UNIVERSITY SYSTEM – VALUE

Bulloch schools go Google
http://www.statesboroherald.com/section/1/article/53234/
The Statesboro Herald
Sept. 14, 2013
The Bulloch County school system is going Google. The district has partnered with Google — at no cost — to host a secure, ad-free web portal known as Google Apps for Education. Students and Bulloch County Schools employees who log on to the district’s Google Apps for Education will be able to use Google applications to do such things as communicate via email and create, share and store documents, spreadsheets and presentations… Georgia Southern uses Google Apps for its students, faculty and staff. As that technology spreads across the Bulloch County school system, Beasley said, there might be opportunities for Bulloch County students to collaborate on projects with Georgia Southern students — or even the Georgia Institute of Technology or other higher education institutions — using Google Apps for Education.

UNIVERSITY SYSTEM NEWS

Smashing bricks, Univ. of West Ga. Starts renovation for Newnan campus
http://www.thecitizen.com/articles/09-15-2013/smashing-bricks-univ-west-ga-starts-renovation-newnan-campus
The Citizen.com
Sept. 15, 2013
By Ben Nelms
The old Newnan Hospital on Jackson Street in Newnan is about to get a new look for the 21st century. Rather than a customary groundbreaking, a “building breaking” ceremony was held Sept. 9 to announce the beginning of the project that will transform the old hospital into the University of West Georgia-Newnan Center that will open in January 2015.

Last free football tickets for Ga. Lawmakers
http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2013/sep/14/last-free-football-tickets-for-ga-lawmakers/
San Diego Times Union
Sept. 14, 2013
From the Associated Press – Ron Henry
ATLANTA — One college football tradition in Georgia will soon disappear: Letting politicians into the stadium for free. A new law taking effect next year bans lobbyists from giving Georgia’s politicians free college football tickets, a rite as well-established as Game Day beer and barbecue in the football-obsessed South. As the season kicks off, lobbyists and lawmakers are squeezing in a few more free games before the prohibition takes effect Jan. 1.
–see related story:
Time running out on lobbyists’ game freebies for politicians
http://onlineathens.com/local-news/2013-09-14/time-running-out-lobbyists-game-freebies-politicians
Athens Banner Herald
Sept. 14, 2013

Student borrowing grows as HOPE money shrinks
http://onlineathens.com/uga/2013-09-14/student-borrowing-grows-hope-money-shrinks
Athens Banner Herald
Sep.t 14, 2013
By Lee Shearer
Christina Serra is like a lot of University of Georgia students. The HOPE Scholarship has paid for a huge part of her college expenses, but she still has to work to pay for her college education.

‘MOOCS’ could lower the cost of college
http://money.msn.com/personal-finance/moocs-could-lower-cost-of-college
MSN
Sept. 13, 2013
The cost of college is soaring with no end in sight, and a four-year degree at a traditional college easily can run to more than $200,000. But if you are willing to forgo the brick-and-mortar classrooms, dorms and football team, it might be possible to save tens of thousands of dollars by getting a degree online. Until recently, online degrees were hardly worth the paper it took to print them out, but all that could be changing with the advent of massive open online courses, or MOOCs… A handful of institutions have taken it a step further by offering MOOC-based degrees. Last month, the Georgia Institute of Technology announced it will offer a MOOC-based master’s degree in computer science beginning in January 2014 at a fraction of the on-campus cost.

EDITORIALS/OPINIONS/COLUMNS/BLOGS

OUR VIEW: Cheers for GGC’s academic ranking
http://www.gwinnettdailypost.com/news/2013/sep/14/our-view-cheers-for-ggc8217s-academic-ranking/?opinion
Gwinnett Daily Post
Sept. 13, 2013
It’s been a good week to be a Georgia Gwinnett College Grizzly. …But it was another ranking received this week by GGC that really deserves some cheers, maybe even a standing ovation. In just its seventh year of existence, the school was recognized by U.S. News and World Report magazine’s with a No. 5 ranking among Southern public regional colleges. It was the highest ranking of any Georgia instituion in that category, and one spot higher than GGC was ranked last year. Hooray, indeed.

