University System News

GOOD NEWS:
www.redandblack.com
http://www.redandblack.com/uganews/uga-to-offer-new-online-classes-next-summer/article_351bc866-372d-11e3-9b90-001a4bcf6878.html
UGA to offer new online classes next summer
Mariana Viera
The University of Georgia Office of Online Learning is developing new courses for summer 2014. The 20 new courses will be a part of the OOL’s UGAonline Learning Fellows Program, which launched last year with 36 courses and 38 faculty members. “[The Learning Fellows Program] is an incentive model to give some incentive for faculty to develop online courses to help meet the needs for increased enrollments in summer offerings and strategically targeted courses that are either high enrolling, bottle-neck courses or have a high demand,” said Keith Bailey, the director of the OOL.

USG NEWS:
www.albanyherald.com
http://www.albanyherald.com/news/2013/oct/18/peter-sireno-resigns-as-president-of-darton-state/
Peter Sireno resigns as president of Darton State College
By Terry Lewis
ALBANY — For the second time in just two days, an Albany institution of higher education has lost its president. In a stunning move early Friday afternoon, Peter Sireno resigned immediately as president of Darton State College. The Georgia Board of Regents wasted no time in naming Georgia College and State University Sr. Vice President for Finance and Administration Paul Jones as Darton’s interim president.

www.onlineathens.com
http://onlineathens.com/uga/2013-10-20/students-will-present-ideas-wednesday-tedxuga-talks
Students will present ideas Wednesday for TEDxUGA talks
University of Georgia students will show off their hearts and minds Wednesday evening at 6 p.m. in the UGA Chapel. Ten students will give brief presentations in hopes of becoming one of the student participants in next March’s second annual “TEDxUGA” event, where students, faculty, alumni and staff can present ideas that can help transform the world.

www.onlineathens.com
http://onlineathens.com/local-news/2013-10-20/att-hopes-boost-moble-access-sanford-stadium
AT&T hopes to boost mobile access at Sanford Stadium
By NICK COLTRAIN
Posting gameday selfies at Sandford Stadium might get easier for AT&T customers in the 2014 football season. The telecommunications company will be making a multi-million investment in its micro-antenna during the spring, said Paul Chambers, northeast Georgia regional director for external affairs for AT&T. The result should be 10 to 12 times greater data capacity for its wireless network in the stadium, he said, though non-AT&T customers will be left where the pages won’t load.

Related article:
www.accessnorthga.com
http://www.accessnorthga.com/detail.php?n=266978
AT&T: Upgrade will boost cell service at Athens stadium

www.albanyherald.com
http://www.albanyherald.com/news/2013/oct/20/uga-president-visits-sunbelt-expo/
UGA president visits Sunbelt Expo
By Clint Thompson
MOULTRIE – University of Georgia President Jere Morehead dubbed his first visit to the Sunbelt Ag Expo last week as “spectacular.” Morehead first visited the Ag Expo grounds during an agricultural tour in September, before 1,200-plus exhibitors set out their wares and some 100,000 visitors flocked to Spence Field in Moultrie for this year’s event. “You get a true sense of the impact that the agricultural community has on the business of this state and how important it is to the future of this state,” the new UGA president said during his visit to the expo on Oct. 15.

USG VALUE:
www.onlineathens.com
http://onlineathens.com/uga/2013-10-17/private-public-partnership-grow-local-agriculture-economy-fulton-county
Private-public partnership to grow local agriculture, economy in Fulton County
By UGA NEWS SERVICE
A diverse agricultural hub is thriving just minutes from downtown Atlanta in the area surrounding the city of Chattahoochee Hills. To help with the growth, University of Georgia Extension recently developed a new position for a Fulton County agriculture and natural resources agent. On Oct. 1, Todd Leeson started work under a collaborative funding agreement between UGA, UGA Extension and the Chattahoochee Hill Country Conservancy—the first of its kind for the university. The joint program’s goal is to return sustainable agriculture to a good portion of the locally protected green space—an area where 70 percent of the community’s 35,000 acres is to be preserved from commercial and residential growth—and to demonstrate the many levels of economic development that can be derived from local food production.

