University System News
USG VALUE:
www.neighbornewspapers.com
http://www.neighbornewspapers.com/view/full_story/23521257/article-Mentor-Walk-to-expose-children-to-college?instance=all
Mentor Walk to expose children to college
by Megan Thornton
Sandy Springs-based nonprofit Campus Community Partnership Foundation is on a mission to get more students engaged in their education and inspired to stay in school. By bringing at-risk youth to Georgia Institute of Technology in Midtown for a walk around campus and academic and career-focused breakout sessions, the third annual Carolyn Young Mentor Walk aims to do just that.
www.statesboro.wtoc.com
http://statesboro.wtoc.com/news/news/213811-georgia-southern-educates-students-distracted-drunken-driving
Georgia Southern educates students on distracted, drunken driving
Submitted by WTOC Web Staff
STATESBORO, GA (WTOC)- Georgia Southern University is offering a distracted and drunken driving education program for students on Thursday. Unite’s Arrive Alive program uses a high-tech simulator, impact video, and a number of other resources to educate students about the dangers of drunk driving and texting while driving.
GOOD NEWS:
www.forest-blade.com
http://www.forest-blade.com/news/education/article_90185bfa-14df-11e3-ae73-001a4bcf887a.html
Join EGSC’s 40th anniversary celebration
As part of East Georgia State College’s three-day community celebration, a 40th Anniversary commemoration is planned for Saturday, September 28, at 11 a.m., in the auditorium of the Luck Flanders Gambrell Center to honor the College’s collaborative and longstanding relationship with the community through significant growth and change.
USG NEWS:
www.walb.com
http://www.walb.com/story/23342095/uga-president-tours-south-georgia-farms
UGA President tours South Georgia farms
By Irisha Jones
MOULTRIE, GA (WALB) – The new president of the University of Georgia is getting some lessons on agriculture during a visit to South Georgia this week. Georgia Agriculture Commissioner Gary Black organized a farm tour across South Georgia for Dr. Jere Morehead.
www.mysouthwestga.com
http://www.mysouthwestga.com/news/story.aspx?id=942462#.UiiKwuB5iCY
Former ASU foundation members indicted for racketeering
by Jessica Fairley
ALBANY, GA — Officials with the Dougherty County District Attorney’s office say that a grand jury has indicted two former Albany State University Foundation members for racketeering. It is alleged that Sean Stanley and Angela Getter, former executive director of the ASU Foundation, took funds in excess of $25,000 from the foundation. The investigation is based on activities that date back to 2007.
RESEARCH:
www.onlineathens.com
http://onlineathens.com/uga/2013-09-04/new-research-explores-theories-about-aging-and-death-plants
New research explores theories about aging and death in plants
By UGA NEWS SERVICE
According to Benjamin Franklin, “nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” But what if Franklin had it wrong—at least about death? University of Georgia ecologist Richard P. Shefferson explored this question in the Journal of Ecology in a special issue he coedited about the latest research on senescence—the physical process of aging and death—in plants and, in particular, the idea that certain plants might be immune from this seemingly universal phenomenon.
www.redandblack.com
http://www.redandblack.com/ugalife/science_and_health/mothmatics-discover-life-teaches-researches-diversity-using-moths/article_3ebf1e50-15cb-11e3-9100-0019bb30f31a.html
Mothmatics: Discover Life teaches, researches diversity using moths
Jeanette Kazmierczak
…Prybol’s moth photography — both from behind the nature center and two summers’ worth in Costa Rica — are for a project called Discover Life, an organization started by John Pickering, an associate professor of ecology at the University of Georgia. Pickering’s organization, with sites spanning New Hampshire to Costa Rica, is dedicated to providing tools and teaching to the public so it can contribute high-quality data to Discover Life’s online, photographical database of the diversity of life
www.bizjournals.com
http://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/blog/atlantech/2013/09/georgia-tech-looks-to-crowdfund.html
Georgia Tech looks to crowdfund university research
Urvaksh Karkaria
Staff Writer-Atlanta Business Chronicle
Georgia Tech has launched its version of Kickstarter. The Atlanta-based engineering school has launched Georgia Tech Starter — a university-based, peer-reviewed crowd-funding platform for science and engineering research projects. The site, open to faculty researchers and students, is aimed at raising seed funding (typically amounts up to $5,000) or helping to gather data for a larger project.
www.huffingtonpost.com
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/04/web-peruvian-amazon-scientists_n_3866667.html
Weird ‘Web’ Found In Peruvian Amazon Baffles Scientists
LiveScience | By Douglas Main
A bizarre-looking web structure has been found in the Peruvian Amazon, and apparently nobody knows what it is, not even scientists. The strange formation resembles a tiny spire surrounded by a webby picket fence and is about 2 centimeters (0.8 inches) wide. Georgia Tech graduate student Troy Alexander first spotted one of these on the underside of a tarp near the Tambopata Research Center in the Peruvian Amazon. At first he thought it might have been an aborted moth cocoon, he wrote on Reddit. But then he found several more, all of which looked quite similar.
