USG NEWS:
www.independentmail.com
http://www.independentmail.com/news/2013/may/27/universities-show-low-classroom-utilization-rate/
Universities show low classroom utilization rate
Associated Press
ATLANTA — A two-year study by the University System of Georgia shows classrooms are empty during most of the week. The Athens Banner-Herald reports that of the 440 classrooms at the University of Georgia, the average is used just 18.5 hours per 40-hour work week. When the classrooms are used, just two-thirds of the seats are full. That is a 31 percent utilization rate. At most schools, the results show capacity for additional courses and for some bigger classes, though higher education leaders say there are many factors to consider when analyzing the numbers.
www.wrdw.com
http://www.wrdw.com/money/headlines/Picking-a-college-in-tough-economy-209239351.html
Students talk picking a college in tough economy
By: Jorge Lopez
AUGUSTA, Ga. (WRDW) — May is the month where students begin to celebrate their educational achievements, and students from Butler High are ready to get their diplomas. “Our line is 122 strong today,” said Alicia McLemore. McLemore, the senior counselor for the school, says all of the grads won’t be going on to college. “Out of the 122, 40 to 45 have been accepted into colleges — most of them have been accepted into their first choice,” she said. …”College these days are very expensive, and with my family’s income and cost, I couldn’t go to the college of my choice,” Thomas said. His first choice came with a $40,000 price tag a year. Now he’s going to a school that will cost him half of that. “I’m choosing to go to the University of West Georgia,” he said. Maria Ibarra is the class salutatorian. Her first choice is GRU, but there’s a big hurdle at home, too.
www.dailyfinance.com
http://www.dailyfinance.com/2013/05/29/emcor-group-inc-subsidiary-awarded-contract-for-in/
EMCOR Group, Inc. Subsidiary Awarded Contract for Installation of Electrical Systems at Georgia Gwin
by Business Wirevia The Motley Fool
EMCOR Group, Inc. Subsidiary Awarded Contract for Installation of Electrical Systems at Georgia Gwinnett College
NORWALK, Conn.–(BUSINESS WIRE)– EMCOR Group, Inc. (NYS: EME) , a Fortune 500® leader in mechanical and electrical construction, energy infrastructure, and facilities services for a diverse range of businesses, announced that its subsidiary Dynalectric Company has been awarded a contract for the installation of electrical systems at the Georgia Gwinnett College new Allied Health and Science Building in Lawrenceville, Georgia. Dynalectric will be responsible for installing a range of electrical systems in this 90,000 square foot LEED silver certified three-story facility that will contain three physics laboratories, six biology laboratories, seven chemistry laboratories, and one lab each for psychology, exercise science, IT systems and digital media. Dynalectric’s scope of work includes installing the electrical and power distribution systems, lighting and lighting controls, fire alarm systems, telecommunications systems for audio / visual and security.
GOOD NEWS:
www.albanyherald.com
http://www.albanyherald.com/news/2013/may/28/atc-vsu-ink-deal-offer-pathways-degree-programs/
ATC, VSU ink deal to offer ‘pathways’ to degree programs
By J.D. Sumner
ALBANY — When Hank Huckabee, the chancellor of the University System of Georgia, asked universities and technical colleges to consider working more closely together, Albany Tech president Anthony Parker was listening. Since that time, Albany Tech has inked partnerships with Albany State, Southern Polytechnic University, Life University and, after what Parker called a “historic” event Tuesday, Valdosta State University. Through the two agreements signed Tuesday, students who graduate with an associate of Applied Science in one of 22 different programs from Albany Tech could more easily transition into a bachelor in Applied Science degree with a major in Technical Studies from VSU. Additionally, students graduating with an associate of Applied Science from Albany Tech can begin work toward a bachelor of Science degree from VSU in Organizational Leadership.
www.albanyherald.com
http://www.albanyherald.com/news/2013/may/23/darton-launches-free-online-math-prep-course/
Darton launches free online math prep course
Staff Reports
ALBANY — Who says nothing is for free? Earlier this week, Darton State College launched a free college math prep course designed to prepare students for the math portion of the Compass Placement exam. “The Compass math review course is designed as a review for those who would like to obtain a college education, but are uncertain about taking college math.” said Renita Luck, online learning coordinator for Darton State.
