A Word Before You Go

Dr. Kendall Blanchard reflects on his eight years as GSW President

By Stephen Snyder

“No one tells you how much work it is to retire,” said Georgia Southwestern State University’s outgoing President Kendall Blanchard in jest when discussing the amount of paperwork involved in the retirement process. “If I had known it would be this difficult, I would have never made this decision!”

The truth is that Blanchard did feel it was the right time to wrap up his tenure at Georgia Southwestern and pass the baton to someone new.

“Connie and I have decided it is time to move on,” he said in a campus-wide note earlier this semester announcing his retirement. “I have enjoyed immensely my tenure here and will miss the University and my many friends and colleagues who have made this job so pleasant, but it is time for new leadership at Georgia Southwestern; someone younger, more energetic, and with a new vision.”

As it relates to vision, Blanchard has always felt the calling to be on a college campus.

Majoring in College

“I got into higher education because I wanted to teach at the college level,” he said. “Initially, I thought I was going to be a theologian, and I was going to teach at a small private college like the one I went to, Olivet Nazarene College. But, gradually I shifted from theology to anthropology, obviously quite a different perspective on the human condition. Throughout all of that, I knew whatever the field, I would end up teaching somewhere at a college or a university.”

From Dallas, Texas to Americus, Georgia, and many places in between, Blanchard has been teaching or serving as an administrator on a college campus every year since 1971.

“I enjoyed the classroom; I enjoyed research; I enjoyed writing,” he said. “So, there was a great appeal to that scholarly life, and there is something about working on a college campus, particularly as a faculty member. You are working with a group of people who are perpetually young. As a result, it kind of keeps you young. It keeps you in tune to the younger world. There is something nice about that.”

Discussing his own abilities as a teacher, he added, “Was I a good teacher? Probably not. I was perhaps a little above average but not really the great teacher that I wanted to be. Not the great teacher, for example, that Connie was.”

Dr. Connie Blanchard, Kendall’s wife, retired with more than 40 years in higher education prior to their journey to Americus in December 2006.

“The fact is that Connie gave up her teaching position at the University of Kansas to come to Americus,” said Blanchard. “Even earlier, she put her personal ambitions aside to follow me. She was in a position to become a dean when I took the job as president at Fort Lewis College. There is no doubt in my mind that had she wanted to be a university president, she would have been. But, she chose to support me, and I cannot tell you how grateful I am for that.”

An ‘Unpresidented’ Hire

“We came down in December of 2006 basically having agreed to come to do the interim position,” Blanchard said, describing the decision to accept the interim presidency at Georgia Southwestern. “Connie and I talked and decided, ‘okay, we could do this for six months. It would be kind of fun.’”

Blanchard’s good friend, Beheruz Sethna, was serving as interim vice chancellor for academics at the University System of Georgia, and he recommended Blanchard for the position.

“Beheruz told me several times to make sure I understood that if I accepted the interim position, I could not be a candidate for the permanent position – which was a Regents’ policy. I certainly understood that, and I really had no interest initially in staying more than six months.”

Before long, though, Blanchard could sense the atmosphere was right for something more permanent.

“I think the overriding factor was just this realization that there were challenges here that needed to be met and things that needed to happen that I had done before,” he said. “I could sort of smell the opportunity for success. Not so much because of me, but because of what I saw happening here at Georgia Southwestern. It was as though the institution had been put on hold for a while. It was just waiting for the opportunity to let go and take off again.”

The rest is history. The Board of Regents amended their policy and named Blanchard the permanent president in June 2007 after a national, months-long search.

While Blanchard was the right person at the right time for Southwestern, his new position was not without challenges.

“The big challenge was enrollment,” he said. “We, at one point, had increased by about 30 percent over what the numbers were when I first got here (from 2,405 in Fall 2007 to 3,046 in Fall 2011). We’ve fallen back since then, but we’re still significantly ahead of where we were, and things look good for next fall.”

Other accomplishments under Blanchard’s tenure include successful SACS reaffirmation, forming two new master’s degrees and AACSB accreditation for the School of Business Administration. International partnerships were also expanded to colleges in China, India and South Korea, with the formation of a Korean branch of GSW’s Rosalynn Carter Institute for Caregiving (RCI). Blanchard was adamant that his accomplishments were the result of diligent work by many talented faculty and staff members throughout the campus.