www.myajc.com
http://www.myajc.com/news/business/metro-atlanta-communities-steer-for-internet-fast-/nbQtt/
Metro Atlanta communities steer for Internet fast lane
BY J. SCOTT TRUBEY – THE ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION
The warp speed Internet service that courses through Chattanooga has helped attract and create more than 1,000 new jobs, say the city’s business boosters. In Kansas City, Kan., computer geeks with startup dreams turned low slung houses linked to a Google-built Internet system into a high-tech entrepreneurial village. Networks that can reach speeds more than 100 times faster than typical broadband Internet service are popping up in cities all over the country. Now, business leaders and government officials are looking at ways to bring them to metro Atlanta… Fiber optic cable runs in conduit across Midtown, said Kevin Green, president and CEO of the Midtown Alliance. The business and civic group has held talks with Georgia Tech officials and others about how to connect directly to a fiber network to attract startup companies that are spinning out of Tech, which has the state’s fastest network.

RESEARCH:
www.chronicle.augusta.com
http://chronicle.augusta.com/news/we-think-pink/2013-10-19/georgia-regents-university-research-targets-most-difficult-breast?v=1382212966
Georgia Regents University research targets most difficult breast cancer
2 types lack good therapy in Augusta
By Tom Corwin
Staff Writer
Michelle Burns had three things working against her in getting a more aggressive breast cancer. She was relatively young, just 40 years old. Her mother had gotten breast cancer. “And then I’m an African American female,” Burns said. She was diagnosed with what is often called triple-negative breast cancer, where her breast cancer lacks receptors for estrogen, progesterone and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 or HER2, which are targets for the more specific breast cancer treatments. …It is precisely these kinds of difficult breast cancers that some researchers at Georgia Regents University Cancer Center are zeroing in on because of the lack of good therapies and the higher prevalence in the area. In some ways that makes the GRU Cancer Center better positioned to study it than others.

www.onlineathens.com
http://onlineathens.com/uga/2013-10-17/uga-researcher-develops-new-medicine-attacks-hiv-it-integrates-human-dna
UGA researcher develops new medicine that attacks HIV before it integrates with human DNA
By UGA NEWS SERVICE
Thirty-four million people are living with human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, worldwide and each year some 2.5 million more are infected, according to the World Health Organization. New medicine developed at the University of Georgia attacks the virus before it integrates with human DNA, understood by researchers as the point of no return.

www.gpb.org
http://www.gpb.org/news/2013/10/17/educators-focus-on-medical-mistakes#
Educators Focus On Medical Mistakes
By Ian Branam, Georgia Health News
ATHENS, Ga. — Consider this alarming scenario: A doctor prescribes the wrong dosage of a drug for a patient. The nurse working the case does not spot the doctor’s error. The pharmacist also fails to notice the problem, and fills the prescription as written. Who’s at fault for putting the patient in danger? More than any individual, flaws in the system are most likely to blame for costly, sometimes tragic medical mistakes, according to professors at the Georgia Regents University-University of Georgia Medical Partnership.

www.news.science360.gov
http://news.science360.gov/obj/video/932baa2b-d502-40ac-807c-c5aa3946b7e6/new-implant-provide-clearer-richer-sound-people-deaf
New implant may provide clearer, richer sound for people who are deaf
Provided by the National Science Foundation
The cochlear implant is widely considered to be the most successful neural prosthetic on the market. The implant, which helps individuals who are deaf perceive sound, translates auditory information into electrical signals that go directly to the brain, bypassing cells that don’t serve this function as they should because they are damaged. According to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, approximately 188,000 people worldwide have received cochlear implants since these devices were introduced in the early 1980s, including roughly 41,500 adults and 25,500 children in the United States. Despite their prevalence, cochlear implants have a long way to go before their performance is comparable to that of the intact human ear. Led by engineer Pamela Bhatti at the Georgia Institute of Technology, a team of researchers at both Georgia Tech and the Georgia Regents University created a new type of interface between the device and the brain that could dramatically improve the sound quality of the next generation of implants.

