Albany Tech expected to award 1,700 at fall commencement

ALBANY — Albany Technical College’s fall commencement exercise will be held at 7 p.m. Dec. 6 at the Albany Civic Center. More than 1,700 students are expected to pick up degrees, diplomas, certificates or GEDs at the ceremony.

The fall class award break out is 230 associate’s degrees; 507 diplomas; 943 technical certificates of credit; 52 general education diplomas (GEDs).

The event’s speaker will be Savannah State University President Cheryl Dozier.

Dozier is the 13th president of Savannah State University. Since taking office in 2011, she has advanced the university’s mission of developing productive members of a global society through high quality instruction, scholarship, research, service, and community involvement.

Under her leadership, enrollment at SSU has reached an all-time high, fundraising has increased and several new alumni chapters have been chartered. Dozier successfully launched the Closing the Gap Fund, a program that provides financial support to students in their final semester to ensure they complete college.

She also has worked to expand the university’s global engagement, foster community partnerships and improve customer service. Dozier’s work as principal investigator for a $4 million grant from the National Institutes of Health has helped promote minority health research and strengthen SSU’s biomedical and behavioral science research infrastructure.

Dozier joined the SSU administration after a 17-year career at the University of Georgia. During her tenure at UGA, she served on the president’s cabinet as associate provost and chief diversity officer, was a professor in the School of Social Work, and served as assistant vice president for Academic Affairs at the Gwinnett University Center.

As a member of the African Studies faculty, she directed the Ghana Interdisciplinary Study Abroad Program for more than a decade. She is a faculty researcher with the UGA Foot Soldier Project for Civil Rights Studies and a faculty member of social work at SSU.

Dozier earned a bachelor’s degree from Fairleigh Dickinson University, a master’s in social work from Atlanta University (now Clark-Atlanta University) and a doctorate in social work from Hunter College at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.