From educating future teachers to readying logisticians to preparing doctors, the 58-acre campus at the intersection of Prince and Oglethorpe avenues in Athens’ Normaltown district has been the training ground of a wide array of vital professions.
Before it became known as the University of Georgia’s Health Sciences Campus, the site was—at one time or another—the State Normal School, Coordinate College, and the U.S. Navy Supply Corps School.
More recently, the campus has been home to the UGA College of Public Health and the Augusta University/University of Georgia Medical Partnership. The first class of UGA School of Medicine students joins the campus this fall, and it will also be the future home of the Victoria Kay Ivester School of Nursing.
A Rich History
From 1891 to 1932, the campus served as one of Georgia’s first teacher colleges, The State Normal School, which gave the Normaltown district its name. Its oldest surviving buildings date from this period, including the Carnegie Library Learning Center.
Following the Normal School’s 1932 incorporation into UGA’s Department of Education (now the Mary Frances Early College of Education), the campus became known as Coordinate College and housed UGA freshmen and sophomore women.
In the 1950s, the federal government bought the property and transformed it into the U.S. Navy Supply Corps School. The Navy’s Supply Corps managed global supply chains, logistics, and support for the Navy.
Fast forward to the 21st century, when the federal government began closing dozens of its military installations, and an opportunity arose for the campus’s next reinvention. In 2011, the U.S. Department of Education deeded the site back to UGA, leading to its current status as the Health Sciences Campus.
A New Home for a Healthier Georgia
The campus first hosted classes for UGA’s College of Public Health and the newly formed Medical Partnership in 2012.
Since then, the College of Public Health has continued to thrive, now offering undergraduate degrees in health promotion and environmental health, as well as master’s and doctoral degrees in public health that cover infectious disease surveillance, program evaluation, and health policy. The college’s research and service address disaster prevention, care across the lifespan, and support for patients and their families, among others.
The scope of work at the Health Sciences Campus expanded in 2024 when Gov. Brian Kemp BSA ’87 announced his vision for an independent medical school at UGA. That vision included a proposed $50 million investment to construct a new building dedicated to medical instruction and research. That facility, which received financial backing from the Georgia General Assembly matched by an additional $50 million in private support, is nearing completion.
When the new medical education and research building opens in December, it will be the school’s primary educational facility. The 93,000-square-foot building will feature large active-learning classroom spaces, an anatomy lab, simulation and clinical skills centers, study spaces, and more. About a third of the building will be dedicated to biomedical research.
The new medical school is just one piece of the university’s vision to support the health of Georgians, and the state needs additional nurses as much as it needs more physicians.
While the Victoria Kay Ivester School of Nursing will officially launch its classes in East Athens in 2027, its future will be rooted in the Health Sciences Campus. Work has begun to design a new nursing school facility near Prince Avenue. The combination of medicine, nursing, and public health programs in one place ensures this historic plot becomes the epicenter of Georgia’s healthcare future.