Outgoing Oglethorpe President Larry Schall received the Brookhaven Gateway Monument Award from the City of Brookhaven during a City Hall virtual meeting on Tuesday.

Brookhaven Mayor John Ernst

Brookhaven Mayor John Ernst presented the award to Schall, recognizing his “phenomenal” and “great tenure” at Oglethorpe. Schall is stepping down at the end of June, after 15 years at Oglethorpe.

“Thank you so much for your friendship and for your leadership,” said Mayor Ernst.”[Oglethorpe] brings so much to the city—so much life and vitality. You can’t be a great city unless you have a university—and you can’t be a fabulous city without a fabulous university. And that is Oglethorpe.”

Councilwoman Linley Jones added, “You have done such a marvelous job at Oglethorpe in creating a vibrant, diverse student body that is such a wonderful contribution to the City of Brookhaven. Thank you for all you’ve done for the City.”

“Thank you, all. It’s been terrific,” said President Schall in response. “It’s been a fabulous 15 years here and part of our success is just the extraordinary partnership we’ve had with all of you [at City of Brookhaven].”

“Oglethorpe’s in great shape,” he continued. “When I came, we had 160 students in the freshman class and this year we’ll have about 450, the biggest class ever.”

Earlier this month, it was announced that Dr. Schall will become the President of the New England Commission of Higher Education (NECHE) in July.  NECHE is the accrediting agency for 200+ colleges and universities across the New England region.