Here’s the kind of profile I want you to construct in class:
Suggs striving for more challenges
By THE CLASS
Dr. Welch Suggs grew up in Decatur, Ga., long before it became a funky enclave on the east side of Atlanta. He went to Rhodes College in Memphis and studied philosophy to engage with big-picture questions about the universe before going to grad school at Missouri to become a journalist.
One of his favorite authors is Gary Smith, the best profile writer ever. Smith is well-known for interviewing 50 people before interviewing profile subjects, and the depth of information and artistry in his profiles is breathtaking. His favorite book is All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren, which is so intricately constructed that he can go back and reread it once a year and get new things out of it.
During his career he wrote for a number of magazines, and one of his favorite stories was about how the Lady Vols basketball team at Tennessee became one of the few women’s programs to generate more money in revenue than they spent. Coach Pat Summitt was an amazing woman, so this summer brought back a lot of memories.
Early on in his career, an editor told him that the only thing you ever owe your boss is a solid day’s work. It keeps him focused on both doing a good job in the moment and keeping his own career goals in mind. He prefers interviewing with a notebook over working with a recorder. He says it keeps his mind more focused on the interview and requires less work to transcribe afterward.
In 2005, he moved back to Georgia after a career in journalism unsure of his next steps, but a conversation with a source led him to enroll in the Ph.D. program at UGA’s Institute of Higher Education. He wasn’t sure whether he wanted to become a professor or an administrator when he started the program, but then-UGA president Michael F. Adams hired him for his staff in 2007. His worst class was a doctoral seminar called “Academic Programs”–to this day he is not sure what it was about.
After five years of teaching in the journalism department and the sports media program, he is thinking about next challenges. They will almost certainly involve writing a book, but he is not sure whether he will continue teaching or move to more of an administrative role. Should he leave UGA, he will miss North Campus and particularly the Abraham Baldwin statue, whose construction he oversaw while in the president’s office.
This summer, Suggs, his wife, and his two children traveled to his wife’s family’s cottage on Pelee Island in Lake Erie. It was incredibly quiet and restful.