Dr. Jermaine Whirl is the 5th president of Augusta Technical College (ATC), a unit of the Technical College System of Georgia. The college is accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACSCOC) and offers programs on four campuses: Augusta, Grovetown, Thomson/McDuffie, and Waynesboro. Dr. Whirl is a student-success-oriented, collaborative, innovative, engaged, and passionate leader who simply desires to see students succeed, colleagues develop, and local and regional economies grow.
Before accepting the presidency at ATC, Dr. Whirl served as the Vice President for Learning and Workforce Development at Greenville Technical College. In this role, he served as the chief academic and continuing education officer and he was responsible for the leadership of the college’s credit and non-credit programs serving approximately 20,000 students a year on five campus and three training centers. He also served as the college’s Vice President for Economic Development and Corporate Training where he served as the official economic development liaison to the Greenville Area Development Corporation, Upstate SC Alliance, and the SC Department of Commerce helping to recruit over 20 companies over a four-year span. Dr. Whirl holds the special distinction of being the first and only chief academic officer in the SC Technical College System to author a bachelor’s degree with full approval by the SC Commission on Higher Education.
Additional administrative experience includes serving Gwinnett Technical College as Dean of both the School of Business Sciences and School of Art & Design; Executive Director/Dean of Adult Education at Savannah Technical College; full-time faculty member within the Parker College of Business Administration at Georgia Southern University, and full-time faculty member at East Georgia State College. Dr. Whirl also held adjunct faculty positions at Charleston Southern University, Toccoa Falls College, and South University in the areas of economics, leadership, and business management. His higher education career began at Winthrop University where he first served as an academic advisor/tutor to provisionally admitted students in the LEAP program, and he then served in the office of institutional advancement and alumni relations where he led the student alumni council.
Dr. Whirl, an Aspen Fellow, is a nationally sought-after, award winning, authority in workforce and community college education. Dr. Whirl is a graduate of Furman University’s Diversity Leadership Institute (DLI), the SC Economic Development Institute, the American Association of Community College (AACC) Future President’s Institute, Leadership Greenville Class 44, and Leadership Gwinnett Class of 2016. Over the years Dr. Whirl has served on regional and national boards, taskforces, and committees for organizations such as TD Bank, the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, and Community Works, while serving as a thought leader on national media outlets such as Inside Higher Ed, AACC 21st Century Center, ACCT Perspectives Now, and Insights into Diversity Magazine. His work has been acknowledged through multiple awards and recognitions given by GSA Business Review Magazine, Greenville Business Magazine, The League of Innovation in Community College Association, and alumni awards from Charleston Southern University, Georgia Southern University, and Winthrop University.
Within the CSRA he serves on the Augusta Metro Chamber of Commerce Board, United Way of the CSRA Board, holds an honorary board membership with the Morris Museum of Art, and is a member of the Rotary Club of Augusta.
A Charleston, South Carolina native and second-generation technical college graduate, he earned his associate of arts degree at Trident Technical College, a bachelor’s degree in economics at Winthrop University, a master of business administration degree at Charleston Southern University, a second master’s degree in adult education & community leadership at Armstrong State University (now, Georgia Southern University), and a doctorate in organizational leadership at Valdosta State University.