www.forbes.com
http://www.forbes.com/sites/reuvencohen/2013/10/18/contextual-computing-our-sixth-seventh-and-eighth-senses/
Contextual Computing: Our Sixth, Seventh And Eighth Senses
Reuven Cohen, Contributor
As mobile computing becomes increasingly pervasive, so do our expectations of the devices we use and interact with in our everyday lives. In looking at the advancements seen in computing technology in 2013, a few things are beginning to stand out, namely the idea of context based computing. First and unsurprisingly, the desktop is no longer the center of the computing experience. Instead a variety of Internet connected peripheral devices are increasingly becoming central to our daily lives… Context awareness did not originate in computer science, the word “context” stems from a study of human “text”; and the idea of “situated cognition,” that context changes the interpretation of text, is an idea that goes back many thousand years. In terms of computing, contextual awareness was first described by Georgia Tech researchers Anind Dey and Gregory Abowd more than a decade ago.

Editorials/Columns/Opinions
www.albanyherald.com
http://www.albanyherald.com/news/2013/oct/19/freeman-leaves-behind-a-legacy-of-growth-at-asu/
FLETCHER: Freeman leaves behind a legacy of growth at ASU
Opinion Column
By Carlton Fletcher
Many Albany State University alumni in town for the historically black college’s annual homecoming festivities this past week were surprised to learn of the pending departure of their alma mater’s eighth president, Everette Freeman. To say that Freeman’s tenure at Albany State was a tumultuous one would be understatement. He came to Albany from the University of Indianapolis with marching orders to increase enrollment, and some of Freeman’s methods for doing so did not sit well with many of the university’s old-school alumni. Freeman worked with the entrenched power brokers in the region — the majority of them old-money, most of them white — seeking an infusion of what has become the life’s blood of institutions of higher learning: cold, hard cash. …Even his biggest detractors must admit, though, that Freeman will leave behind a legacy of growth.

www.albanyherald.com
http://www.albanyherald.com/news/2013/oct/19/is-a-merger-in-the-future-of-albany-state-and/
Is a merger in the future of Albany State and Darton?
Editorial
By The Albany Herald Editorial Board
Talk about the other shoe dropping. When it did, the thud was heard loudly all the way to Atlanta. The announcement that Everette Freeman, president of Albany State University for the last nine years, was leaving to take a position in Colorado was just sinking in when on Friday when Peter Sireno the president of Albany’s other institution in the University System, Darton State, resigned under pressure from the chancellor. In the span of about 52 hours, the highest administrative offices at ASU and Darton went from long stability to uncertainty. But even more intriguing was the mention the Sireno, who had served as president of Darton for two decades, made in his note to members of the Darton Foundation. “Many exciting changes and challenges are in store for Darton State in the months and years ahead,” Sireno wrote, “among them a merger.”

www.savannahnow.com
http://savannahnow.com/opinion/2013-10-20/editorial-bamboo-botanical#.UmVNICh5iCa
EDITORIAL: From bamboo to botanical
Locally, the tract of land about 10 miles from downtown Savannah next to U.S. 17 is known as “bamboo gardens” and probably always will be although it’s name has changed. Officially, the “Bamboo Farm and Coastal Gardens” became the “Coastal Georgia Botanical Gardens at the Historic Bamboo Farm” on Sept. 18, 2012. The name change, clumsy as it might be, was intended to reflect the changing purpose of the property that originally was a farm with a stand of Japanese bamboo planted in the late 1800s. In 1919, it became a U.S. Department of Agriculture experimental station where bamboo and other plants were tested for uses ranging from medicine to paper. Cost-cutting measures closed that operation in 1979, and the site was handed over to the University of Georgia in 1983.

www.foodmanufacturing.com
http://www.foodmanufacturing.com/articles/2013/10/could-your-r-d-projects-save-you-some-dough
Could Your R&D Projects Save You Some Dough?
by Adam Beckerman, partner-in-charge of manufacturing and distribution group at Habif, Arogeti & Wynne, LLP
$90,844,000. That’s the total value of the federal Research and Development (R&D) Tax Credit awarded to food manufacturers in 2010. Are you missing out on some dough? Eighty-two percent of Georgia manufacturers are not taking advantage of the R&D Tax Credit, according to the 2012 Georgia Manufacturing Survey, conducted by Habif, Arogeti & Wynne, LLP, the Georgia Institute of Technology and Kennesaw State University. And while that isn’t necessarily the trend across the country, many food manufacturers don’t know about this valuable credit or don’t recognize that the activities they perform within their plant are eligible for the savings. Food manufacturers are missing out on millions of dollars that they could put directly into their pocket.