Investment in HOPE Pays Off
http://www.ajc.com/news/news/opinion/investment-in-hope-pays-off/nZrqs/
Atlanta Journal Constitution
Sept. 14, 2013
By Veronica Buckman
… I am especially thankful for the Georgia HOPE Scholarship – an educational initiative enacted 20 years ago this month that uses Georgia’s lottery funds for college and pre-school funding. So far it has helped 1.5 million Georgia students pay for college. Two of my own children benefited from HOPE, using the scholarship to pay tuition at the University of Georgia. Because of HOPE, our family story is very different from what we envisioned upon our arrival.

A student stands up for Common Core
http://www.myajc.com/news/news/opinion/a-student-stands-up-for-common-core/nZwbS/?icmp=ajc_internallink_textlink_apr2013_ajcstubtomyajc_launch
Atlanta Journal Constitution
Sept. 15, 2013
By Matt Sellers
The sudden political controversy over the Common Core State Standards irresponsibly jeopardizes the education of Georgia’s students. The standards, produced by the National Governors Association and Council of Chief State School Officers with Georgia’s wholehearted support, do not compromise Georgia’s sovereignty in education; far from it. The standards impose no mandate on the state. Rather, Georgia adopted this set of carefully researched, standardized benchmarks to foster critical reasoning and analytical skills in reading, math and writing — skills the state will sorely need to remain economically competitive in coming decades.

French Trip: Ooh la la lunacy
http://savannahnow.com/opinion/2013-09-15/french-trip-ooh-la-la-lunacy#.Ujc0PxYqagF
Savannah Morning News
Sept. 15, 2013
SACRÉ BLEU. At a time when school administrators in Savannah-Chatham County and elsewhere in Georgia are scratching to make budgets, and when parents and taxpayers are struggling to make ends meet, the last thing top Georgia education officials need is a trip to France.

SCAD’s Impact: Artwork in Progress
http://savannahnow.com/opinion/2013-09-14/scads-impact-artwork-progress
Savannah Morning News
Sept. 14, 2013
IT’S ALMOST impossible to overestimate the positive financial, cultural and physical impact that the Savannah College of Art and Design has made in this community since it was founded here almost 35 years ago.

Alan Dabbiere: Startups and Southern Hospitality
http://blogs.wsj.com/accelerators/2013/09/13/alan-dabbiere-startups-and-southern-hospitality/?KEYWORDS=%22Georgia+Tech%22
Wall Street Journal Blog
Sept. 13, 2013
GUEST MENTOR Alan Dabbiere, chairman of AirWatch LLC: Atlanta is a great place to build and scale a startup. I moved my first company, Manhattan Associates, here more than 20 years ago to take advantage of the skilled workforce available in the region and gain access to the global marketplace. …We knew where to start the company this time – Atlanta… Look no further than the city’s superb higher-education system consisting of more than 55 schools and more than 250,000 full-time students. AirWatch has been able to scale its staff quickly because of the region’s schools like Georgia Tech, Georgia State University and University of Georgia. They provide graduates who fill the company’s needs. We certainly need computer-science majors and engineers, but we also need accountants, finance and economics majors to run a successful company. As AirWatch grows, the higher-education system continues to fill our talent pipeline.

Higher education: At what cost?
http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/books/2013/09/14/higher-education-what-cost/imBxoEuRXOlCPNIog599gL/story.html
The Boston Globe
Sept. 14, 2013
Now that “Obama-care’’ has been roundly embraced, other Obama compounds seem certain to come. I’m betting on “Obamacard,’’ which plays off the president’s newish College Scorecard, a tool at whitehouse.gov that tracks the affordability of institutions of higher education around the nation. The new system has been in the press a lot lately. Think of it as an early step in Obama’s second-term focus on higher education, a sort of Reform 2.0 as a follow-up to health care in his first.

