When Cassidy Head arrived at the University of Georgia in 2022, she already understood the value of public service. Growing up in the middle Georgia town of Hawkinsville, she watched her parents dedicate themselves to their community through careers in education and local government. Service, leadership and community involvement were simply part of everyday life.
But it was her experience at UGA, particularly through the Archway Partnership and the university’s broader public service network, that transformed her understanding of what meaningful community engagement looks like.
“As a first-year student, my main goal was to prepare for medical school,” Head said. “I knew I wanted to help people, but I didn’t yet understand how important relationships and community trust are to that work.”
Head graduated from UGA in May with a degree in biological sciences, leaving with not only a stronger commitment to rural medicine, but also a much deeper understanding of how service, collaboration and community engagement shape healthy communities.
One of her defining experiences was serving as the inaugural recipient of the Elizabeth V. Wight Southwest Georgia Internship, a program facilitated through the Archway Partnership that places students directly into rural communities to work on locally identified priorities. Through units like Archway, UGA Public Service and Outreach connects faculty, staff and students with communities across Georgia to address locally identified challenges. UGA students like Head gain valuable experiential learning while contributing to real-world impact in the process.
Her time with Archway became less about solving problems and more about learning how communities work together to address them.
“That was a big shift for me,” she said. “Archway taught me that you don’t enter a community with solutions already decided. You start by listening.”
Through the internship, Head attended community meetings, met with local leaders and worked alongside Archway staff and partners across southwest Georgia. In the process, she began to see how PSO connects university expertise with community priorities in ways many students never fully experience.
Head worked closely with Archway Operations Coordinator Sharon Liggett, touring hospitals, meeting physicians and engaging with local organizations throughout the region. Liggett said one of the most meaningful parts of the experience was watching Head begin to understand the deeper relationship between public service and community trust.
“Cassidy came into the internship with a genuine desire to serve others,” Liggett said. “What really stood out was how quickly she embraced the importance of listening, relationship-building and understanding communities before trying to help solve challenges. She began to see public service not just as an action, but as a long-term commitment to people and place.”
That understanding grew through experiences both inside and outside health care settings.
While touring hospitals and meeting physicians reinforced Head’s interest in rural medicine, conversations with community leaders, superintendents and parks and recreation staff broadened her perspective on the interconnected nature of community well-being. Discussions about childcare access, youth programming and quality-of-life initiatives helped her recognize how deeply health care is tied to education, economic opportunity and community support systems.
“Archway brings people together who don’t always sit at the same table,” Head said. “That collaboration is what makes real progress possible.”
The internship also gave Head the opportunity to help organize and support a rural pre-med student tour that introduced other UGA students to health care systems and community life in rural Georgia. Drawing from her own experiences in the internship, Head helped shape a program designed to expose students to the realities and opportunities of practicing medicine in rural communities.
For Head, helping coordinate the tour reinforced how meaningful experiential learning and community engagement can influence students’ understanding of service and career pathways.
“I wanted students to experience what I experienced,” she said. “You can hear about rural health care shortages in a classroom, but when you actually meet the people and communities doing this work, it becomes real in a completely different way.”
Liggett said Head’s role in the tour reflected how much she had grown during her time with Archway.
“She went from learning how community engagement works to helping create those experiences for other students,” Liggett said. “That’s one of the most rewarding parts of programs like this—seeing students develop the confidence and perspective to become leaders and advocates themselves.”
For Head, the experience also revealed the scale and reach of UGA’s public service mission. Through Archway and the Public Service and Outreach division, she saw how the university empowers students to engage directly with communities, build relationships and apply what they learn in ways that create meaningful results.
“I think before this experience, I understood public service more as helping people one-on-one,” Head said. “Now I understand how important it is to build partnerships, connect resources and really understand communities if you want to create lasting change.”
Head was accepted into the Mercer University School of Medicine and recently was named a Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta Rural Pediatric Scholar, a program supporting students committed to serving rural communities.
Looking back, Head described her experience with Archway and Public Service and Outreach as one of the most transformative parts of her time at UGA.
“This experience completely changed how I think about service,” she said. “It showed me that public service is really about relationships, collaboration and being willing to invest in communities for the long term. That’s something I’ll carry with me wherever I go.”
