The University of Georgia

If our newly formed nation had to pick a Founding Father to transform higher education across America — and create a critical pillar of our fledgling democracy — Abraham Baldwin would have been an unlikely choice. The son of a Connecticut blacksmith, Baldwin was only 30 years old when he crafted one of the most groundbreaking documents in our nation’s early history — the charter that established the University of Georgia as the birthplace of public higher education in America.