Obama’s college plan gets it wrong
http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2013/09/15/obamas-college-plan-gets-it-wrong-column/2817483/
USA Today
Sept. 15, 2013
President Obama’s proposal to create a federal scorecard for universities in two years has critics upset. “Americans should think … hard before allowing the federal government to dominate … higher education,” cautions The Wall Street Journal. The problem isn’t that some new government formula would take control of higher education. Before Obama set foot in office, the federal government was already in the driver’s seat. Uncle Sam dominates higher education with the $150 billion in financial aid it gives out every year, more than twice the education spending of all 50 states combined. The problem is that the new government scorecard is as flawed as the ones it would replace. And it would do little to fight the main problem in higher education — inflation disconnected from actual learning in college.

How to Fall in Love with Math

New York Times
Sept. 15, 2013
EACH time I hear someone say, “Do the math,” I grit my teeth. Invariably a reference to something mundane like addition or multiplication, the phrase reinforces how little awareness there is about the breadth and scope of the subject, how so many people identify mathematics with just one element: arithmetic. Imagine, if you will, using, “Do the lit” as an exhortation to spell correctly. As a mathematician, I can attest that my field is really about ideas above anything else. Ideas that inform our existence, that permeate our universe and beyond, that can surprise and enthrall. Perhaps the most intriguing of these is the way infinity is harnessed to deal with the finite, in everything from fractals to calculus. Just reflect on the infinite range of decimal numbers — a wonder product offered by mathematics to satisfy any measurement need, down to an arbitrary number of digits. (Subscription may be required)

Move It, (Your Body) and Lose It, (Stress)
http://voices.yahoo.com/move-body-lose-stress-12309613.html?cat=5
Yahoo News
Sept. 13, 2013
…A just released report from Princeton University states that we can actually walk away from stress, by walking or exercising. … In 2003 scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology discovered that 50 minutes of running on a treadmill, released feel good endorphins, giving a natural high, which was similar to the experienced that Marijuana users felt. Another report states that the endorphins released while exercising or walking relieve pain and anxiety in the same manner as morphine.

A Catholic Case Against MOOCS
http://chronicle.com/article/A-Catholic-Case-Against-MOOCs/141611/
Chronicle of Higher Education
Sept. 16, 2013
An odd fact of MOOC mania is that it has barely touched one prominent sector of higher education: the nearly 250 Roman Catholic colleges and universities in the United States. So far, only Georgetown University has forged a partnership with one of the three major companies offering platforms for massive open online courses—Coursera, edX, and Udacity. …For example, more than half of those who completed a recent course in computational investing, offered by Georgia Tech through Coursera, came from first-world countries.

HIGHER EDUCATION NEWS

New Metric for Colleges: Graduates’ Salaries

New York Times
Sept. 13, 2013
By James B. Stewart
…What they won’t find is any way to assess what some consider the most important issue in this still-tough economy: How much can graduates of these schools expect to earn? For those answers, long a taboo within the hallowed walls of academia, they can turn to PayScale.com. Like U.S. News, PayScale this week released its latest rankings of colleges and universities. But its rankings are all about incomes and jobs. It ranks over a thousand institutions by the average earnings of their graduates. It also calculates and ranks the average return on investment for a college and the percentage of graduates holding jobs with “high meaning.”

More Georgia colleges tighten rules on tobacco use
http://onlineathens.com/health/2013-09-14/more-ga-college-tighten-rules-tobacco-use
Athens Banner Herald
Sept. 15, 2013
By Andy Miller
As fall classes begin, Georgia Military College has officially stamped out smoking on its Augusta campus. The school joins a growing list of Georgia colleges and universities that have implemented anti-tobacco policies on campus.

SCAD dollar impact put at $386 million
http://savannahnow.com/news/2013-09-12/scad-dollar-impact-put-386-million#.UjcyzBYqagE
Savannah Morning News
Sept. 12, 2013
By Mary Landers
…The Savannah College of Art and Design puts the dollar figure on its regional impact at $386 million in economic output for fiscal year 2012.