“When I talk about my accomplishments during the last eight years, I have to couch that into this realization that my accomplishments are just a way of talking about our accomplishments,” Blanchard said. “I happened to be the wheel, but there were a lot of other folks right along beside me doing a lot of the basic work to make things happen.”

And he is quick to give credit for success to his biggest supporter.

“If there is one person to whom I am most grateful for my being named to this position and for any success that I might have had during my tenure here, it is my wife,” Blanchard stated. “Connie has stood by me from the beginning. Her efforts have gone a long way to building a strong, positive relationship between the University and the greater Americus community. She has served on boards, has raised money for various causes, including the University, and has made many friends for GSW.”

Famous Friendships

One of the unexpected benefits of Blanchard’s presidency was establishing close friendships with people like President Jimmy Carter and former First Lady Rosalynn Carter, both GSW alums.

“Before I came, Beheruz Sethna told me that I probably would have the opportunity to meet Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter,” Blanchard said. “I thought that would be great, you know, but never in my wildest imagination did I envision that we would be friends, and that at this point, Rosalynn would be getting emotional about our leaving. She and Connie have become such close friends.”

The Blanchards (left) and the Carters pictured with Choong Soon Kim (right), president of Cyber University of Korea, and wife Sang

The Blanchards’ trip to Korea with the Carters to establish RCI Korea is one Kendall won’t soon forget.

“One of the highlights of my career was the time we went to Korea with them for the official opening of the Rosalynn Carter Institute in Korea,” said Blanchard. “My friend Choong Soon Kim, president of what is now Cyber University of Korea, and I had worked together on developing this concept, and he had put the program together there and had arranged for a special ceremony to officially dedicate it. He also arranged for President Carter to deliver what they call the “Incheon Lecture,” which is the most distinguished lecture in all of Korea.

In addition to the Carters, Blanchard said he was privileged to meet and work with a long list of interesting and accomplished people: George Hooks, Mike Cheokas, Barry Blount, Sparky Reeves, Roy Lee Smith. “I could go on and on ... getting to know and work with these people has been an important part of my time here,” he said.

“Another hero of mine,” he added, “was Griffin Bell. I hadn’t been here very long; Randolph Barksdale and Hulme Kinnebrew took me out to meet Griffin at his home.”

The late Griffin B. Bell, former U.S. Attorney General under President Carter, graduated from Georgia Southwestern in 1936. Like many other local natives who made a name for themselves, Bell made Americus his home following retirement.

“I was immediately impressed by him,” Blanchard said. “He was sharper than a tack and could tell some great stories about things he had done and famous people he’d known. I had the good fortune of spending a lot of time with him the last few months of his life after he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. I would take my digital recorder out and get him to talk about his life and a lot of issues. This was one of those unexpected benefits that came with the job. I never really anticipated being able to develop a friendship like that. What an amazing man!”

Blanchard with GSW alumna Kelly Bird, ‘10 and ‘13University.”

Leaving a Legacy

Very early in Blanchard’s presidency, he placed a great amount of his time and effort on fostering collaboration within the community and building partnerships with other

schools. Thanks largely to a recommendation from Randolph Barksdale, by 2008 Blanchard helped organize articulation agreements and innovative programs with nearly every state two-year college and many state technical colleges, including South Georgia Technical College in Americus.

“I’d like to be remembered as one who tried to make all this fun and helped to create a greater sense of community across the campus and across the larger Americus community,” he said, “bringing different groups together working towards the best interests not just of Georgia Southwestern but the community, of South Georgia Technical College. That’s why the ‘Two Great Choices – One Great Community’ campaign created with South Georgia Tech is a symbol of what I’d like to be remembered for. I have always been a believer that cooperation and collaboration are much more effective than competition because life can be a winwin situation. It doesn’t have to be a winner-take-all, and it’s been my experience that working together pays off. Pretty simple.”

* President Blanchard’s last official day was Dec. 31, 2014.