Related article:
www.dailymail.co.uk
Mystery in the Amazon: Miniature white towers surrounded by ‘picket fences’ on trees leave scientists totally baffled
Structure found by Troy Alexander, a graduate student at Georgia Tech
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2412006/Mystery-Amazon-Miniature-white-towers-surrounded-picket-fences-trees-leave-scientists-totally-baffled.html#ixzz2e1MxiLZq
www3.cfo.com
http://www3.cfo.com/article/2013/9/gaap-ifrs_other-comprehensive-income-net-income-fasb-iasb-pensions
Narrow Net-Income Reporting Can Misguide Investors: Study
By excluding components of other comprehensive income, corporations may be overstating their financial performance.
Kathleen Hoffelder
Comprehensive income — net income plus other sources of income not likely to happen again — often gets decent billing on corporate financial statements these days. But publicly held companies typically give the non-net-income portions of comprehensive income much less prominence than earnings. The “key focus for measuring financial performance remains with net income,” according to a new report by the Georgia Tech Financial Analysis Lab. Net income, however, excludes what’s known as “other comprehensive income” (OCI): gains or losses stemming from foreign currency conversion; cash-flow hedges; securities that are available for sale; and pensions and other post-retirement benefits.
www.onlineathens.com
http://onlineathens.com/uga/2013-09-04/minority-buying-power-2013-according-uga-multicultural-economy-study
Minority buying power up in 2013, according to UGA Multicultural Economy study
By UGA NEWS SERVICE
Minority groups in the U.S. will command unprecedented economic clout this year and well into the future, according to the annual Multicultural Economy report from the Selig Center for Economic Growth in the University of Georgia Terry College of Business. The 2013 report provides a comprehensive statistical overview of the buying power (or the amount of income left after taxes, not including savings or borrowed money) of African-Americans, Asians, Native Americans and Hispanics from 1990-2018.
Editorials/Columns/Opinions
www.washingtonpost.com
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/09/04/seven-facts-you-should-know-about-new-common-core-tests/?wpisrc=nl_cuzheads
The Answer Sheet By Valerie Strauss
Seven facts you should know about new Common Core tests
The Common Core State Standards now being implemented in most states and the District of Columbia will soon be accompanied by new standardized tests being developed by two multi-state consortia — the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) and the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) — with $360 million in federal funds. Education Secretary Arne Duncan has said repeatedly that he expects these exams, due to be rolled out in 2014-15, to go beyond the familiar multiple-choice standardized tests students have been forced to take for more than a decade and to be an “absolute game-changer in public education.” Is he right?
www.insidehighered.com
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2013/09/05/teaching-test-good-if-its-right-test-essay
Teaching to the (Right) Test
By Jay Phelan and Julia Phelan
“Teaching to the test.” Surely, in any world class educational institution this must be a bad idea. From professors to deans to education experts to parents, it is commonly denounced as a practice signaling a failing strategy that is on the wrong track. Opposition to practices that emphasize performance on high-stakes tests commonly starts with K-12 education, and the criticisms may be most passionately articulated there.
www.chronicle.com
http://chronicle.com/article/The-PromisePeril-of/141337/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
The Promise and Peril of Outcomes Assessment
By Alexander W. Astin
As a result of continuing pressure from regional accrediting associations, state legislatures, and coordinating boards for greater “accountability,” increasing numbers of colleges are using some form of outcomes assessment. In many cases those assessments involve objective or standardized testing. Much of the impetus for the increasing use of standardized testing in higher education and for the development of new instruments for measuring learning has come from widespread recognition of the limitations of traditional course grades, specifically their questionable capacity to reflect change, growth, or improvement, and the noncomparability of grades from institution to institution and from instructor to instructor.
www.insidehighered.com
http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/technology-and-learning/macromedia-elop-india-xbox-nokia-microsoft-learning
Macromedia, Elop, India, Xbox, Nokia, Microsoft, Learning
By Joshua Kim
3 reasons why a Microsoft’s $72 billion Nokia purchase could surprise the education world. (I am nothing if not hopeful).