WGTC Enrollment Increases for Fall 2013
http://douglasville.patch.com/groups/schools/p/wgtc-enrollment-increases-for-fall-2013
DouglasvillePatch
Sept. 13, 2013
By John Barker
A total of 6,904 students are enrolled in credit courses at West Georgia Technical College this semester, up by 265 students from fall 2012.

Gwinnett Tech sees 5.3 percent enrollment increase
http://www.gwinnettdailypost.com/news/2013/sep/13/gwinnett-tech-sees-53-percent-enrollment-increase/
Gwinnett Daily Post
Sept. 13, 2013
By Keith Farner
LAWRENCEVILLE — Gwinnett Technical College continues to rank second among the state’s technical colleges and recorded more than 7,000 students who enrolled in the fall semester. The number is a 5.3 percent increase since last year, and those students are also taking more hours. The 7,040 students have enrolled in 62,576 credit hours, a 4.3 percent increase year-to-year.

Report: Teens See College as a Marker of Success
http://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2013/09/16/report-teens-see-college-marker-success
Inside Higher Education
Sept. 16, 2013
Teenagers say graduating from college is highly important, but teens and their mothers worry about the price tag, according to a report released this month by Ascend at the Aspen Institute.

Just Say No
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/09/16/judge-bars-technical-college-requiring-drug-testing-all-students
Inside Higher Education
Sept. 16, 2013
By Scott Jaschik
A federal judge on Friday barred Linn State Technical College from requiring all students to undergo drug testing, finding that the rule violated the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment ban on unreasonable searches.

Paper (Tuition) Cuts
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/09/16/small-private-colleges-steeply-cut-their-sticker-price-will-it-drive-down-college
Inside Higher Education
Sept. 16, 2013
By Ry Rivard
A spate of small private liberal arts colleges are dramatically slashing their sticker prices in an effort to, they say, tell the truth about the real cost of college, help families and attract new students. The price cuts – which, for some students, may be more on paper than actual reductions in out-of-pocket expenses – are not a new phenomenon, but the rate at which small colleges are adopting the maneuver, as well as tuition freezes, appears to be picking up speed.

‘Students of Color Only’
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/09/16/texas-christian-professor-sets-debate-invitation-minority-students
Inside Higher Education
Sept. 16, 2013
By Colleen Flaherty
A Texas Christian University professor reached out in an e-mail to a group of students he deemed to be “of color” to help them succeed in his class. But the move backfired with at least one student, who was insulted at being included for her perceived ethnicity.

U of Minn. President to cut administrative costs
http://www.startribune.com/local/223668811.html
Minnesota Star-Tribune
Sept. 14, 2013
University of Minnesota President Eric Kaler announced plans Friday to cut administrative costs by $90 million over the next six years. Kalar told the Board of Regents he wants to cut $15 million a year, starting this year. The money would be used for non-administrative activities and to curb the increased cost of attendance for students. The $15 million each year represents more than 1.2 percent of the university’s administrative budget, Minnesota Public Radio News reported. “That is an ambitious … but achievable goal,” Kaler said. “My hope is to underpromise and over deliver.”

Stanford making new investment in its entrepreneurs
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/technology&id=9248025
KGO TV
Sept. 13, 2013
Stanford is a university known for students who start companies. In fact, we’ve covered a lot of them here on ABC7 News. But now, the university is investing in those young entrepreneurs in a totally new way. In the parking lot of the AOL building in Palo Alto, a big leather couch is being wheeled and hoisted into the future. It’s a couch many young entrepreneurs have slept on, if they’ve made it that far. “People sleep under the desks sometimes,” StartX founder and CEO Cameron Teitelman said. “Like, literally they’ll just code code code for 15 hours straight, and then just lie down on the floor and sleep for a couple hours and get back up.”

