TheGeorgia Board of Regents oversees theUniversity System of Georgia as part of thestate government ofGeorgia in theUnited States. TheUniversity System of Georgia is composed of all state public institutions of higher education in the state. The Board of Regents also preside over theGeorgia Public Library Service.
The Board was organized on January 1, 1932, to create centralized control over allmember institutions.[1] The Board marked the first period that public institutions of higher education were governed and managed under a sole authority.[2] The governor appoints members of the Board, each of whom serve seven years. Today the Board of Regents is composed of 19 members, five of whom are appointed from the state-at-large, and one from each of the state’s 14 congressional districts. The Board elects a chancellor who serves as its chief executive officer and the chief administrative officer of the University System.
The Board oversees 26 institutions of higher education: fourresearch universities, four comprehensive universities, 9 state universities, and 9 state colleges.
Public funding for member institutions is distributed by the Board. Infiscal year 2003, the Board dispensed $1,697,287,628 of funding, authorized by theGeorgia General Assembly. In 2006, the budget grew to $5 billion.[3]
The Board consists of 19 voting members, serving seven-year terms. The Governor appoints, subject to Senate confirmation, one from each Congressional district and five at-large members.[4]
The Board appoints a chief executive for the system, known as achancellor. FormerGeorgia Governor andUnited States Secretary of AgricultureSonny Perdue became the 14th Chancellor in 2022.[5]
Previous chancellors includeCharles Mercer Snelling (1932–1933),Steadman Vincent Sanford (1935-1945),[6]Harmon White Caldwell (1948-1964),Erroll B. Davis Jr. (2006-2011), andHank Huckaby (2011-2017).[3][7][8][9]
Each individual institution has its own President and senior staff. The system of 26 colleges and universities includes theUniversity of Georgia, the state's flagship land-grant, sea-grant, space-grant, and sun-grant research university,Fort Valley State University, a historically black land-grant university,[10]Skidaway Institute of Oceanography, which specializes in coastal and marine environments and became part of the University of Georgia in 2013,[11] theGeorgia Institute of Technology, which has a strong emphasis in technology and engineering,Augusta University that includes theMedical College of Georgia, and theGeorgia Public Library Service, which distributes state funding to 385 libraries in the state's 61 public library systems.[12]
In 2024, Brian Kemp appointed David B. Dove, Dan Murphy, and Deep J. Shah to the board;Sarah-Elizabeth Langford and Jose R. Perez were appointed to theGeorgia Board of Economic Development.[13] Simultaneously, Smith was moved from an at-large district to the fifth district; Bradbury was moved from the eleventh to the sixth; and Evans from the sixth to the seventh.[14]
| Members of the Board (2024)[15] | District |
|---|---|
| Dan Murphy | Thirteenth |
| Tom Bradbury | Sixth |
| Deep J. Shah | At-Large |
| W. Allen Gudenrath | Eighth |
| Erin Hames (Vice Chair) | At-Large |
| Samuel D. Holmes | At-Large |
| Bárbara Rivera Holmes | Second |
| C. Thomas Hopkins Jr. | Third |
| James M. Hull | At-Large |
| Cade Joiner | Fourth |
| Patrick C. Jones | First |
| C. Everett Kennedy III | Twelfth |
| David B. Dove | Eleventh |
| Lowery Houston May | Fourteenth |
| Richard T. Evans | Seventh |
| Neil L. Pruitt Jr. | At-Large |
| Harold Reynolds (Chair) | Tenth |
| T. Dallas Smith | Fifth |
| James K. Syfan III | Ninth |
33°44′51″N84°23′25″W / 33.747434°N 84.390164°W /33.747434; -84.390164