Brenau University appointed Rosanne Short of Cornelia as the director of the Gainesville division of its Evening and Weekend College.  

Separate from the Gainesville-based Brenau Women’s College, the Gainesville evening and weekend program is coeducational, serving more than 400 north Georgia students who are seeking graduate and undergraduate degrees in a number of disciplines.

As the director of Gainesville evening and weekend program, Short has the particularly challenging task of connecting students with campus services they need. Her students generally do not arrive on campus until Saturdays or on weekdays in the late afternoon or evening – a time when campus offices are closed.  She called herself the “go-to” person for students, “the liaison between nontraditional students and the resources that they will need to succeed at Brenau.”  

“Rosanne has technical as well as people skills to do this new job very well,” said David Barnett, associate vice president for the Evening Weekend College. “She will be instrumental in the university’s long-term goal of re-aligning all its academic programs into broader graduate and undergraduate divisions.” 

Brenau currently has weekend and evening campuses in Gainesville and three other Georgia locations – suburban Atlanta, Augusta and Kings Bay. The more than 1,300 students enrolled on those campuses make up more than 50 percent of the university’s total enrollment.  

A native of Rabun County in northeast Georgia, Short is a 1981 graduate of Rabun County High School.  She graduated from Brenau Women’s College in 1991 with a bachelor’s degree in communication, specializing in public relations. She worked for a number of nonprofit organizations, including a shelter for battered women, Boys’ Home, the Foxfire Fund Community Board and as the executive director for the Northeast Georgia United Way.   

She returned to Brenau in 2002 as both a student an employee. She served two years as the faculty coordinator for the Online College, a role that included training and supporting faculty in technology they use to deliver course work and other student services in their Internet-based classes. Short also worked as office manager for the dean of the School of Fine Arts and Humanities. In 2006 she graduated with a master of science in organizational development from Brenau. 

Short and her husband, Daniel, live at the edge of a national forest in Habersham County. They have three adult children and one granddaughter. Their oldest daughter, Melissa, recently graduated from Brenau with a history degree.   

She also is a freelance writer whose works have appeared in Southern Living, the Foxfire Books and the Foxfire Magazine. And, while vacationing on her screened porch, she writes suspense fiction.