Carson Bonner, Campus Carrier deputy news editor
Amerial Page, Campus Carrier staff writer
After seven years of being hosted on the campus of Berry College, the Georgia Governor’s Honors Program will now be changing locations. The Governor’s Honor Program, which is a summer enrichment program for gifted and talented rising high school juniors and seniors, will soon be hosted by Georgia Southern University, the university that submitted the highest bid for the program.
The purpose of GHP is to provide an opportunity for students to explore a specific academic field by allowing them four weeks on a college campus to learn more about their field of choice. These fields include engineering, music and the arts, science and world languages.
“In my experience, I felt like it really solidified the field I wanted to be in,” Scarlett Biggers, a GHP student in the communicative arts field, said. “It felt like I gained experience really unique to the program that other students might not have and was able to learn from students with similar interests as well as the instructors.”
The program’s instructors are considered experts in their field, providing the students with experience that they would not receive in an ordinary high school setting.
“What students learn is not taught in a [high school classroom] so it’s not a repeat of anything,” Chief of Staff Debbie Heida said. “It’s not a college credit course; it’s intended to foster a love of learning and give an in-depth time to explore an academic area.”
Part of the GHP process is interview day, where the 1600 semi-finalists would attend Berry College in February. According to the Berry College Office of Public Relations, this number is eventually narrowed down to the finalists, this year’s number being 636, a group that represented 71 school districts and 47 private institutions.
“While we cared about GHP, it was not just about summer use of facilities and generating funds for the college” Heida said. “We have had well over 100 students over the years attend Berry who either came to interview day [or attended] the program itself.”
Although GHP will no longer be hosted at Berry, the campus will still have opportunities for high school exposure. GHP offered an opportunity to gifted and talented individuals, but it actually replaced a vast number of summer programs that Berry hosted. All but a handful of athletic camps were suspended while GHP was hosted on campus, limiting the scope of interests that would ordinarily be represented in the goal to draw high schooler students to Berry.
“When GHP came here, we stopped doing all [camps] except GHP and some of our internal athletic camps,” Heida said. “We’ve got some folks working on new ideas that relate to some of our academic strengths that would invite high school students to be here for a couple weeks at a time.”
Upwards of 45 camps and other summer programs will be reinstated on Berry’s campus now that GHP will be hosted elsewhere. As a result of this, there will be no revenue loss and the school will be able to continue attracting high school students to the campus.