Chi Omegas Flourish

Athena Award to Technical College President

Flora Wilhite Tydings received the Athena Award from the Athens (Georgia) Area Chamber of Commerce on February 8, 2010. The award recognizes her efforts to develop leadership in women and her strong commitment to the community and business.

Since 2003, Flora has been president of the 51-year-old Athens Technical College, a two-year school offering certificates, diplomas, and associate degrees in fields ranging from biotechnology, nursing, and physical therapy, to automotive, legal, and accounting.

Under Flora’s leadership, the college has grown substantially. Enrollment has nearly doubled in her seven years as president and is now in excess of 4,000 full- and parttime students annually. She has additionally accelerated the school’s mission of supplying students with careerspecific training. Likewise, area businesses now look to Athens Tech to supply employees in numerous fields.

Flora earned a bachelor’s degree at Georgia Southern U, where she was initiated by Nu Kappa Chapter. She subsequently completed a master’s program at Mercer U and a doctorate in occupational studies at the U of Georgia.

When her career as an educator began, “I used chalkboard and chalk,” says Flora, “and it was sticky hot because we didn’t have air-conditioning yet in Central Georgia. Back then, I lectured students face to face in classrooms. Today, faculty and pupils can log onto their classes from home, and students receive one-on-one tutoring long-distance and look to their teachers for more than information: They want to know where to find answers.”

Flora notes the tremendous impact the Information Age has had on students, educators, and teaching. “We’re not disseminating information as much as we’re showing you how to get information,” she says. “There is not anything in the world you can’t find out by going to a computer.”

Echoing one of Chi Omega’s purposes, Flora notes that, “learning is lifelong . . . . You’ve got to constantly be staying ahead in order to be vibrant and employable. . . . And being a technical college, we have to stay on what I call the ‘bleeding edge,’ not even the cutting edge. We’ve got to know about new technology almost before companies put it into their workplace so we can begin training students on equipment, computers, or technology that will be used when they graduate.”

Among her community activities, Flora is a board member of the Athens Area Chamber of Commerce and chaired the 2008 annual Light The Night Walk to benefit The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.