Today’s typical college students often juggle work, children and bills with coursework
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/todays-typical-college-students-often-juggle-work-children-and-bills-with-coursework/2013/09/14/4158c8c0-1718-11e3-804b-d3a1a3a18f2c_story.html
The Washington Post
Sept. 14, 2013
When President Obama talks about the cost of higher education, his mentions of “college students” might often evoke images of teenagers who spent senior year of high school searching for the four-year institution that best matched their personalities, then enrolled and moved into the dorms while Mom or Dad paid the bills. That idea of a college student spending four luxurious, carefree years studying is passe. Of the more than 20 million students enrolled at thousands of two- and four-year colleges and universities across the nation, only about one-third fit that traditional description. About 40 percent of all college students are older than 25, according to U.S. Education Department data. More than a third attend classes part-time. Nearly 20 percent work full-time. About 60 percent enroll at four-year public and private schools, while the rest mostly attend community colleges or enroll at for-profit colleges. Very few attend the well-known universities topping the U.S. News and World Report rankings.

Crisis Management on Campus in the Age of Social Media
http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/crisis-management-on-campuses-in-the-age-of-social-media/46567?cid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en
Chronicle of Higher Education
Sept. 13, 2013
The rise of Facebook and Twitter have made crisis management harder than ever for institutions, companies, and individuals, according to a new book by a professor at Texas A&M University at Corpus Christi. What’s essential, she says, is making a plan before you need it. Michelle Maresh-Fuehrer, author of Creating Organizational Crisis Plans, says she wrote for a broad range of readers—all of whom, she says, can develop crisis plans without spending thousands of dollars. Ms. Maresh-Fuehrer, an assistant professor of communication, teaches a course on emergency crisis management that’s required for the public-relations minor.

Tales from Ohio State: How the Class of ’08 Found Jobs
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323864604579067030009725934.html?KEYWORDS=%22university%22
Wall Street Journal
Sept. 14, 2013
Megan Abady wasn’t thrilled to move to Wisconsin after graduating from Ohio State University in the spring of 2008. But a job was a job, and this one, a supply-chain position at Kimberly-Clark Corp., KMB +0.89% paid fairly well. So the marketing major signed the contract and expressed relief that, unlike many of her classmates, she was employed. Ms. Abady, who turns 27 this weekend, has since moved back to Ohio and earns a “comfortable” living as a merchandise planner at retailer The Limited. “I was one of the luckier ones,” she says of her first five years out of school, a half-decade that coincided with a world-wide financial crisis and one of the toughest hiring markets in recent memory. (Subscription required)

Perry announcers fast-track tech school plan
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/article/Perry-announces-fast-track-tech-school-plan-4071570.php
San Antonio-mySA
Sept. 13, 2013
By Lynn Brezosky
HARLINGEN — College students would be able to achieve technical certifications for jobs in high-demand fields without taking coursework in skills they already know, Gov. Rick Perry said Tuesday. …He said the initiative, a collaboration between the governor’s office, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, the Texas Education Agency, the Texas Workforce Commission and TSTC, aimed to speed up the time it takes for veterans, laid-off workers, and others with real-world experience to qualify for jobs in growing industries such as petrochemicals, wind energy, and aviation..

Diverse Docket: TSU Wins Race, Gender Bias Suit; Will Head to Court for Retaliation Claim
http://diverseeducation.com/article/55988/
Diverse Issues In Higher Education
Sept. 15, 2013
By Eric Freedman
Tennessee State University has won part of a race and gender bias suit filed by a female African-American financial aid counselor who was passed over for promotion, but it still faces a Nov. 12 jury trial in federal court on her retaliation claim.

University Hospital Recalls its Civil Rights Journey on 50th Anniversary of Birmingham Bombing
http://diverseeducation.com/article/55979/
Diverse Issues in Higher Education
Sept. 15, 2013
By B. Denise Hawkins
If they had lived beyond the morning of September 15, 1963, four girls — Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Wesley — who had just attended Sunday school at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala. would now be in their sixties. …Instead, on that fateful Sunday 50 years ago, white sheets shrouded four small, Black corpses being wheeled through the Colored Only entrance of the emergency room at the University of Alabama, Birmingham’s (UAB) University Hospital.