Dr. J. Whitney Bunting Biography

Dr. J. Whitney Bunting succeeded Dr. Robert E. Lee as president of Georgia College at Milledgeville on January 1, 1968. The year before coming to Georgia College, Bunting had been dean of the College of Business Administration at the University of Georgia and had served as the president of Oglethorpe College in Atlanta from 1952 to 1955. Bunting received his BS, MA, and PhD from the University of Pennsylvania where he majored in transportation.

In Bunting's early days as President, he worked to develop a master plan in order to expand enrollment, build dorms for the newly admitted male students, and construct new classroom space. He believed it was important to build a campus with a strong emphasis on faculty research and he worked to expand programs in business administration and science.

Bunting arrived at Georgia College six months after the college became a coeducational institution. With the admission of men, the college began to grow to its pre-Depression height. With the growth in enrollment, the Board of Regents began to fund more projects on the Milledgeville campus: Napier Hall was built; the Maxwell Student Union was completed; and the School of Education opened its newly remodeled William Heard Kilpatrick Center in 1977. Georgia College was able to offer courses throughout Central Georgia when satellite campuses were opened in Warner Robins, Macon, and Dublin.

Along with all of these changes, the mission of Georgia College began to change from being an all women's school serving all of Georgia, to a coeducational school with an emphasis on serving people living in Middle Georgia. Many of the students attending Georgia College in the 1970s commuted on a daily basis from cities throughout Middle Georgia, leaving the residential life at the college a shadow of what it had been. Annual events that had been honored by students throughout the history of the college began to disappear in the 1970s. The once highly anticipated “Golden Slipper” ceased to be a part of student life; the student newspaper, the Colonnade, publishing weekly from its inception in 1924 became a bi-monthly publication; and the yearbook, the Spectrum, became a collage of unlabeled photographs.

While student life on campus changed dramatically, Bunting expanded the educational opportunities available through the college. In 1969 the college began offering a Master of Business Administration and in 1971 a Masters Degree in History was offered for the first time. Other Masters degrees offered during Bunting's administration include: management, public administration, home economics, social administration, biology, and psychology.

Due to Bunting's failing health, the college began a search for a new president and hired Dr. Edwin G. Speir in 1981.