Page 24 - Laker Connection Fall 2009

Campus Update
Corlis Cummings named Vice President of Business and Operations
Clayton State University Interim President Dr. Thomas J. Hynes, Jr., has named Corlis P. Cummings vice president of Business and Operations for the University. Cummings had been serving as the University’s interim vice president of Busi- ness and Operations since Sept. 1, 2008.
Formerly special assistant to the president/executive in res- idence at Clayton State, and formerly the interim chancellor of the University System of Georgia, Cummings joined the Clayton State administration in October 2007. Prior to her appointment at Clayton State, Cummings and former Clayton State President
Corlis Cummings
Dr. Thomas K. Harden had identified a num- ber of opportunities wherein her expertise in higher education law and her past experience with the University System of Georgia could benefit the University. Since joining the Uni- versity, Cummings has assisted in the estab- lishment of the Office of Legal Affairs, served as interim director of Human Resources, and
managed various projects on behalf of Harden.
Board of Regents approves Archival Studies master’s program
The Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia (USG) has approved another landmark in the development of Clayton State University... a program literally 10 years in devel- opment.
The USG board gave its approval on Wednesday, June 10, to the establishment of a Master’s in Archival Studies for Clay- ton State, extending the University’s long-standing relationship with both the Georgia Archives and the National Archives and Records Administration’s (NARA) Southeast Region, a relation- ship that extends across not only a decade, but also two presi- dents and two interim presidents at Clayton State.
The archival studies program is the university’s seventh graduate-level program and the only program of its kind in the State of Georgia... a fitting circumstance, since the Georgia and NARA facilities, which will so greatly benefit Clayton State’s fu- ture master’s students, are also unique – the only co-located
state and federal archives facilities in the United States. Both the Georgia and NARA archives already employ Clayton State undergraduate students to help with research and archiving ma- terials.
The 45-semester-hour program will focus on archival stud- ies theory and methodology, as well as practice in the adminis- trative, legal, economic, historical, managerial and information studies areas, and will be housed in the University’s College of Information and Mathematical Sciences. Administration of the program will be by Clayton State’s School of Graduate Studies.
Course topics will include traditional and digital preserva- tion, introduction to electronic records, archives and technology, and materials arrangement and description of archival docu- ments. It is projected that 20 to 25 students per year will enroll in the program in 2010.
Spring Commencement honors Starr, Lee
Clayton State University honored two of the seminal figures in the history of the University and Clayton County, and said goodbye to President Dr. Thomas K. Harden, at its annual Spring Commencement ceremonies on Saturday, May 9.
In addition to Clayton State students receiving master’s, bachelor’s and associate degrees, the University awarded hon- orary doctorates to the late State Senator Terrell Starr and re- tired State Representative William J. “Bill” Lee. Both of these long-time public servants (Starr, 38 years in the Senate; Lee, 42 years in the House) were instrumental in the selection and
20 THE LAKER CONNECTION
location of a new University System of Georgia junior col- lege in Clayton County in the 1960s. Although Starr passed away unexpectedly on Sunday, Apr. 19, 2009, that college, now Clayton State University, honored
the long-time public servant by presenting his honorary doctor- ate posthumously to his son, Terry Starr.