www.onlineathens.com
http://onlineathens.com/uga/2013-05-28/uga-extension-state-department-agriculture-recognized-distance-education
UGA Extension, state Department of Agriculture recognized for distance education
By UGA NEWS SERVICE
University of Georgia Cooperative Extension and the Georgia Department of Agriculture recently received international recognition for their efforts to help Georgians develop safe produce and products for farmers markets. Blackboard, the company that supports the online classroom program Wimba, recognized the team that developed the online training program with a Blackboard Catalyst Award for Staff Development. The global award honors those members of the community who use Blackboard solutions to create, support and enhance faculty and staff development skills, providing a better organization-wide learning experience.
www.walb.com
http://www.walb.com/story/22440004/bsc-announces-3-million-expansion
BSC announces $3 million expansion
By Stephen Abel
BAINBRIDGE, GA (WALB) – The first state funded building project in years at a south Georgia state college is about to get underway. Bainbridge State College is getting $3 million from the state to more than double the size of River Birch Hall. The 10,000 square foot expansion will include classroom and office space. The project was recommended by the Georgia Board of Regents and survived budget battles at the General Assembly this year.
www.businsessweek.com
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-05-28/the-best-undergraduate-b-schools-for-operations-management
The Best Undergraduate B-Schools for Operations Management
By Geoff Gloeckler
As part of the 2013 Best Undergraduate B-Schools ranking, Bloomberg Businessweek asked undergraduate business students from this year’s graduating class to tell us, via an online survey, about their business school experience, from getting in to getting a job. One section of the survey singles out specific aspects of the business program and asks students to grade them on a scale from A to F. Over the next few weeks, we will publish the top 10 B-schools in each specialty area, from accounting to entrepreneurship, culminating with publication of the entire undergraduate specialty ranking, which will include 124 schools… Top Undergraduate Business Schools for Operations Management:… 9. Georgia Tech (Scheller) 1.221.
RESEARCH:
wwwwjbf.com
http://www.wjbf.com/story/22433821/georgia-civil-war-camp-turns-up-hundreds-of-artifacts
Georgia Civil War Camp Turns Up Hundreds of Artifacts
By Associated Press
By Morgan Pawl, WJBF Producer
Atlanta, GA – Researchers and archaeology students are getting ready to break new ground this summer at Camp Lawton, a Civil War prison camp that stayed virtually undisturbed for nearly 150 years before it was discovered in southeast Georgia. The sprawling Confederate camp once held more than 10,000 Union prisoners, but it was abandoned just six weeks after opening in 1864. The camp was largely forgotten until a Georgia Southern University archaeology discovered student discovered remains of Camp Lawton’s stockade walls in 2010. Since then, more than 600 artifacts have been recovered at the site. Now, students and faculty are cleaning rust and corrosion from many of those items.
www.diverseeducation.com
http://diverseeducation.com/article/53561/
Georgia University Students Save Slave Artifacts from Demolition
by Tina A. Brown
Behind the towering Live Oak trees in the Savannah suburb of Georgetown, crews of archaeologists recently unearthed the brown and red dirt for signs that slaves once lived there. They found physical evidence of how slaves on the Miller Plantation lived and the tools they used around the kitchen in everyday life, including fragments of dishes, white and blue ceramics and green glass. …Rita Elliott, the public archaeologist for One South Associates, the company hired to do the dig for the Georgia DOT, told a group of college students from Georgia Southern University recently that the company sectioned off about 20-acres using X-ray-type technology to spot potential structures. …The physical evidence from the slave quarters were sifted, boxed and preserved as artifacts by archaeologist from New South for a new collection at the University of West Georgia, said Pam Baughman, an archaeological consultant hired to supervise that part of the project. …“We want our collection to rise to the standards of the University of Georgia in Athens and West Georgia,” said Baughman. Student workers at West Georgia can benefit from learning about cataloging and the analysis process. The materials will be made “available in the future to university researchers and others.”
