The Brenau University Board of Trustees affirmed the framework for a $40 million to $55 million strategic plan to transform the university into the premier private doctoral degree-granting liberal arts institution in the Southeast with an exemplary national reputation and a global reach. 

The plan envisions doubling enrollment at the university to about 5,000 students by 2025 through the addition of new degree programs, including doctorates; shortening the path for students between college admission and terminal graduate degrees; and enriching cross-discipline curriculum based on four “portals of learning” that will become the model for liberal arts education in the future. 

Brenau Trustees Chairman Peter D. (Pete) Miller said such growth also will require extensive facilities renovation and construction, addition of top faculty in key academic and research disciplines, and maintaining the highest academic standards for students. 

“We believe Brenau University can fill a void that now exists for leadership in liberal arts graduate and undergraduate programs,” said Miller. “We believe this university will set the standard by which other liberal arts institutions will be measured.” 

Brenau President Ed Schrader said a key differentiator for Brenau will be its unique “portals of learning” through which future Brenau graduates must pass to acquire a well-rounded liberal arts education. The portals symbolize the university’s cross-disciplined approach to be certain that students expand their world views by becoming empowered citizens of the global community, enhancing their communications and language skills, enlivening their academic, scientific and social curiosities, and engaging their imaginations through appreciation for the arts.  

“With the ‘portals of learning’ approach, we will provide students with an excellent foundation for living extraordinary lives in the world of tomorrow,” said Schrader. “Although I hesitate to use the term, this is a ‘market-driven’ initiative designed to meet realistically the demands future students will place on higher education. Just as a high school diploma does not mean the same for us as it did for our parents’ generation, a four-year college degree will not be a meaningful for future students as it is for their parents.” 

Key, too, Schrader added, is Brenau’s plan to break down the existing model of the time it takes to get both undergraduate and increasingly in-demand graduate degrees. “The ‘portal’ approach will enable us to deliberately move students from high school through undergraduate studies and on through graduate- and professional-degree programs at a faster pace without sacrificing the university’s dedication to the quality of education.”  

Currently Brenau has 2,578 students enrolled. Of that total, 1,917 (about 75 percent) are undergraduates at the Women’s College, in online programs and in Evening and Weekend College programs in Gainesville, Atlanta, Augusta and Kings Bay. About 25 percent are graduate students. By 2025, when student body totals reach 5,000, about 50 percent will be enrolled in advance degree programs, Schrader said. 

Brenau Women’s College will remain intact as a “signature feature” of Brenau’s undergraduate offerings, Schrader said, but by enrolling fewer than 1,000 students, it will become more selective with high academic and social expectations of its students. The balance of the Brenau Undergraduate Colleges component will combine the coeducational Evening and Weekend College and Online College undergraduate programs. 

Schrader said that the future demands on higher education will result in addition of a wide range of graduate programs, including clinical doctorates in occupational therapy, nursing, psychology and other professions; doctorates in education; expanded masters programs in education, nursing education and administration, interior design, and profession-focused M.B.A. degrees in disciplines like project management and health care administration; and terminal M.F.A. and Ph.D. tracks  in the arts and other academic disciplines.  

The plan also includes continuation of Brenau Academy on the Gainesville campus as a residential preparatory school experience for young women that not only prepares them for college admission but also enables them to enter college at advanced levels. 

Brenau’s future also could involve creation of new health care programs. Currently the trustees are evaluating establishment of a medical college to grant M.D. degrees for future physicians, Schrader said. That idea, which is currently under study by trustees, is not included in the plan for the core university and will not be decided until the fall of this year at the earliest.  

Currently the university’s budget is about $40 million annually, which translates into about $80 million in economic impact. By 2025 Schrader said that impact will reach at least $160 million in today’s dollars.  

“These are exciting times for Brenau University and, indeed, for Gainesville, Hall County and the state of Georgia,” said Miller. “We are not only talking about a university that will be the crown jewel of our community and this region, but one that will contribute substantially to our economy.”

ABOUT BRENAU – Founded in 1878, Brenau University currently enrolls about 2,600 students in graduate, undergraduate and preparatory programs in the Academy; Women’s College; Evening and Weekend College; and Online College. The main campus of the Georgia-based liberal arts institution is in Gainesville with satellite campuses located in suburban Atlanta, Augusta and Kings Bay. Brenau’s 2008 ranking as the 10th-best higher education value in the Southeast by U.S. News & World Report marks the university’s third consecutive year in that position for the magazine’s America's Best Colleges guidebook.