www.chronicle.com
http://chronicle.com/article/Tuition-Remission-Costly-for/142475/?cid=cr&utm_source=cr&utm_medium=en
Tuition Perks for Faculty Brats: a Cost Colleges Should Reconsider
By Jeffrey Selingo
…As the cost of higher education has spiraled upward and incomes have lagged in recent years, how to pay for college has turned into a kitchen-table issue for more and more American families. Unless, of course, you happen to work on a college campus. At many higher-education institutions, employees rarely write tuition checks—or at least not sizable ones—for their children, who receive free or discounted tuition. That perk, which nearly 90 percent of colleges provide, according to the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources, has for many people been one of the most attractive reasons to work in academe.

www.chronicle.com
http://chronicle.com/article/Beyond-Student-Aid/142471/?cid=cr&utm_source=cr&utm_medium=en
Beyond Student Aid: Helping Disadvantaged Students Attend College
By Tim King
On his College Affordability Bus Tour this summer, President Obama outlined three steps toward reforming higher education: 1) creating a new ratings system for colleges based on how successful the institution is in graduating students with good career prospects and manageable loan debt; 2) encouraging colleges to redesign the way they deliver instruction in order to become more cost effective; and 3) helping students manage their loan debt by tying loan repayments to income levels.

www.ajc.com
http://www.ajc.com/weblogs/get-schooled/2013/oct/20/common-core-substandard-educational-scheme-georgia/
Get Schooled with Maureen Downey
Common Core: Substandard educational scheme. Georgia can do better.
A few days ago, I ran an essay by leaders of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, an education policy think tank, urging Georgia to stay the course with the Common Core State Standards. Here is a counterview by Jane Robbins of the American Principles Project, a conservative advocacy organization, and Tanya Ditty of the Concerned Women for America of Georgia
By Jane Robbins and Tanya Ditty
Michael Petrilli and Michael Brickman of the Fordham Institute recently bemoaned Georgia parents’ “misguided and ill-informed” critiques of the Common Core national standards. Common Core has had no more enthusiastic a defender than Fordham, perhaps as a result of the $6.7 million Fordham has accepted from Common Core’s financier, the Gates Foundation, to advance Gates’s pet project. In any event, Fordham challenges Georgians to put forth a “better plan.” As Georgia parents, grandparents, and taxpayers, we accept the challenge.

www.myajc.com
http://www.myajc.com/news/news/opinion/common-core-opponents-loud-but-no-plan/nbQDc/
Common Core opponents: Loud but no plan
BY MICHAEL J. PETRILLI AND MICHAEL BRICKMAN
For almost two decades, the United States has been working to improve its schools by holding them accountable for results on standardized tests. And there’s been some success, with America’s lowest-performing students showing marked gains. Unfortunately, similar progress hasn’t been made for students in the middle or at the top. That shouldn’t be surprising, since the standards and tests that most states put into place — including in Georgia — were set at ridiculously low levels.

Education News
www.myajc.com
http://www.myajc.com/news/business/poll-schools-workforce-key-in-corporate-recruitmen/nbQx2/?icmp=ajc_internallink_invitationbox_apr2013_ajcstub1
Poll: Schools, workforce key in corporate recruitment
BY J. SCOTT TRUBEY – THE ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION
What is the biggest concern of prospects looking to create jobs and invest in Georgia?
It’s not state and local taxes, transportation or political climate. It’s finding skilled workers and, by extension, good public schools, according to a survey of Georgia economic development officials and groups that help recruit companies. Successful expansion or relocation hinges on a skilled workforce, site selection officials and recruiters say. The issue goes beyond Georgia, but the state, like others in the South, trails in some education measures. “Education and workforce are inextricably linked.

