The Board of Regents meeting at University of West Georgia on Tuesday gave President Beheruz Sethna a chance to brag about UWG’s past achievements - and he did - but he also outlined how these would help the entire university system meet its goals for the future.

The system has outlined a plan to achieve its goals in meeting the needs of today’s and future university students. Sethna examined each of those goals and how UWG would be a part of accomplishing those goals.

“We will ask not what you can do for us, but what we together, working with you, can do for the good of this university system and the state, the nation and this world,” Sethna said, paraphrasing former President John F. Kennedy.

He said UWG offers students academic excellence in a personal environment - its slogan.

“Our senior faculty, our most nationally renowned faculty, our department chairs, our deans, our vice president and I teach undergraduate students,” Sethna said.

Every student should be able to have their questions answered, to receive advice, to see a professor with years of teaching experience, he said. That is one key to offering excellence and providing personal teaching to all students, he said.

That is one reason he believes that although the students coming to UWG have average SAT scores, they accomplish feats expected from students at much more selective universities. He bragged about the UWG debate team that beat debate teams from Harvard, Northwestern and Dartmouth.

He spoke about UWG students’ undergraduate research papers selected for presentation at the national level.

“UWG has beaten every single university in the United States in terms of the number of papers accepted at the national collegiate honors council,” Sethna said.

Sethna noted that UWG has the potential to double its enrollment capacity, considerably helping the system in its goal of accepting a projected 100,000 new students by 2020.

He spoke of the creative ways in which UWG has been able to add new buildings to the campus - through private-public partnerships that helped add a residence hall in 2004 and are paying for the football stadium currently under construction.

“One facility, the Technology-Enhanced Learning Center ... that is the only building to cross the $5 million mark in our history, state-funded buildings,” he said.

He explained that 39 percent of all distance-learning from the system’s campuses is done through UWG alone.

Another goal the system is pursuing is to participate in the research and economic development of the entire state.

Sethna mentioned the AirTran call center on the campus that provides students with jobs and Carrollton with another business.

He noted agreements with universities in 19 countries that provide cultural enrichment to the school and the community, through exchange programs.

He mentioned a mentoring program with at-risk, black Carrollton Middle School students.

“(We have) partnerships all over,” he said.

The system wants to partner with other state education agencies and UWG has graduated an increasing number of teachers, up 30 percent since 2003, Sethna said. The majority, 86 percent, are employed in Georgia’s schools.

The goal of increasing the affordability of higher education has been accomplished by matching system funds for a need-based scholarship with UWG’s foundation funds, Sethna maintained.

He also noted that although UWG receives few dollars for each full-time student, the university has been able to use the funds efficiently, graduating high-quality, talented students.

“We are an intrinsic part of your strategic plan,” Sethna said. “We are equal to that

challenge.”