www.inside-bigdata.com
http://inside-bigdata.com/video-big-data-science-the-algorithmic-advances-that-lie-underneath/
Video: Big Data Science – The Algorithmic Advances that Lie Underneath
In this video, Alexander Gray from the Georgia Institute of Technology presents: Big Data Science – The Algorithmic Advances that Lie Underneath.
www.insidehpc.com
http://insidehpc.com/2013/05/28/understanding-the-human-condition-with-big-data-and-hpc/
Understanding the Human Condition with Big Data and HPC
In this guest feature from Scientific Computing World, Georgia Institute of Technology’s David A. Bader discusses his upcoming ISC’13 session, Better Understanding Brains, Genomes & Life Using HPC Systems. Supercomputing at ISC has traditionally focused on problems in areas such as the simulation space for physical phenomena. Manufacturing, weather simulations and molecular dynamics have all been popular topics, but an emerging trend is the examination of how we use high-end computing to solve some of the most important problems that affect the human condition. Prompted by Hans Meuer, general chairman of ISC, we decided to put together a session that asks how supercomputing is enabling the study of life, and by this we mean answering questions such as how life evolves, how we go from genotype to phenotype, and how our brains function. At the moment, brain function, for example, remains a mystery but I do believe that we will begin to make progress in the next 10 to 20 years. It truly is an exciting time for life sciences research, and we have brought together three speakers that will explore three different axes of computational biology and genomics.
www.bet.com
http://www.bet.com/news/health/2013/05/28/text-away-an-asthma-attack.html
Text Away an Asthma Attack
Mobile phones may help with recognizing warning signs.
By Zoe Camp, BlackHealthMatters.Com
What if you could lower your child’s risk of an asthma attack with a single text message? It sounds too good to be true, but according to a recent study by the Georgia Institute of Technology, pediatric patients who were asked about their symptoms and provided with tips for managing their asthma demonstrated better pulmonary function and greater knowledge of their condition than those who didn’t.
www.heraldtribune.com
http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20130528/ARCHIVES/305281040/-1/TODAYSPAPER?p=3&tc=pg
Robots in home care’s future?AGING IN PLACE: Decades from now, seniors may get automated aides
By BARBARA PETERS SMITH
Skubic’s team is also involved in a study of personal care robots, to determine the potential for communication between them and older adults. “We’re looking at an assistive robot that could be used in a home setting. It can accomplish fetch tasks, and has an ability to communicate with a user using very natural facial language,” she says. “We’re finding that it’s not easy for robots to understand imprecise, approximate, ambiguous language. We wanted to explore that, and the fact that older adults use language differently than younger adults. It’s brought out some interesting issues.” For instance, Skubic says, a robot may have trouble with the command, “Go get my glasses. I left them on the bedside table.” But it can respond to directions, like, “My eyeglasses are on the table, behind the lamp, next to the bed.” At least for now, personal care robots may be less-than-welcome as stand-ins for human health aides. A study by the Georgia Institute of Technology last year asked older adults if they were willing to use robots in the home for daily tasks.
www.abc3340.com
http://www.abc3340.com/story/22440718/robotics-taking-over
Robotics taking over
By Edward Burch
A new report by the country’s leading roboticists finds that by 2030, a mere 17 years from now, robots will be everywhere. They’re already in leading industries here in Alabama, including the automotive and medical fields. Researchers say robots will not only match human skills they will likely surpass them. Researchers at top U.S. universities including Georgia Tech, MIT, Stanford and Carnegie Mellon predict that robots will become as much a part of our everyday lives over the next decade as computer technology is today. This also means a growing demand for men and women to operate and maintain our new robotic workers. It is just becoming everywhere.