www.ajc.com
http://www.ajc.com/news/news/breaking-news/federal-shutdown-relief-only-short-term-for-school/nbSMk/
Federal shutdown relief only short term for school, meals programs
By James Salzer
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
State officials were worried money for everything from research and rural bus services to nutrition and student aid would run out before a federal budget agreement was reached this week. But because that agreement was only temporary, they may be dusting off their contingency plans again in January, just in time for a politically charged legislative session.

www.blogs.edweek.org
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/2013/10/arne_duncan_to_education_depar.html?cmp=ENL-EU-NEWS2
Arne Duncan to Education Department: Next Few Weeks Won’t Be Easy
By Alyson Klein
The U.S. Department of Education is back up and running—and employees have returned to a mile-long to do-list, according to an email from U.S. Secretary Arne Duncan that was sent out to employees (and reporters) Thursday morning. Duncan thanks the “ED family” for all of its hard work and patience during the 16-day partial government shutdown. And he acknowledges that employees are returning to a mountain of work:

www.chronicle.com
http://chronicle.com/article/Common-App-Is-Experiencing/142473/
Glitches in Common App Alarm Its Users
By Eric Hoover
The online Common Application spark¬ed coast-to-coast consternation last week as technical difficulties plagued the system used by 517 colleges. On the eve of some institutions’ early-admission deadlines, many high-school seniors could not get access to applications. Some said they were repeatedly logged off because of “inactivity,” and others reported waiting an hour or more for their submissions to go through… The glitches prompted several colleges to push back application deadlines. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the Georgia Institute of Technology extended their early-action deadlines—originally October 15—to October 21. Columbia and Northwestern Universities extended their November 1 early-decision deadlines by a week, and the University of Chicago did the same for its early-action deadline.

www.nytimes.com

Deadlines for Colleges Are Delayed
By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA
Several of the nation’s top colleges and universities have postponed their early application deadlines over the last few days, prompted by continued reports that students and high schools are stumbling over technical problems with the Common Application. Nov. 1 deadlines have been pushed back to Nov. 8 at Northwestern, the University of Chicago, Duke, Columbia, Barnard, Dartmouth and Tufts. Boston University announced a delay to Nov. 15, while Syracuse postponed its Nov. 15 deadline to Dec. 1. Earlier, the Georgia Institute of Technology and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill extended their Oct. 15 deadlines to Oct. 21.

www.insidehighered.com
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/10/21/more-professors-using-social-media-teaching-tools#ixzz2iMbvzLqB
Wired for Teaching
By Megan Rogers
A growing number of faculty members are using social media in the classroom and are finding technology to be both a help and a hindrance, according to a new survey.

www.insidehighered.com
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/10/21/california-community-colleges-cautious-experiment-accelerated-remediation#ixzz2iM1kE1RK
Faster Math Path
By Paul Fain
A faculty-led group called the California Acceleration Project has helped 42 of the state’s community colleges offer redesigned, faster versions of remedial math and English tracks. But the group’s co-founders said they would be able to make much more progress if the University of California changed its transfer credit requirements.

www.nytimes.com

Low-Cost B.A. Starting Slowly in Two States
By TAMAR LEWIN
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — With tuition, student loan debt and default rates all spiraling higher, what’s not to love about a $10,000 bachelor’s degree? In the last two years, two Republican governors — Rick Perry in Texas and Rick Scott in Florida — have challenged their states’ public colleges to develop bachelor’s degrees costing no more than $10,000, less than a third of the average sticker price for tuition and fees at a four-year public college. Governor Perry said he hoped 10 percent of the state’s degrees would meet that goal with online learning and new efficiencies. Governor Scott sought low-cost degrees in high-demand fields.

www.nytimes.com

Social Responsibility and M.B.A.’s
By CHRISTOPHER F. SCHUETZE
Like many businesspeople, Ketevan Sidamonidze has traveled far — in her case from Georgia, in the Caucasus region, to the Esade business school in Spain — to earn a master’s in business administration. Unlike most others, she said, the driving force in her decision to get an M.B.A. was not to improve her career prospects, but rather to improve her ability do social good.

