Mills retiring as executive dean

It takes a lot of commitment and effort to lead a college, and GSC Oconee faculty and students have been fortunate to have one of the best leaders over the last several years.  Dr. Penny Mills, executive dean of GSC Oconee, will be retiring from her career in education effective June 1.

“I’ve had a great career,” said Mills. “I’m not going to stop working; I’m just going to move on to something else.”

Mills will be moving on to a third career working for the Athens-based nonprofit Bread for Life.  Bread for Life is a work readiness program that teaches students roll baking skills needed for jobs in the hospitality industry.

Born in Central Texas, Mills moved to Arizona at a young age.  While living in Arizona, Mills got her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in political science from the University of Northern Arizona in Flagstaff.  She would also get her doctorate in political science at the University of Arizona in Tucson.

Penny Mills' long career as a professor and dean at Gainesville State College is coming to an end. Her work as an educator, advocator and leader at GSC will not be forgotten by the faculty, staff and students that she is leaving behind.

Education was not Mills’ original career.  Prior to working for Gainesville State College, Mills spent 15 years working for the federal government.

In 1991, Mills started working at GSC as a political science professor, and quickly moved up the GSC hierarchy. At one point Mills had a job as part-time teacher and part-time within the administration before taking on full-time administrative duties.  She had previously gone for an interview at a school in Minnesota, but quickly accepted a job at GSC when they called.

“That was at the end of April and it was snowing,” Mills said of the interview in Minnesota.  “I thought ‘Gosh, I hope Gainesville makes the offer,’ and they did.”

Mills would stay at Oakwood until 2004 when she would start working at the Oconee campus.  Under Mills’ leadership, GSC Oconee saw the student body double as well as an increase of faculty and classes offered at the campus.

“When I came in 2004 we had six full-time faculty and 185 part-time faculty,” said Mills.  GSC Oconee now has over 50 full-time staff and around 80 part-time staff.

GSC Oconee now serves as a primary two-year campus for an 11 county district including Oconee and Athens-Clarke counties.  Mills sees this as important to the development of the campus and the increase of students.

“We’ve served a role here and brought an opportunity to students who couldn’t get into UGA,” said Mills.

While GSC is a two-year school, it provides a stepping stone for students wanting to go to UGA, Georgia Tech, or other schools in Georgia or across the nation.  “They [the students] are very well prepared by the time they get to UGA or whatever institution they go to,” said Mills.

Currently, there is no word on who will be replacing Dr. Mills as the Oconee campus dean.  Mills did include some words of advice to her successor in this job.  Aside from the numerous hours of work and the random things the successor will have to face throughout the career, “You always have to be ready to respond in a decisive way to anything that happens, and also develop a network of people you can depend on,” she

“You need to be aware of issues for the campus, be very vocal for this campus, advocate for this campus,” Mills said.

Another aspect of being the Executive Dean of the Oconee Campus is cooperation with the main campus in Oakwood.  Though approximately 50 miles separate the two campuses, Mills feels we should still continue to work together for the same cause.

“We need to really embrace this notion that we are two campuses, one college,” Mills said.

Mills speaks highly of everybody in the staff and administration.  Without the staff, GSC would be unable to operate.

“What I’m going to miss most are my colleagues,” said Mills.  “I’ll miss working with some talented people.”

One person in particular was Dr. Martha Nesbitt, president of Gainesville State College.

“Dr. Nesbitt is a wonderful person to work for,” said Mills.  For her work relationship with Nesbitt, Mills knew she was there, “If I needed to talk to her or if I needed some advice.”  The relationship was also a two way street where “At the same time she knows that she could depend on me.”

Mills also spoke highly of the students.  Talking about the student organizations, Mills believes “We’ve had good student leadership in the last two to three years.”  Mills also expressed her happiness about student responses to the budget cuts, and becoming active in the political system.

“I was so happy seeing those students engaged,” Mills said. “Having taught political science and knowing the value of the democratic process, everybody needs to be engaged.”

While Mills has been grateful to the students, faculty and staff, she also took the time to express her thanks to the city of Watkinsville and Oconee County.

“The community has been very good to us, and I think we helped serve them well,” she said.