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ATLANTA — Sherman Day, a long-time Georgia State faculty member who held posts as professor, department chair, dean and for nearly two years as interim president, has died. He was 86.
Day, who died March 20, is remembered as a beloved leader and champion of faculty, staff and students not only at Georgia State, but at the University of North Georgia where he was named president in 1996 after filling the post on an interim basis. Day also later served as interim president of Bainbridge College and Gordon College in Barnesville, Ga.
Day joined the Georgia State faculty in 1969 after earning his Ph.D. in education at the University of Georgia. He was later named associate dean of the College of Education, and from 1977 to 1983 served as its dean.
In 1991, with the departure of Georgia State President John Palms, Day was named interim president of Georgia State. Tom Lewis, who was hired by Palms as vice president of external affairs for Georgia State just two months before Palms left for the University of South Carolina, remembers an air of uncertainty in the wake of Palms’ departure. That is, until the faculty, staff and students learned Day had been named interim president.
“Sherman was the perfect choice,” Lewis said. “With his demeanor and his genuineness, he just settled the whole campus down.”
Lewis remembers Day being as comfortable interacting with faculty and staff as he was with then-Gov. Zell Miller and other state leaders.
“And the students were drawn to him,” Lewis said. “He was the kind of person that, if he went into a room, there was calmness.”
In addition to roles with the University System of Georgia, Day’s career also included stints as director of the National Institutes of Correction and assistant director of the U.S. Bureau of Prisons, which took him to Washington, D.C. He also was managing director of Legacy and Olympic Programs for the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games in the run-up to the 1996 games.
Day is survived by his brother Gerald J. Day, sister Louann (Day) Greenwood, his children Sandra Day, Brad Day and Kristin Lester, 11 grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren. Funeral services were held March 24 in Dawsonville, Ga.