Wesleyan aims to improve connectivity to Macon, services to students

Wesleyan was founded in 1836 and became the first school in the world chartered to grant degrees to women. The women’s college serves roughly 700 students every year.

Meaghan Blight became the university’s president in July 2022. She oversaw the college’s latest strategic plan to increase community involvement, ensure financial viability and promote innovation in teaching and learning.

The strategic plan provides a roadmap for the different arms of Wesleyan, and makes sure “everyone sings from the same song sheet,” she said.

Part of that community connection is the college’s plans to open a charter school, which they announced last month. If approved, the school would open to students in the fall of 2026.

The charter school would serve boys and girls in kindergarten through 12th grade and be housed on Wesleyan’s campus. Blight said the school would “be an open access charter school” and fills the demand for high-quality charter schools in Macon.

She added the charter school would help Wesleyan be financially sustainable moving forward.

“We just see this as this great symbiotic relationship to not only share our space, share some costs that are incurred by taking care of this huge campus, allowing us to focus our mission to do what we do so well, which is educating small groups of young women,” Blight said. 

Over the past year, the college has expanded their facilities and career services in order to attract more students as universities face “an enrollment cliff,” Blight said.

Wesleyan put $4 million into reopening one of their residence halls, a step on the college’s part to provide more beautiful spaces on campus, she said.

The school had its CEO Institute at its downtown leadership lab, where students can gain experience working in a corporate environment and learn from mentors. There’s also an entrepreneur lab in the library, which offers tools for prototyping, and an alumni-funded pitch contest where students can materialize their business ideas.

“All of those things are things that we are doing here to try to make sure that the small piece of the pie that we are able to recruit … that we are a desirable option for these young women who are considering their higher education journey.”

The college has also focused on recruiting athletes, now for their new beach volleyball and hockey programs, the latter of which would be the first women’s program in Middle Georgia.

Blight said athletes often end up being high-performing students and take up leadership roles post-grad, making it a “no-brainer” to try and recruit as many as possible.

“I’ve really realized what it is that we are, what’s our superpower, which is educating small class sizes,” she said. “Our strength is ensuring that they have wraparound, holistic care.”