Celebrations continue in Augusta over the University System Board of Regents shifting gears—after three years of controversy— by renaming Regents University to Augusta University. As one blogger wrote: “It’s a great day for the ‘A.’” Those especially doing a happy dance include perhaps the most persistent advocates of putting “Augusta” back into the university’s name: Augusta Chronicle Publisher Billy Morris and James Hull, the Regent from the home of the famed Masters golf tournament.
After the merger of the Medical College of Georgia and Augusta State University in 2012, the Regents dubbed the new institution Regents University. An outcry and backlash ensued. The Chronicle spoke for many in Georgia’s second largest city when it editorially charged that dropping “Augusta” from the university name is “a slap in the face” and that the new moniker is “completely devoid of meaning.” Many civic leaders spoke out and some worked behind the scenes to “Save the A.” Some regular donors even withheld money to the university in protest, and it didn’t help that then-President Ricardo Aziz vigorously endorsed the Regents name.
Now there is a new college president, Brooks A. Keel, so the Regents wisely and unanimously voted last week for a new beginning to help him re-establish frayed community ties.
But Bob Young, a GOP candidate for state House of Representatives District 119 (the seat of retiring Rep. Barbara Sims, R-Augusta) is still not fully satisfied with the renaming. The former Augusta mayor declares “there is still work to be done.” He says that, if elected, “I will work with the legislature and the Regents to develop an objective method for naming state institutions, so that no other constituency has to endure the lack of respect shown the good people of Augusta.”
