Dr. Carl Patton

Dr. Carl V. Patton, President of Georgia State University, received the 1998 Civic Leadership Award from BOMA Atlanta.

Below is an article about Carl published in the February/March 1999 issue of the BOMA Atlanta Newsletter.

The Civic Leadership Award may be presented annually to any citizen of metropolitan Atlanta who has made an outstanding and continuing contribution to the progress and growth of our city and its people. While the basis for earning this award is on the merits of civic contribution and service, emphasis should be given, if possible, to a citizen who has demonstrated an alliance with the office building industry which BOMA serves.

For 1998 BOMA Atlanta recognized DR. CARL V. PATTON, Georgia State University President for the CIVIC LEADERSHIPAWARD. An urban planner and academic leader, Dr. Patton has helped Georgia State University to develop its downtown imprint, construct new buildings, and preserve and renovate others. He led a campaign to renovate the Rialto Theater, which today is a first-class performing arts center and a key to downtown revitalization. Dr. Patton has made Georgia State University a highly visible, fully incorporated downtown presence with students learning, working, and living in the downtown community.

Dr. Patton has encouraged the university to build new academic strengths, particularly as a think tank for urban policy issues. In 1996 Georgia State established a new School Policy Studies, which united the university’s public policy with several notable research centers. In 1998 the School of Policy Studies was awarded a $15 million grant to reform the Russian tax system. This grant is the largest single research award in Georgia State University’s history.

One of Dr. Patton’s early goals as president was to increase federal research funding to qualify Georgia State for Carnegie Research II status by the year 2000. The university achieved this goal in 1997, receiving $21.6 in federal support, up from $12.7 million just three years earlier.

As president, Dr. Patton has focused on making the Georgia State experience more complete. In 1996 he oversaw the opening of the Georgia State University Village, the university’s first residence halls. He hired Lefty Driesell to coach the men’s basketball team in 1997, adding excitement to university athletics. In 1998 the university opened a new student center and gained approval to build a $40 million classroom building, a $32 million recreation center, and a $10 million North Metro Center in Alpharetta.

Dr. Patton came to Georgia State after serving as vice president for academic affairs at the University of Toledo. Prior to that, he held teaching, research, and administrative positions at the University of Illinois and the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee. He holds the B.S. degree in community planning from the University of Cincinnati, masters degrees in urban planning and public administration from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and the masters and Ph.D. in public policy from the University of California-Berkeley.