Brenau national ranking: 'Great Place to Work'

GAINESVILLE - A national professional publication has picked Brenau University as a great place to work, and one long time employee says she is not surprised.

Brenau is on the 'Great Colleges to Work For' list for the second year in rankings released by the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Brenau is among the top 10 small universities for its employee retirement benefits, life insurance benefits and employee fair treatment.
Associate Registrar Liz Miller took the Chronicle survey that led to the ranking; she's been at Brenau 20 years.

"The administration is very supportive to the faculty and staff here and it's just a good atmosphere," Miller said. "It's always been a good place to work, the atmosphere has always been homey and family oriented."

Miller was one of 41,000 employees on 247 campuses who participated in the Chronicle's employee survey, which determined the rankings.

In the three segments of the survey that differentiate small, medium and larger institutions, only one other university, Georgia Tech, made the top 10 in the same categories as Brenau. Emory University and Kennesaw State University ranked in the top 10 in some of the other 23 categories of the survey. East Georgia College in Swainsboro was the only two-year Georgia institution to be recognized.


Wayne Dempsey, Brenau executive vice president and chief financial officer, said he found it particularly gratifying that Brenau ranked as well as it did in the three benefits-and-compensation-related categories, given the backdrop of an economy that is in recession and a higher education employment sector that has seen many institutions cutting back on benefits.

"We work very hard to ensure that the university provides the best benefits and compensation that it can for its employees," said Dempsey. "This proves that our employees recognize the effort and appreciate it."

Brenau offers full-time faculty and administrative employees a choice of retirement packages that include both a 401(k) tax-deferred program and a 403(b), a similar program for employees of not-for-profit organizations.

It matches employee contributions up to 8 percent of the employee's base salary depending in the time the employee has worked for the university or in the not-for-profit or educational sector. The university also provides life insurance, free of charge, equal to 2 1/2 times the employee's base annual salary to a maximum of $500,000.