staff committed to student success, and that, she says, manifests itself in many ways — from small class sizes to a selective admissions process.

“We’re fortunate that we’re one of the three institutions in the university system that get to be selective in our admissions process, and that is a very unique feature for Georgia College in the type of students we get to enroll and what we can offer them in terms of really high quality academic and undergraduate research experiences that springboard them into dynamic career and professional opportunities after graduation.”

This spring, the college will move into a new strategic planning process under which Cox says she will think about how she can help lead the campus to an even higher level to enhance its national prominence. “The good news — and I hoped I calmed the fears of some faculty and staff that I was not coming in here to turn this ship in a different direction — [is that] I’m very committed to the liberal arts mission of Georgia College,” she says. “I think it is incredibly relevant to what we do to prepare our students for a very change-oriented world they’re going out to work in. It’s not about changing the direction of the university as much as it is enhancing what we do. I’m gratified that the Board of Regents is also committed to our designation as the state’s public liberal arts university. They just want us to rise in stature and rise in national prominence and so my job, as I see it, is to help our campus figure out what does that mean and how do we do that. And so, we’re going to spend a lot of time this spring looking at, for example, what we call our aspirant schools. Who around the country would we aspire to be like? What other universities are doing things that we think are really great in terms of benefitting students?”

Through that process, the university will look at things like improving an already high student retention rate as well as increasing a four-year graduation rate that is already the third highest in the university system. This will include visiting other universities that have even higher graduation rates to find out the things they are doing to help students graduate on time with success that maximize their potential throughout the four years they are there. “In essence, we’re going to be doing a deeper dive into some things we’re already doing well, but I want our campus to think about how we do those even better and even deeper than we’re doing now to benefit our students and ensure that we really are the very best that we can offer in terms of the highest quality liberal arts experience and exposing students to those skills sets like critical thinking and communication skills that cut across whatever their major is but really set them up for success in the working world no matter what they want to do in life.” In the process, Cox is happy to continue offering guidance to all of those students who knock on her door. As for young women aspiring to take on leadership roles the way she has done throughout her career and life, Cox believes society as a whole should think about the opportunities that are given to girls in particular from a young age for leadership and taking risks.

“I think athletics is one of the great training grounds for girls to understand that when you get knocked down, you just get up and move on, and that when you fail or when you lose a game, it’s not the end of the world because in the rough and tumble world of politics, you’ve got to learn how to roll with the punches, and you’ve got to learn how to take the attacks and deal with it and toughen your skin and know how to stand up for yourself,” she says. “We need to give girls all those opportunities in elementary school onward to stand up for themselves so that they’re very well prepared to move into leadership roles and know that they are independent and confident in what they can do for themselves and for their communities as leaders.”

36 Milledgeville scene | Women’s Issue 2022

Women’s Issue 2022 | Milledgeville scene 37

38 Milledgeville scene | Women’s Issue 2022