Valerie Dixon has been named the first University of Georgia Archway Professional for the Dublin-Laurens County Archway Partnership. The Archway Professional is an UGA faculty member stationed in an Archway community to support the community-identified priorities.
Dixon started Feb. 17 and attended the Dublin-Laurens Executive Committee meeting to review community data and establish priority areas for the partnership with UGA. Dublin-Laurens County became the newest Archway Partnership community last summer.
Dixon comes to Dublin-Laurens County after serving as the director for the St. Stephen’s Day School in Milledgeville since 2016. Prior to that, she was an educator at the GMC Prep School.
“I am excited to welcome Valerie to the team and to the work we are doing here. Valerie’s career has been focused on education and public service and her experience will be valuable in Dublin-Laurens,” said Jimmy Allgood, executive chairman of the Dublin-Laurens Archway Partnership Executive Committee.
A Milledgeville native, Dixon graduated from UGA with a bachelor’s degree in agriculture and a master’s degree in agricultural leadership from the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. She held her Georgia Educator Certification for 16 years and brings a wealth of leadership and communications experience to her role as Archway Professional.
Dixon will be working closely with Archway Partnership operations coordinators Sam Perren and Angel Jackson as she gets acclimated to her new role. Perren and Jackson have been leading Archway’s efforts in Dublin-Laurens since last summer.
The executive committee heard the results of community input gathered from several in-person listening sessions and hundreds of online surveys completed in the fall and winter. The results informed the committee’s decisions on priority areas for the Dublin-Laurens Archway Partnership: housing, workforce and economic development, quality of life, and infrastructure and planning. These priority areas will determine what projects are selected for UGA resources to spend time on going forward and provide an opportunity for citizens to get involved in the process.
The Archway Partnership is one of eight UGA Public Service and Outreach units dedicated to serving the state. It connects Georgia communities to the full range of higher education resources available at the university to address critical community-identified needs. Celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, Archway and UGA’s innovative approach to community engagement have won a number of national awards and garnered a return on investment of more than $7.6 million for Georgia communities last year. To learn more about the Archway Partnership visit archwaypartnership.uga.edu.