On February 13, 1942, four GSC freshmen etched their names in the wet cement of the newly constructed driveway entering the campus from the end of Glessner Street. Six decades have passed since these students left their mark, but their names are still visible: Bill Davis (Desoto), John McCrea (Atlanta), Bob Logan (Quitman) and Jimmy Carter (Plains).

Pictured is Jimmy Carter (back left) and the freshman basketball team.

On October 11, 2002, the announcement came that President Carter had been awarded the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize. And on January 28, 2003, President Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalyn (GSW 1946) announced in the Wheatley Administration Building Rotunda that $370,000 of the Nobel Peace Prize Award would go to the Rosalynn Carter Institute for Human Development at Georgia Southwestern State University.

Back in 2017, Carter returned to campus to etch his signature in a piece of concrete at the Presidential Plaza dedication ceremony. This etching mirrors the one Carter made in the wet cement of the new Wheatley Administration Building circle driveway as a GSW student in 1942. The two etchings - made 75 years apart - now sit opposite each other across the Plaza.

In 2019, Georgia Southwestern launched the Jimmy Carter Leadership Program to honor the legacy of alumnus and former President Jimmy Carter. The program consists of two tracks, an Honors Track and a Service Track, that exemplify Carter's lifetime of leadership in education, politics, and community service. Guided by the evidence-based Social Change Model of Leadership Development, the four-year program allows students to develop their leadership skills both individually and within a group.