SAVANNAH, Ga. () — A new chapter is beginning at Savannah State University (SSU), with a new leader.

Dr. Jermaine Whirl is stepping into the role as the university’s 14th president, bringing a bold vision for the future while honoring the school’s long-standing legacy.

“Number one, we want to be a first choice,” Whirl said. “We have some phenomenal HBCU in the state of Georgia. but anybody who’s thinking about going to an HBCU, I hope that they think of savannah first.”

 April 1 marked his first day leading Georgia’s first public historically black college and university.

“We have to grow in enrollment,” he said. “Secondly, we want to offer and expand our program offerings. We want to get to doctoral degrees.  Third, we want to be an anchor institution.  When you think of some of our larger institutions, they’re embedded throughout the community, throughout the city.”

He added, “Social economic mobility, being able to move our graduates, when they come here and when they get that first job, we want them to be able to make good earnings. We want them to have a stable career.”

Whirl said his top five focus points include student success, culture, providing an engaging learning environment, storytelling and community impact.

They are priorities that he said he believes will help reach his goal, which is for SSU to be among the top 25 HBCU’s in the next 10 years. He said one way to do that is to enhance the student experience.

“I think it serves for listening to the students,” Whirl said. “There’s a lot of things that students want to do, and so really engaging them will be working on strategic planning  this upcoming year, and that will really  provide a lot of opportunities for focus groups, town halls for us to hear from students, to know what it is that they want, and then building a plan to ensure that we can fulfill that.”

He told he is eager to be a part of the Savannah community, but more importantly ensuring tiger pride is represented across the city.

“This institution has to me has been a sleeping giant,” Whirl said. “And we have a very proud tiger that’s out there that’s going to start rowing very, very loudly.  And that’s in the multiple ways.”