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New Fine Arts Museum Opens
Bill Wall and Bob Chandler on camera in Herty Hall.
Terror Birds Discovery “Mega Predators” is scheduled to air in fall 2009 on the Discovery Channel. Writer/director Debbie Blum and her film crew came to Georgia College to learn more about terror birds from Bob Chandler and Bill Wall, two of the experts on the subject. With a sabre-tooth tiger skeleton in the backdrop and various fossils in the foreground, professors Chandler and Wall took their positions for the camera. “They pursued, ambushed, and killed with a lethal bite,” says Chandler about the terror birds that stood 6.5 feet tall and weighed 250-300 pounds, certainly the largest bird that ever lived. As raptors they preyed on hoofed animals similar to deer and ancestral beaver four times larger than their modern-day cousins. Chandler’s interest spiked when he found fossils of the great raptor as close by as the Santa Fe River in north central Florida. Using scuba diving equipment, he dredged for fossils in the sediments of the river, and many a Georgia College student and volunteer has joined him during the past 10-plus years of excavating fossils from
As part of the Homecoming and Alumni Weekend festivities, President Dorothy Leland hosted the opening of a new fine arts museum on the Georgia College campus. The museum is located in the historic Milledgeville home designed by renowned Atlanta architect Phillip Trammell Schutze in 1935. In 1939, the building was selected for a House & Garden Award in architecture.
that particular river and elsewhere in the United States. Chandler and Wall are longtime colleagues. They’ve coauthored a series of articles on the fossils and have presented their discoveries about the Terror Birds’ anatomy and biomechanics — how the birds were hard-wired and how their internal anatomy functioned. “We’ve applied the laws of physics to study what the Terror Birds could do and could not have done,” Wall says. “Now we’re able to CAT scan the skulls to determine their internal structure and the mechanics of how they functioned and how they interacted with other predators and their prey,” says Chandler. Their research is ongoing but the label of “mega predator” and the fact that such a beast once flew the skies of the Southeast United States is not in question. Look for more information soon about the date and time of “Mega Predators.”
"We are fortunate to be able to house the university’s permanent art collection in this historic home which is art in itself,” says President Leland. “We look forward to both preserving this notable home created by one of America’s greatest architects and providing the university and community with an important venue for art exhibition.” The Georgia College Foundation acquired the historic Milledgeville home in 2008 from Lucy Underwood, a former faculty member of the university’s music department. The foundation then gifted the property to the university.
A Top “Best Value” Georgia College is one of the nation’s 50 “Best Value” public colleges and universities for 2009 as named by The Princeton Review. “Being named among the nation’s ‘best value’ public universities is especially significant during these difficult economic times,” says President Dorothy Leland. “It means students do not have to sacrifice the quality of their education at a time when many families are trying to deal with financial challenges.” The Princeton Review selected the institutions as its "best value" choices for 2009 based on its surveys of administrators and students at more than 650 public and private colleges and universities. The selection criteria covered more than 30 factors in three areas: academics, costs of attendance, and financial aid. Tallies were made using the most recently reported data from each institution for its 2007-08 academic year.
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Georgia College Connection • Spring 2009
The museum opened with three exhibitions that included art created by Georgia College alumni; drawings created by Ken Procter, Dean of the university’s College of Arts and Sciences; and the senior thesis work of the late Carol Chaklos, a Georgia College student who completed her coursework after being seriously injured in a car crash. She was awarded her degree posthumously in 2007 after succumbing to her injuries before graduation. For more information: (478) 445-4391; museum@gcsu.edu