www.blogs.edweek.org
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/college_bound/2013/10/more_college_students_in_debt_struggling_to_repay_loans.html?cmp=ENL-EU-NEWS2
More College Students in Debt, Struggling to Repay Loans
By Caralee Adams
Students are borrowing more money to attend college and having a harder time repaying their debt, according to a new report from the National Center for Education Statistics. This analysis looked specifically at three groups of undergraduate students who finished their degrees in 1992-93, 1999-2000, and 2007-08 to compare their borrowing and repayment patterns.

www.insidehighered.com
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/10/21/study-documents-how-much-students-text-during-class#ixzz2iMbk6jsB
Texting in Class
By Scott Jaschik
If you are leading a class and imagine that students seem more distracted than ever by their digital devices, it’s not your imagination. And they aren’t just checking their e-mail a single time. A new study has found that more than 90 percent of students admit to using their devices for non-class activities during class times. Less than 8 percent said that they never do so.

www.chronicle.com
http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/learning-will-become-personalized-and-spontaneous-game-expert-says/47541?cid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en
Learning Will Become Personalized and Spontaneous, Game Expert Says
By Megan O’Neil
Anaheim, Calif. — Jane McGonigal, a game designer and game researcher, says technology will intensify the personalization of the student experience in the coming years. Speaking here at the Educause conference, Ms. McGonigal described a new environment ”where you can learn anytime, anyplace, and it is full of play and collaboration.” The game expert is best known for trumpeting gaming as a tool for solving education and social problems.

www.chronicle.com
http://chronicle.com/article/Opportunity-Index-Spots-a/142467/?cid=at
‘Opportunity Index’ Spots Failures in Education and Employment
By Goldie Blumenstyk
According to data from the 2013 Opportunity Index, released this week, overall opportunity in the United States has increased by 2.6 percent since 2011, the first year the index was produced. One of the drivers of that uptick: increasing rates of students graduating on time from high school (from 74.7 percent in the 2011 Opportunity Index to 78.2 percent in the latest one) and rising proportions of adults ages 25 and older with an associate or more advanced degree (from 35.4 percent to 36.3 percent).

www.chronicle.com
http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/video-higher-education-embraces-cloud-computing/47611?cid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en
Video: Higher Education Embraces Cloud Computing
By Megan O’Neil
Anaheim, Calif. — At the Educause conference here, The Chronicle’s Megan O’Neil interviews Shel Waggener, senior vice president of Internet2, about higher education’s use of cloud computing.

www.diverseeducation.com
http://diverseeducation.com/article/56865/?utm_campaign=Diverse%20Newsletter%203&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Eloqua&elq=7f3e4964af1642558d6249457742097e&elqCampaignId=62#
Ala. Governor Calls Special Meeting of ASU Board
by Associated Press
MONTGOMERY Ala.—Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley has called a special meeting of the Alabama State University Board of Trustees to discuss the search for a new school president and an audit critical of the university’s finances. Meanwhile, a west Alabama district attorney said he has taken over an investigation of the school’s finances. …The governor said earlier he had asked the attorney general’s office and the U.S. attorney to investigate ASU’s finances.

www.edweek.org
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2013/10/16/08whistleblower.h33.html?tkn=WWSFkuD%2FpKs9BJhHPEC0rT%2FJiEbSLn5nayHB&cmp=ENL-EU-NEWS1
Pa. Texting Scandal Highlights Complexities for IT Leaders
By Benjamin Herold
The recent furor caused by the discovery of racist text messages involving a Pennsylvania superintendent has cast new light on the growing professional, ethical, and legal challenges faced by many district information technology departments now awash in digital devices. Abdallah Hawa, the information technology director for the 7,200-student Coatesville Area system, near Philadelphia, was erasing the memory of the district-owned cellphone of Coatesville Area High School’s athletic director in August when he uncovered a lengthy text-message exchange between the sports official and the superintendent in which racist slurs were directed at district students and staff members. Mr. Hawa reported his discovery, prompting the resignations of both Superintendent Richard Como and Athletic Director Jim Donato, the revelation of an already-underway criminal investigation into the district, and allegations from Mr. Hawa’s lawyer that the IT chief was pressured to compromise the security of the district’s computer network and has been harassed as a whistleblower.