USG NEWS:
www.chronicle.augusta.com
http://chronicle.augusta.com/news/government/2013-05-02/regents-hire-consultant-evaluate-mills-campus-plan?v=1367552564
Regents hire consultant to evaluate mills campus plan
By Susan McCord
Staff Writer
The University System of Georgia Board of Regents has hired a consultant to evaluate Au¬gusta’s proposal to develop a cultural campus downtown and a mills campus in Harrisburg, according to City Admin¬is¬trator Fred Russell. No one with the regents was available late Thursday to confirm Russell’s announcement, which he made at a District 1 town hall meeting held by Augusta Commission member Bill Fennoy at the Kroc Center.
Russell said he’ll recommend the city wait to make an initial financial commitment of about $500,000 to further develop the proposal until the “campus planning group” gives a thumbs up or down to all or parts of the massive proposal.

www.macon.com
http://www.macon.com/2013/05/02/2463716/midstate-college-students-advance.html
Midstate college students advance to the future
By JENNA MINK
As thousands of midstate college students graduate this month, a variety of backgrounds and accomplishments are represented. They range from military veterans to international students, from overseas aides to local volunteers, from future lawyers to future psychologists. Below are some of their stories. …After more than four years with the U.S. Army and two tours in Iraq, Spc. David Smith was struggling with his own identity. When his military service ended in December 2006, he enrolled in college. The 28-year-old will graduate from Georgia College & State University on Friday with a master’s degree in accounting. …Not only did the Perry resident, Yesmine Releford, enroll in Fort Valley State University, but she has earned one of the highest grade point averages in her senior class. The 22-year-old will graduate Saturday with a 3.9 GPA and a degree in criminal justice. …That’s why the Middle Georgia State College student wants to be a motivator for people, pre-teen girls in particular. After she graduates May 10 with a psychology degree, the Warner Robins resident, Heather Ness, plans to attend graduate school at Clayton State University and one day open a community and counseling center, equipping it with a variety of counselors for a variety of people.

RESEARCH:
www.counselheal.com
http://www.counselheal.com/articles/5205/20130502/robotic-co-therapist-helpful-treating-autistic-children-video.htm
Robotic Co-Therapist Helpful in Treating Autistic Children [VIDEO] CHERI CHENG
Although robots are generally emotionless, researchers have constantly tried to make them better at caring for humans. Researchers from the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology announced that they created a robotic arm with the sense of touch. This arm could pick out certain objects from a pile of clutter without the help of its eyes. The roboticists hope that this robot arm can be modified into robots that could ideally tend to the elderly and to patients.

www.upi.com
http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Security-Industry/2013/05/02/New-General-Dynamics-radar-ordered-for-Army-ranges/UPI-95051367523850/#ixzz2SEPHwppx
New General Dynamics radar ordered for Army ranges
A new high/medium power close-in radar system is to be produced for the U.S. Army by General Dynamics C4 Systems under a contract modification.
A new high/medium power close-in radar system is to be produced for the U.S. Army by General Dynamics C4 Systems under a contract modification. The modification to the Range Radar Replacement Program is worth $16 million and covers engineering, development and initial manufacture of the new system. The mobile, close-in radar system will acquire information about the launch and early stages of flight for munitions and other low-flying objects from a distance of 37 miles or more. It joins the fly-out radar system that is capable of tracking up to 40 test objects over a range of 60 miles… General Dynamics and its team were awarded the Range Radar Replacement Program contract last June. The team includes STAR Dynamics, Georgia Tech Research Institute of Atlanta, and EO Imaging

www.sensorsmag.om
http://www.sensorsmag.com/sensors-mag/may-rd-round-11359
May R&D Round Up
By: Melanie Martella, Sensors
This month’s collection of clever and useful research and development stories includes a system to gather more and better data on how explosions affect soldiers and a continuous UV sensor. Explosion Impact Monitoring: Blast injuries are the signature injury in our current conflicts. The people trying to protect the troops and the people trying to save them post-blast have, over the last ten years of practice, learned a very great deal. There’s still a lot we don’t know about what happens when a shock wave, and the compressed air in front of it, hits a human body and that is where the IBESS system comes in. Developed at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) as part of the Department of Defense Information Analysis Center (IAC) program in response to the Army’s Rapid Equipping Force request, the Integrated Blast Effect Sensor Suite (IBESS) is designed to collect data about the physical environment of the explosion during the event which can then be used to generate a clearer picture of exactly what happened.