www.chronicle.com
http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/from-kafka-to-computers-an-illustrated-history-of-automation-in-education/46149?cid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en
From Kafka to Computers, a Graphic History of Automation in Education
By Megan O’Neil
As the debate about the role of technology in education builds, two California community-college professors have published their own commentary on the automation of teaching—in the form of an illustrated comic. Adam Bessie and Arthur King, who teach English and studio and computer arts, respectively, at Diablo Valley College, have weighed in with a piece of graphic journalism titled “Automated Teaching Machine: A Graphic Introduction to the End of Human Teachers.” The comic was published by the left-leaning news site Truthout and has been circulating among faculty members on California community-college e-mail lists.
www.hechingerreport.org
http://hechingerreport.org/content/higher-education-is-headed-for-a-shakeout-analysts-warn_12996/
Higher education is headed for a shakeout, analysts warn
By Jon Marcus
Facing skeptical customers, declining enrollment, an antiquated financial model that is hemorrhaging money, and new kinds of low-cost competition, some U.S. universities and colleges may be going the way of the music and journalism industries. Their predicament has become so bad that financial analysts, regulators and bond-rating agencies are beginning to warn that many colleges and universities could close.
www.forbes.com
http://www.forbes.com/sites/joshfreedman/2013/09/04/why-we-need-the-government-to-play-an-active-role-in-higher-education-finance/
Why We Need The Government To Play An Active Role In Higher Education Finance
These days, everyone knows that college is expensive. And everyone has their own idea of how to fix it. When it comes to higher education finance, we’ve become a nation of backseat drivers. Allow me to drive in the backseat here. College is expensive, and the government’s attempts to help make college more affordable for students has likely driven up prices even more.
Education News
www.washingtonpost.com
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/09/05/the-tuition-is-too-damn-high-part-ix-will-moocs-save-us/
The Tuition is Too Damn High, Part IX: Will MOOCs save us?
By Dylan Matthews
Those who’ve been reading this series will recall that I didn’t think much of the “Baumol cost disease” explanation for why college costs are going up. That’s the theory that says that because you can’t get more productive at standing in front of a class and lecturing, to compete with other sectors where productivity is growing, higher education institutions are going to have to pay faculty ever-higher wages. I don’t think there’s much evidence that that’s happening. But there’s a kernel of truth there.
www.money.cnn.com
http://money.cnn.com/2013/09/04/pf/college/college-degrees/index.html?iid=s_mpm
Some 2-year degrees pay off better than BAs
By Melanie Hicken
NEW YORK (CNNMoney)
Shelling out more money for a four-year college degree doesn’t always mean you’ll land a job with a better salary, a recent report found. In fact, graduates of many two-year associates and occupational certificate programs earn just as much as workers with traditional four-year degrees — if not more in some cases, according to a report from CollegeMeasures.org, which analyzed the earnings of recent graduates in Arkansas, Colorado, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia.
Related article:
www.orlandosentinel.com
There’s good money to be had in some two-year degrees
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/business/blog/blog-o-nomics/os-pay-good-for-tech-degrees,0,4528093.post
www.insidehighered.com
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/09/05/how-boys-and-girls-choice-high-school-affects-college-gender-gap
Gender Gap Traced Back
By Allie Grasgreen
Recent research has suggested various ways in which girls outperform boys in high school, making them more likely to go to college: stronger desire to get good grades, better social skills, greater validation from academic performance. But a new study suggests gender sorting — a boy’s or girl’s decision to attend one school or another – could have its own effect on the college enrollment gap.
www.online.wsj.com
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324324404579045394133917308.html
Recruiters Push Early Access to New M.B.A. Students
By MELISSA KORN and ANITA HOFSCHNEIDER
First-year M.B.A. students are arriving on campus this fall with fading tans, first-day-of-class jitters and, increasingly, summer internship offers. Companies eager to capture top talent are starting the recruiting process even earlier—in some instances before the school year begins.
www.online.wsj.com
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323893004579055332692755074.html
Colleges Worry Their Big Bills Will Keep Students Away
Survey Finds More School Officials Concerns About Keeping Up Enrollment
By JOE BARRETT CONNECT
Maintaining strong enrollment is becoming a bigger worry for college administrators as cash-strapped families begin to balk at rising tuition bills, according to a survey by audit, tax and advisory firm KPMG LLP. The annual survey found that 37% of 103 higher-education leaders said they are “very concerned” about their ability to maintain current enrollment levels, up from 23% last year. The survey included 62 top administrators from private institutions and 41 from public ones.