Editorials/Columns/Opinions
www.diverseeducation.com
http://diverseeducation.com/article/53573/
States Raise Budgets for Colleges and Universities, But Does That Mean Jobs?
by Emil Guillermo
Did you see this headline recently, “States Raise College Budgets After Years of Deep Cuts”? Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal was, as they say in the newspaper biz, top –of-the-fold news. And it either got a chuckle or a loud and boisterous “Amen.” According to the Census Bureau, tax revenue in 47 states rose last year, with collections up an average of 4.5 percent. Said Julie Bell, the education group director at the National Association of State Legislatures: “It’s going to be a better year for higher education.” Let’s hope so.
Education News
www.bizjournals.com
http://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/blog/a-healthy-conversation/2013/05/emory-site-of-largest-autism-clinical.html
Emory site of largest autism clinical study
Urvaksh Karkaria
Staff Writer-Atlanta Business Chronicle
Emory University is a site for the largest autism diagnosis study. Launched by Lexington, Mass.-based SynapDx Corp., the clinical trial will test the viability of a blood test to help doctors identify children with autism at a younger age. Emory will be one of 20 sites across the U.S. and Canada, and is recruiting previously undiagnosed children between 18 months and 5 years. This is largest prospective, multi-site autism clinical study with 660 children participating, SynapDx said in a statement.
www.diverseeducation.com
http://diverseeducation.com/article/53565/
MOOCs Viable for Community Colleges, Officials Say
by Ronald Roach
For all the efforts underway to make Massive Open Online Courses a major part of American higher education, only a few initiatives have targeted community colleges as a venue for them to reach and educate students. In a webinar titled “MOOCs and the Completion Agenda: Lessons in Learning, Assessment and Application,” two California-based community college leaders offered unique visions on how MOOCs could help two-year institutions improve student learning experiences. The American Council on Education organized the webinar on Wednesday, which included Dr. Daphne Koller, the co-founder of the MOOC-platform giant Coursera. Dr. Barbara Illowsky, professor of mathematics and statistics at De Anza College, told more than 350 webinar participants that in California MOOCs could help students prepare for and pass basic assessment exams in English, math and writing. Setting up a system that allows community college students to take basic subject MOOCs prior to their enrollment would likely result in thousands of them being able to place into higher level courses, she explained.
www.chronicle.com
http://chronicle.com/article/Recent-Graduates-Employment/139505/
Recent College Graduates’ Employment Outcomes Vary by Major, Study Finds
By Beckie Supiano
For all the concern these days about whether a college degree is still a good investment, bachelor’s-degree recipients fare much better in the job market than do their less-educated peers. But not all college graduates do equally well—and the variation is linked to what they studied. Engineers? Good starting salaries. Arts, life-sciences, psychology, or recreation majors? Not so much. The idea that a major makes a difference in career outcomes has been a dominant theme in the work of Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce in recent years. In a report released on Wednesday, the center updates its analysis of how unemployment and earnings vary. “It matters what you major in, and it matters if you get a graduate degree,” Anthony P. Carnevale, the center’s director, said in an interview. It’s “the same point we make over and over again, I’m afraid,” he said.
Related article:
www.diverseeducation.com
Georgetown Study Says Not All College Degrees Are Created Equal
http://diverseeducation.com/article/53569/
www.chronicle.com
http://chronicle.com/article/College-Health-Centers-Strive/139507/
Juggling Heightened Demands, College Health Centers Strive for the Long View
By Libby Sander
Students who are sick, injured, or in crisis have long turned to college health centers. But as students come to campuses with increasingly complex physical and mental-health needs—and national policies place growing emphasis on disease prevention—many colleges are embracing a broader view of health care. That shift in philosophy in recent years is notable for many campus health centers, which have traditionally focused more on treating medical problems than on managing serious conditions or promoting lifelong habits and community wellness, says Jennifer Haubenreiser, president of the American College Health Association.