STATE NEEDS/ISSUES:
www.bizjournals.com
http://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/print-edition/2013/05/03/comdata-scouts-atlanta-for-1000-job.html
Comdata scouts Atlanta for 1,000 job expansion
Urvaksh Karkaria
Staff Writer-Atlanta Business Chronicle
A Nashville, Tenn., electronic payments company is said to be scouting Atlanta — a financial tech hub — for a large office expansion that could bring about 1,000 jobs. Brentwood, Tenn.-based Comdata Corp. could be considering Midtown, including Atlantic Station. Details about the project are closely guarded. Georgia Tech, a major fintech research center, is said to be involved. The Georgia Department of Economic Development, Metro Atlanta Chamber and Invest Atlanta — all said to be involved in the project — declined comment.

Editorials/Columns/Opinions
www.inida.blogs.nytimes.com

Admissions Anxiety Is Felt Around the World
By TANYA ABRAMS
This week on The Choice on India Ink, we’d like to draw your attention to an international college search that is taking place elsewhere in the world. Here is an excerpt from “The Trans-Atlantic College Search,” in which D. D. Guttenplan, a writer who specializes in higher education, describes how he and his daughter began their college search from afar. Perhaps you’ll notice similarities from your own college admissions experience.

www.insidehighered.com
http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/technology-and-learning/developing-willingness-change-our-edtech-vendors
Developing the Willingness to Change Our EdTech Vendors
By Joshua Kim
My theory is that we are all too slow to change our edtech vendors. We stay with companies we shouldn’t. We stay too long. We stay after the product or service no longer meets our needs. We would be better off being willing to rip out what we have and to start again. Why are we too slow to move from the status quo? And why should we be more open to making changes?

www.schoolsofthought.blogs.cnn.com
http://schoolsofthought.blogs.cnn.com/2013/05/02/how-to-get-the-most-from-moocs/
How to get the most from MOOCs
By Kim Clark, Money Magazine
(Money Magazine) – Two things about higher education have become clear. First, your children need it more than ever to stay competitive – and so might you, if you need to upgrade for a fast-changing job market. Second, the model colleges use to deliver that education is broken. Rising tuition, high student debt, and stingier funding for public colleges are making it more difficult for families to keep up.

www.chronicle.com
http://chronicle.com/article/The-Document-an-Open-Letter/138937/
‘An Open Letter to Professor Michael Sandel From the Philosophy Department at San Jose State U.’
Professors in the philosophy department at San Jose State University wrote the following letter to make a direct appeal to Michael Sandel, a Harvard professor whose MOOC on “Justice” they were being encouraged to use as part of the San Jose State curriculum. (See a related article and a response from Mr. Sandel.)

www.chronicle.com
http://chronicle.com/article/Michael-Sandel-Responds/139021/
Michael Sandel Responds
Michael Sandel, a Harvard government professor, sent the following statement to a Chronicle reporter in response to an open letter from San Jose State University’s philosophy department suggesting that professors who develop MOOCs are complicit in how public universities might use them. (see a related article below under Education News.)

Education News
www.bizjournals.com
http://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/morning_call/2013/05/morehouse-says-rape-allegations-wont.html
Morehouse says rape allegations won’t affect Obama visit
Carla Caldwell, Morning Call Editor
President Barack Obama will deliver Morehouse College’s commencement speech as planned in May, unaffected by allegations that two students raped a fellow student, and an unrelated case in which another Morehouse student is charged with rape, reports Atlanta Business Chronicle broadcast partner WXIA-TV.

www.ajc.com
http://www.ajc.com/news/business/online-learning-revolution/nXgHB/
The online learning revolution
Computer-based education programs growing fast
By Laura Raines
For EDU Atlanta
If you’ve decided to use your computer to pursue a college degree, you’re not alone. More than 6.7 million people, roughly a third of all postsecondary students, took an online course in 2011, according to the Babson Survey Research Group’s annual Survey of Online Learning. Year-over-year online learning enrollment has grown steadily and sometimes explosively (23 percent in 2003, 36.5 percent in 2005 and 21.1 percent in 2009) during the last decade.

www.gpb.org
http://www.gpb.org/blogs/passion-for-learning/2013/05/02/coursera-offers-free-professional-development-to-teachers
Passion For Learning
Coursera Offers Free Professional Development to Teachers
By Rosemary Jean-Louis
Coursera, which has caused a stir by offering free online courses from Harvard and Georgia Tech known as MOOCs( massively open online courses) to anyone, is making more waves by providing free online professional development and training to K-12 teachers.

www.insidehighered.com
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/05/03/common-core-curriculum-k-12-could-have-far-reaching-effects-higher-education
The Common Core on Campus
By Libby A. Nelson
For traditional college freshmen, the gap between high school and college is easy to step across — a few months, at the most, between graduating from one institution and enrolling at another. For those institutions, though, the distance between K-12 and higher education is often more like an unbridgeable chasm.

