James Nov-Dec 2023 web - Flipbook - Page 31
each other a lot and form a great
community. The key is to keep the
price very affordable and then to
keep their debt levels down low. So
our overall debt is about the same as
the student who’s graduating from
the University of Georgia. We provide lots of scholarship and aid,” the
president notes.
A n i m al L i f e
As for the deer? “That’s as much
mythical as anything. But I did have
some visitors with me this last weekend, and as we drove around campus and looked at different things,
they were stunned by the number
of deer they saw. So we do have a
healthy deer population on campus.
And lots of other critters as well. And
of course we have Angus beef cattle
and dairy cows around.”
Briggs also says there are about
80 horses on campus, sheep, “lots of
skunks this year,” turkeys and most
farm animals you can name. Then
there’s animals that come with a
K I L PAT R I CK COMMO NS
huge, protected ecosystem in the
north Georgia foothills. (“Twice the
size of Manhattan Island is the way I
tell my friends up north,” said Briggs).
All of this contributes to an
astonishing park-like atmosphere for
the campus that is generally open to
the community. “We made an intentional decision to be good neighbors
with our community a couple of
decades ago. And so we have thousands of visitors to campus every
week. We have hundreds of people
coming to take professional pictures
or wedding pictures. We are an
unbelievably photographed campus.
We provide great recreational opportunity for those who live in Rome and
Floyd County, and people take great
advantage of it.”
Public & Private Partnerships
The college just built trails along
the edge of campus and along the
Oostanaula River. It partnered with
the city which built the trails, and
Berry gave them access to the land
to build to extend the running trails
on campus. Berry also just opened
N OV EM B E R /D EC E M BER 2023
31