Dr. Artesius Miller, Founder and CEO of Utopian Academy for the Arts Charter School Network
A visionary education executive, Dr. Artesius Miller, Ph.D., has worked for more than a decade to expand access to 21st century learning opportunities and career pathways for K-12 and college students across the state. His contributions to the success of students as Founder and CEO of Utopian Academy for the Arts Charter School Network (UAFA), Georgia’s first arts-focused public charter school system, have paved the way for children from low-income communities to earn full scholarships to Ivy League and other prestigious institutions, work as actors on Netflix shows, star in musicals at the Alliance Theatre, appear in Hollywood feature films, as well as to dance professionally with the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater and the Atlanta Ballet.
Under Dr. Miller’s leadership, UAFA made history in 2014 as the first school authorized by the State Charter Schools Commission of Georgia. To further increase education options for families, Dr. Miller soon expanded UAFA from a single middle school to four campuses, adding an elementary school in 2020 and a high school in 2021, both in Clayton, and a Fayette County middle school with a statewide attendance zone in 2023.
UAFA’s flagship middle school was recognized as “School of the Year” by the Georgia Charter Schools Association (GCSA). That same year Dr. Miller was also named as the first African American to lead the State Board of the Technical College System of Georgia (TCSG). The TCSG oversees the state’s technical colleges, adult literacy programs, and a host of economic and workforce development initiatives. Last year, more than 40,850 students graduated from the 22 colleges of the Technical College System of Georgia.