Georgia College and State University

Georgia College

Motto	Georgia's Public Liberal Arts University
Type	Public
Established	1889
Endowment	$33,8 million (End of FY 2014)
President	Steve Dorman
Administrative staff	393 (Fall 2014)
Students	6,230
Undergraduates	5,927
Postgraduates	303
Location	Milledgeville, Georgia, United States
Campus	Milledgeville
Colors	Blue & Green
Mascot	Bobcat
Affiliations	University System of Georgia
Website	www.gcsu.edu

Georgia College (Georgia College & State University or GCSU) is a public liberal arts university in Milledgeville, Georgia, United States, with approximately 7,000 students. A member of the University System of Georgia, Georgia College was designated Georgia's "Public Liberal Arts University" in 1996 by the Georgia Board of Regents.

Georgia College was chartered in 1889 as Georgia Normal and Industrial College. Its emphasis at the time was largely vocational, and its major task was to prepare young women for teaching or industrial careers. In 1917, in keeping with economic and cultural changes in the state, Georgia Normal and Industrial College was authorized to grant degrees, the first of which was awarded in 1921. In 1922, the institution's name was changed to Georgia State College for Women. The University has been a unit of the University System of Georgia since it was formed in 1932. The name was changed to Women's College of Georgia in 1961, and, when the institution became coeducational in 1967, it became Georgia College at Milledgeville. The name was shortened to Georgia College in 1971. In August 1996, the Board of Regents approved a change of name to Georgia College & State University, and a new mission as Georgia's Public Liberal Arts University.

The central campus comprises about 43.2 acres (174,000 m²) in the center of Milledgeville, near the grounds of the former state capitol. The campus contains buildings of red brick and white Corinthian columns, representative of those constructed during the pre-Civil War Antebellum period, when Milledgeville was the capital of Georgia. Bell Hall and Russell Auditorium are credited to architect J. Reginald MacEachron. Atkinson Hall (1896) is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Other historic buildings on the campus include Sanford Hall (1938), Russell Auditorium (1926), Ina Dillard Russell Art Museum (the original section of the library) (1932), Chappell Hall (1963) (on the site of an earlier Chappell Hall built in 1907), Parks Hall (1911), Terrell Hall (1908), Maxwell Student Union (1972), Beeson Hall (1937), Porter Hall (1939), Lanier Hall (1926), Ennis Hall (1920), and Herty Hall (1954 and expanded in 1972).