The Big Merger: what was the rush?
Is the merger of Augusta State University with Georgia Health Sciences University a good thing? Maybe. Maybe not. We don’t know.
And neither does anyone else.
One of the regents said last week that the sudden rush to merge learning institutions across the state should wait. Someone should determine whether or not the mergers would actually be beneficial, or if they will save money. That call made headlines for a few hours and then was crushed by the oncoming merger freight train.
On January 5, 2012, GHSU’s website announced “ASU/GHSU consolidation proposed.” Town Hall meetings were announced to discuss the proposed merger. Who knew that by the time the meetings rolled around less than a week later, the merger would already be a done deal? So with the vote already over, what was the point of the meetings? Probably to tell people what that lone regent wanted to know, except without the benefit of any solid facts or the results of any study of what the intended (and unintended) results of this merger might be.
There’s an old Latin phrase that applies here: Abusus non tollit usum. In plain English, abuse is no argument against proper use. Abuse of a drug, for example, is no argument against its proper use. What some view as the failed or dysfunctional merger of Augusta and Richmond County, likewise, doesn’t mean this merger is a bad idea. But it does have the unmistakable and undeniable feeling of a rush job. And it is, after all, the merger of two very different institutions, the adoption of an apple into the family of an orange. Is it a good idea? Again, in the rush to consolidate, no one really knows.
Then there’s the issue of the name this new blended family will assume. It’s no secret that the ink is barely dry on what has not been a well-received name change at GHSU. At the same time the newly minted GHSU was spending millions of dollars to leave MCG in the dust, they issued a flurry of pink slips to cut costs. The message some heard: we have to get rid of human beings and cut back on patient care to free up the funds for new stationery.
Now that stationery too is destined for the recycling bin, along with the millions spent to print it, replace expensive signs, redesign logos, et cetera. What will the name be this time? Who knows, but here’s an observation: there is not an institution of higher learning in the nation with a 4-letter acronym that really works except perhaps UCLA. The only exceptions are 1-letter additions to existing 3-letter abbreviations. Like USCA just across the river. And like MUSC in Charleston.
Yes, MUGA would have been the perfect name for MCG – except for Augusta’s well-documented Athens paranoia. The result was a name that sounds like a high school acronym (think Greenbrier High School, for one) with a U tacked on for prestige. That’s not something we thought of; that’s what MCG students and employees have told us.
And so, an institution that had the same name for parts of three centuries is about to have its third name within less than one year. Without the merger, we predict people would have still been calling MCG MCG – not GHSU – long into the future. Meanwhile, the not-so-distant change from Augusta College to Augusta State University – and from AC to ASU – was assimilated into the local lexicon quickly and smoothly. It’s the 3-letter rule at work.
And now both schools are presumably going to change their names yet again. Millions of additional dollars will be spent that have nothing to do with either education or patient care. That makes the stillborn change to GHSU look particularly shortsighted and wasteful. If this merger was such a brilliant idea, why did no one anticipate it even a few short months ago?
We’ve privately called GHSU president Dr. Ricardo Azziz a boat-rocker since he blew into town about two years ago. Some leaders take months, sometimes up to a year, to take the pulse of an organization before they start making wholesale changes. Dr. Azziz began rocking the boat right away. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but with the benefit of hindsight, we can say that spending millions upon millions on something as superficial as changing labels – and then turn around and do it again a year later – is the very definition of “haste makes waste.”
Hopefully this hastily announced merger won’t be even more wasteful haste.