The UGA Willson Center for Humanities & Arts is a showcase for faculty innovation and achievement. It facilitates intellectual exchange with the University and the public by the encouragement of interdisciplinary activity, which extends to the sciences and other orders of knowledge.

The Center is named for Jane Willson, the owner of Sunnyland Farms, Inc., the largest mail-order pecan business in the country, and her late husband Harry Willson, who was the chairman and CEO of Sunnyland Farms before his death in 2004.

The Willson Center for Humanities and Arts was founded as the Humanities Center in 1987 and named thereafter the Center for Humanities and Arts (1997) and the Jane and Harry Willson Center for Humanities and Arts (2005).

The Center coordinates a number of wonderful programs, including today’s special event with Ambassador James A. Joseph titled “Leadership as a Way of Being: Reflections on Nelson Mandela, Servant Leadership and Personal Renewal.” Joseph was the U.S. ambassador to South Africa from 1995 to 1999, the only person in that office to present his credentials to President Nelson Mandela. He served in the administrations of four presidents of the United States.

If you aren’t acquainted with the Willson Center, I encourage you to visit its website at www.willson.uga.edu to learn more about upcoming events. Our University is blessed to have such an incredible resource on campus – another reason it’s great to be a Georgia Bulldog!

Thanks to a generous gift from Carolyn Caudell Tieger (ABJ ’69), the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication has created the Carolyn Caudell Tieger Chair in Public Affairs Communications.

The Tieger Professorship and Chair will be the first of its kind within a college of journalism and mass communication. Its purpose is to prepare students to lead and compete effectively in the world of policy, politics and advocacy communication.

The Chair will begin as the Carolyn Caudell Tieger Professorship and will continue with an annual pledge to reach the $250,000 endowment threshold for a professorship. When combined with a commitment from her estate, the Carolyn Caudell Tieger Chair endowment will reach or exceed $1 million.

Tieger said her vision for the chair and its focus grew from her desire to use her experiences to help students get ahead on a professional track she had to forge herself with on the job training.

The Tieger Professorship and eventual Chair will provide leadership for a cohort of approximately 100 students enrolled in dual degrees in the Grady College and the School of Public and International Affairs.

A Washington communications veteran based now in Naples, Fla., Tieger is a public affairs strategists specializing in legislative issues, corporate and industry crises, litigation and reputation management. Her career spans the U.S. Congress, the White House, two international PR firms and her own company. As a partner and managing director of Porter Novelli's Washington office, she welcomed classes of Grady students to the firm on their annual PRSSA trip to the nation’s capital.

Named PR News Public Affairs Executive of the Year in 2006 and Washington PR Woman of the Year by Washington Women in PR in 2005, Tieger is also a member of the inaugural Grady Fellowship and was awarded the college's John Holliman Jr. Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2008. Tieger also has been appointed to serve on the Grady Board of Trust.

"My dream is that Grady and UGA might be a site of the next Presidential debates," Tieger said. "I am humbled and honored that from my parents' sacrifices that allowed me to graduate from Grady and go on to a wonderful career in D.C., I can help students with their ambitions today.

Thank you, Carolyn, for giving back to the University of Georgia in such a tremendous way. Your dedication to your alma mater is commendable and we appreciate your continued support. I look forward to what this Chair and Professorship will hold for Grady and SPIA students in the future.

Information for this post was sourced from UGA Public Affairs.