www.chronicle.com
http://chronicle.com/article/In-the-Name-of-Access-a/139469/
In the Name of Access, a Chairman Hammers for Change in Texas
By Katherine Mangan
San Antonio
Gene Powell says it isn’t easy living in the cross hairs of a group of influential University of Texas alumni who are convinced that he’s going to ruin the institution. So on a recent morning at El Mirador, a Mexican eatery popular with politicos, the chairman of the university system’s Board of Regents was reveling in the camaraderie of a few die-hard supporters. Over huevos rancheros and carne guisada tacos, four prominent Hispanic businessmen and educators from San Antonio gave Mr. Powell the kind of welcome he rarely gets these days in Austin, where his board has been accused of micromanaging the flagship campus and trying to run off its popular president, William C. Powers Jr.
www.chronicle.com
http://chronicle.com/article/Harvard-Dean-Steps-Down/139495/?cid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en
Harvard Dean Steps Down Following Secret Searches of E-Mail Accounts
By Steve Kolowich
Less than three months after Harvard University administrators admitted to signing off on secret searches in the e-mail accounts of more than a dozen resident deans as part of a cheating investigation, one leader implicated in those controversial searches is stepping down. Evelynn M. Hammonds, dean of Harvard College, the university’s main undergraduate division, will leave her post at beginning of July, the university announced on Tuesday. Ms. Hammonds, who has led Harvard College for five years, found herself at the center of a scandal-within-a-scandal after trying to plug a leak in a university inquiry into a cheating debacle that prompted dozens of undergraduates to withdraw from the college.
Related article:
www.nytimes.com
Dean in E-Mail Searches Steps Down at Harvard
www.insidehighered.com
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/05/29/wake-controversy-over-harvard-dissertation-race-and-iq-scrutiny-michigan-state#ixzz2UgGkpKt7
Quest for ‘Genius Babies’?
By Colleen Flaherty
Jason Richwine swiftly resigned from the Heritage Foundation this month following revelations of his 2009 Harvard University dissertation on IQ and race, but the blogosphere continues to buzz with the story. In the aftermath, as Richwine continues to defend his research, some human biodiversity, or “HBD,” experts charge that a new generation of eugenicists may be coming of age. A recurring name is that of Stephen Hsu, the Michigan State University physicist and vice president for research and graduate studies who is researching intelligence and genetics at the world’s biggest genomics sequencing lab in Shenzhen, China. “Richwine would probably also find a friend in Stephen Hsu, a theoretical physicist by training who is currently searching for an intelligence gene,” wrote Yong Chan, research director for the racial justice website ChangeLab. “Even though mainstream science has pretty much scrapped the notion that race has any kind of biological basis long ago, that hasn’t stopped [Hsu] from trying to link intelligence with race and getting a billion and a half dollars for research based in China.”
www.insidehighered.com
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/05/29/methodology-qs-rankings-comes-under-scrutiny#ixzz2UgGyybBq
Scrutiny of QS Rankings
By Elizabeth Redden
Upon signing up for Opinion Outpost, a website on which users take surveys for points that can be redeemed for cash, an untenured philosophy professor took surveys related to toilet paper brands and frozen foods and other sundries. Completing the surveys at $1 to $5 a pop was a good way to make some extra pocket money, explained the professor, who preferred not to be named. Most of the surveys the professor completed through Opinion Outpost did not seem to be particularly high-stakes, but one, in retrospect, was: the QS Global Academic Survey, which counts for 40 percent of the QS World University Rankings, one of three major international university ranking systems. That a major university ranker with global influence used a paid survey site to collect responses has raised some eyebrows:
www.insidehighered.com
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/05/29/australian-government-considers-cutting-higher-ed-regulation#ixzz2UgH9ROUB
Slashing Higher Ed Red Tape
By Stephen Matchett for The Australian
In a radical policy change, Australia’s Tertiary Education Minister, Craig Emerson, is this week releasing a new approach to quality control that meets university demands for a lighter regulatory burden and could gut Labor’s own creation, the Tertiary Education Quality Assurance Agency. While Emerson is announcing only a regulatory review, measures included in the announcement make it clear he has heard and understood the concerns of Universities Australia and the Group of Eight, and accepts that an estimated $280 million in annual compliance costs for universities to report to government is unacceptable. “The review will ensure more of the government’s record investment is directed at student tuition than administration,” he planned to say.