www.insidehighered.com
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/09/05/wireless-devices-weigh-down-campus-networks
Device Explosion
By Carl Straumsheim
The prospect of handling the combined traffic of tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of devices is enough to make any wireless network buckle — and some already are. At colleges and universities across the country, chief information officers are exhausting their budgets just to maintain their existing networks while congestion threatens to choke their online traffic. …Robert Howard took the job as CIO of Armstrong Atlantic State University in April 2012. During his interview, which included lunch in the dining hall, Howard said, “I went off-script and started asking the students questions — ‘What’s up with IT?’ The very candid response I got was ‘Wireless sucks.’ ”
www.insidehighered.com
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/09/05/popular-political-science-blog-joins-washington-post#ixzz2e1RLtbFC
Political Science for the Masses
By Carl Straumsheim
The professors behind the blog “The Monkey Cage” will this fall test how wonky they can be without turning away readers of The Washington Post. Regardless of its success there, the blog’s move highlights how scholars can take their careers in unexpected directions by experimenting with scholarly communication. The move to the Post represents the latest step in the the popular political science blog’s rise. In less than six years, “The Monkey Cage” has gone from being a disciplinary “bulletin board” to — in the near future — appearing alongside the likes of Chris Cillizza’s “The Fix.”
www.chronicle.com
http://chronicle.com/article/Scientists-Fail-to-Identify/141389/
Scientists Fail to Identify Their Tools, Study Finds, and May Hurt Replication
By Paul Voosen
Define your terms. It’s one of the oldest rules of writing. Yet when it comes to defining the exact resources used to conduct their research, many scientists fail to do exactly that. At least that’s the conclusion of a new study, published on Thursday in the journal PeerJ.
www.techcrunch.com
Stanford University Is Going To Invest In Student Startups Like A VC Firm
Stanford University Is Going To Invest In Student Startups Like A VC Firm
BILLY GALLAGHER
Stanford University is going to start directly investing in students’ companies. Stanford is also giving a $3.6 million grant to StartX, a non-profit startup accelerator for Stanford-affiliated entrepreneurs. StartX founder and CEO Cameron Teitelman tells me Stanford will only invest in StartX companies and alumni companies.
www.online.wsj.com
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324202304579052870645296730.html?mod=ITP_marketplace_2
Starting a Company? Skip B-School
Programs Like Starter School Give Students Just Enough Instruction to Get an Idea off the Ground
By MELISSA KORN
Business schools have new competition for students with startups on the brain. A number of programs, from General Assembly in New York to Starter School in Chicago, have cropped up recently to cater to people seeking to launch their own companies or join fledgling ones. Offerings are à la carte and the mission is stripped down. The idea, founders say, is to give students just enough instruction in everything from coding to marketing and operations to get an idea off the ground.
www.chronicle.com
http://chronicle.com/article/Detroit-Bankrupt-Looks-to/141329/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
Detroit, Bankrupt, Looks to Colleges as Partners in Recovery
By Don Troop
Detroit
…Colleges, businesses, and charitable foundations across Michigan are heeding that directive, working in ways large and small, together and independently, to pull Detroit from a downward economic spiral that began even before the city hit its population zenith of 1.85 million in 1950 (it’s now just 700,000). Central to their efforts is education, both to fill the demand for entrepreneurs, small-business owners, and skilled workers and to make sense of a situation that saw Detroit proper go from manufacturing pre-eminence to postindustrial meltdown. …Any solution for Detroit, he says, must involve training people to work high-skill jobs in the entire metropolitan area—and it must be accomplished in an era of shrinking state and local resources.
www.chronicle.com
http://chronicle.com/article/Presidents-Proposal-Renews/141391/?cid=at
President’s Proposal Renews Debate Over How to Measure College Quality
By Jack Stripling
Washington
The debate over President Obama’s plan to rate colleges based on access, affordability, and outcomes is beginning to take shape, and lobbying groups and think tanks are already warning of unintended consequences. The president’s plan has gained early support from proponents of bringing more accountability to higher education, but some analysts fear that a ratings system would punish colleges for accepting students from lower-income and other backgrounds who are less likely to complete degrees than their peers.
www.insidehighered.com
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/09/05/margaret-spellings-reacts-obama-higher-education-plan
Margaret Spellings on Obama Plan
By Michael Stratford
President Obama’s push for a rating system for colleges and universities that would eventually influence how the federal government doles out student aid is the most ambitious higher education proposal of his administration. The last serious push to so significantly transform federal higher education policy came in 2006 under Bush administration Education Secretary Margaret Spellings.