Augusta University President Brooks Keel will retire next year after 40 years in higher education, the university announced Friday.
“Serving as the president of Augusta University has been the capstone of my career and one of the greatest honors of my life,” said Keel, an Augusta native who received his undergraduate and graduate degrees from AU’s two legacy institutions.
“The decision to leave as so many wonderful things are happening at Augusta University is bittersweet, but I have always wanted to end my career on a high note, at a point when First Lady Tammie Schalue and I can most enjoy the next chapter of our lives together.”
Keel, 67, will retire after more than 14 years in the University System of Georgia, where he served as president of Georgia Southern University for five years before joining Augusta University as president in July 2015.
“President Keel’s lasting legacy of service and leadership will impact Augusta University and its campus community for years to come,” University System of Georgia Chancellor Sonny Perdue said.
Keel took the reins at a critical time, succeeding former President Ricardo Azziz, the chief architect of the 2013 merger of Georgia Health Sciences University and Augusta State University into Georgia Regents University.
Within two months, the Board of Regents approved the new name, Augusta University.
As president, Keel led a comprehensive rebranding campaign to unify the institution and regain alumni, donor and community support, according to a statement.
The campaign began what has become eight straight years of enrollment growth, averaging 3% per year and totaling 25% since 2015. The university’s economic impact on the state has grown by nearly $1 billion, a 48% increase.
The university’s National Institutes of Health funding has increased 37% during Keel’s tenure and today AU is the only university in the country that has more than $50 million in annual NIH funding, the statement said.
“Since the day I set foot on campus, I have been so proud of the academic achievements, community engagement and career success of our students and alumni, who are the real reason we all do this job,” Keel said.
In 2018, the Georgia Cyber Innovation and Training Center opened at AU, adding the largest-single investment by a state in cybersecurity to the state’s only public academic medical center, anchored by the Medical College of Georgia.
That year Keel and Schalue moved out of Twin Gables into a private residence. The historic Summerville home that had housed medical college presidents since 1984 had become too costly to maintain.
More than 18,000 students have graduated from AU in one of 160-plus academic programs during Keel’s presidency. Forty of the programs were added since 2015, including cybersecurity engineering, animation, biomedical systems engineering, neuroscience and many others.
Over the last eight years, the university added the School of Computer and Cyber Sciences, AU Online, the School of Public Health, the four-year Medical College of Georgia campus in Savannah, a new College of Science and Mathematics building, two on-campus residence halls and a major expansion at the M. Bert Storey Cancer Research Building.
Most recently as interim CEO for AU Health System, Keel oversaw completion of a partnership with Wellstar Health System to form Wellstar MCG Health. The partnership will see Wellstar invest nearly $800 million in facilities and infrastructure, including a new hospital in Columbia County.