www.edweek.org
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2013/05/03/30testing.h32.html?tkn=NQLFTwp25lEd71ZsCXwVwwKXX%2BmeWLE%2FIUj2&cmp=ENL-EU-NEWS1
States’ Online Testing Problems Raise Common-Core Concerns
By Michelle R. Davis
Widespread technical failures and interruptions of recent online testing in a number of states have shaken the confidence of educators and policymakers in high-tech assessment methods and raised serious concerns about schools’ technological readiness for the coming common-core online tests. The glitches arose as many districts in the 46 states that have signed on to the Common Core State Standards are trying to ramp up their technological infrastructure to prepare for the requirement that students take online assessments starting in 2014-15.

www.insidehighered.com
http://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2013/05/03/san-jose-state-university-faculty-pushes-back-against-edx
San Jose State University Faculty Pushes Back Against EdX
The philosophy department at San Jose State University is pushing back against the university’s pioneering projects to test new online learning ventures. A department-approved letter not only challenges hype around online learning but personally calls out a Harvard University professor who teaches a massive open online class for his alleged culpability in what the department calls perilous online learning efforts. The department’s letter to Harvard’s Michael Sandel follows a suggestion from San Jose State’s administration that the department look at using Sandel’s popular edX MOOC on justice.

Related article:
www.nytimes.com
Professors at San Jose State Criticize Online Courses

www.insidehighered.com
http://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2013/05/03/medical-school-enrollments-pace-meet-goal-30-percent-increase
Medical School Enrollments on Pace to Meet Goal of 30 Percent Increase
Medical schools are on track to meet a goal set in 2006 of raising enrollments by 30 percent over a decade to try to meet a perceived shortage of physicians, the Association of American Medical Colleges said in a report issued Thursday.

www.insidehighered.com
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/05/03/johns-hopkins-cuts-science-writing-program-masters-degree-students#ixzz2SDY7NyBc
Program On Hiatus
By Carl Straumsheim
On the day Ann Finkbeiner planned to reach out to students accepted to Johns Hopkins University’s master’s degree program in science writing, she was met with a surprise: The decades-old program had been cut, and will not return in the fall.

www.bizjournals.com
http://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/news/2013/05/02/this-years-graduates-will-earn-a-53.html
Congratulations Class of 2013… you will outearn your recent peers.
Brent Godwin
Online editor-Birmingham Business Journal
College graduations are right around the corner, and a new study shows those walking across the stage with bachelor’s degrees this year will see a 5.3 percent increase in their starting salary over graduates from the last few years. The average starting salary for this year’s graduates will be $44,928, compared to 2012’s average of $42,666.

www.npr.org
http://www.npr.org/2013/05/02/180556950/of-flybots-and-bug-eyes-insects-inspire-inventors
Of Flybots And Bug Eyes: Insects Inspire Inventors
by GEOFF BRUMFIEL
A smartphone can tell you where to get a cup of coffee, but it can’t go get the coffee for you. Engineers would like to build little machines that can do stuff. They would be useful for a lot more than coffee, if we could figure out how to make them work. But the rules of mechanics change at small scales. Friction becomes dominant; turbulence can upend a small airplane.

www.insidehighered.com
http://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2013/05/03/canadian-university-slashes-tuition-americans
Canadian University Slashes Tuition for Americans
The University of Windsor sits just across the Canadian border from Detroit, yet Americans make up just 82 of its nearly 2,000 international students. So the Canadian institution is trying to woo those south of the border, by cutting its tuition in half for Americans, the CBC reported.

www.insidehighered.com
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/05/03/english-teachers-group-criticizes-machine-scoring
Does Not Compute
By Zack Budryk
A new report out from the National Council of Teachers of English criticizes the practice of using machine scoring for writing assessments. “Machine Scoring Fails the Test,” NCTE’s new position statement, argues that computers lack the capacity to accurately grade essays and other writing assignments. The council draws its conclusions from various pieces of scholarship on machine scoring, cited in full in the statement.

www.insidehighered.com
http://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2013/05/03/investor-pledges-100-million-columbias-business-school
Investor Pledges $100 Million for Columbia’s Business School
Columbia University’s business school said Thursday that the billionaire investor Ronald O. Perelman had pledged $100 million, and that it would name one of its two new buildings on its new Manhattanville campus for him.

www.diverseeducation.com
http://diverseeducation.com/article/53064/#
Four S.C. State University Trustees Ousted by State Legislators
by Ronald Roach
The South Carolina General Assembly took a major step Wednesday in reconfiguring the South Carolina State University Board of Trustees by ousting four incumbent board members and electing five individuals who will become trustees on July 1. The move by the General Assembly is the latest by South Carolina legislators who are taking measures to set the troubled university on a new path with a leadership makeover.