University System News
USG NEWS:
www.diverseeducation.com
http://diverseeducation.com/article/59923/?utm_campaign=Diverse%20Newsletter%203&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Eloqua&elq=75c30902635e4e79a0f24c87d6682029&elqCampaignId=173#
Regents to Discuss Smoking Ban at Georgia Colleges
by Associated Press
ATHENS, Ga. ― The board that governs Georgia’s public colleges and universities is taking a close look at banning tobacco from campuses statewide. The Board of Regents is scheduled to discuss the proposed tobacco ban at its meeting Wednesday in Atlanta. The ban would prohibit faculty, students, staff and even spectators at sporting events from smoking or using smokeless tobacco in both indoor and outdoor parts of college campuses.
Related articles:
www.blog.al.com
http://blog.al.com/wire/2014/01/georgias_board_of_regents_to_v.html
Georgia’s Board of Regents to vote on ban of tobacco use on all public campuses Wednesday
www.kansascity.com
http://www.kansascity.com/2014/01/06/4732785/regents-to-discuss-smoking-ban.html
Regents to discuss smoking ban at Ga. Colleges
www.sfgate.com
http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Regents-to-discuss-smoking-ban-at-Ga-colleges-5117169.php
Regents to discuss smoking ban at Ga. colleges
www.wctv.tv
http://www.wctv.tv/home/headlines/Regents-To-Discuss-Smoking-Ban-At-Georgia-Colleges-238848141.html?ref=141
Regents To Discuss Smoking Ban At Georgia Colleges
www.chronicle.augusta.com
http://chronicle.augusta.com/news/health/2014-01-06/gru-bids-create-columbia-county-hospital?v=1389060596
GRU bids to create Columbia County hospital
By Tom Corwin
Staff Writer
The boards that govern Georgia Regents Health Sys¬tem and its medical center voted unanimously Monday to make a bid to build a hospital in Columbia County, the state’s largest county without one. The boards met in a called meeting and – after a 45-minute executive session – voted to respond to Columbia Coun¬ty’s request for bids to build a hospital.
www.myajc.com
http://www.myajc.com/news/news/state-regional-govt-politics/politifact-isaksons-jobs-claim-doesnt-make-the-gra/ncdfQ/?icmp=ajc_internallink_invitationbox_apr2013_ajcstub1
PolitiFact: Isakson’s jobs claim doesn’t make the grade
BY NANCY BADERTSCHER – THE ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION
Parents who scrimp, save and borrow to put their children through college don’t like hearing that a four-year degree may not be the door-opener they hoped. But that’s what U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson, among others, is out there saying. And Isakson is pointing fingers at a specific type of school — liberal arts colleges.
USG VALUE:
www.onlineathens.com
http://onlineathens.com/features/2014-01-04/smith-former-governor-credits-uga-his-success
Smith: Former governor credits UGA for his success
By LORAN SMITH
ATLANTA — Every day, former Georgia Gov. Carl Sanders goes to the office — the law firm Troutman Sanders, which he built into one of the top law firms in the country.
Sanders has always been a disciplined, self-motivated lawyer who consistently found a way to accomplish things out of the ordinary, managing many interests with efficiency and dispatch. A member of the Greatest Generation, he has historically underscored affiliation with the basics long considered keys to success in life. At school, there was total commitment to reading, writing and arithmetic; at home, there was homework, chores, church and a spirit of giving and goodwill to others. …One should not read any regret in all this. There are no ill feelings. Both Carl and Betty Sanders love and appreciate their alma mater. Carl will tell you flat out that had it not been for the football grant-in-aid, in all probability he would not have gotten a law degree in Athens. “The University of Georgia,” he says, “made me what I am.”
RESEARCH:
www.chronicle.augusta.com
http://chronicle.augusta.com/news/metro/2014-01-06/gru-stop-buying-dogs-questionable-dealers?v=1389060581
GRU to stop buying dogs from questionable dealers
By Tracey McManus
Staff Writer
To maintain access to federal research funding, Georgia Regents Uni¬versity officials said Monday that they will no longer purchase dogs from controversial Class B dealers, who pick animals from shelters or free-to-good-home ads and sell them to laboratories. The National Institutes of Health began a plan to phase out the practice in 2011 and announced in December that it would not fund research involving dogs from Class B dealers beginning Oct. 1.
www.onlineathens.com
http://onlineathens.com/health/2014-01-06/uga-research-creates-hope-tissue-fibrosis-therapeutics
UGA research creates hope for tissue fibrosis therapeutics
By APRIL BURKHART
In the next decade, people suffering from tissue fibrosis may have options for recovery that don’t include organ transplants. At least that’s what Somanath Shenoy, associate professor with the University of Georgia College of Pharmacy, and his research team are hoping.
www.yottafire.com
http://yottafire.com/2014/01/culling-vampire-bats-stem-rabies-latin-america-can-backfire/
Culling vampire bats to stem rabies in Latin America can backfire
by PressRelease
Culling vampire bat colonies to stem the transmission of rabies in Latin America does little to slow the spread of the virus and could even have the reverse effect, according to University of Michigan researchers and their colleagues. Vampire bats transmit rabies virus throughout Latin America, causing thousands of livestock deaths each year, as well as occasional human fatalities. Poison and even explosives have been used since the 1960s in attempts to control vampire bat populations, but those culling efforts have generally failed. Last year, a team of U-M researchers and their University of Georgia colleagues reported the results of a long-term vampire bat field study in Peru. Now, the same team has combined the field findings with new computer models of rabies transmission and data from infection studies using captive vampire bats to show that culling has minimal effect on containing the virus, and can, in some cases, actually increase its spread by driving infected bats into neighboring colonies.
Editorials/Columns/Opinions
www.ajc.com
http://www.ajc.com/weblogs/get-schooled/2014/jan/07/georgia-tech-accepts-5000-early-action-students-al/
Get Schooled with Maureen Downey
Georgia Tech accepts 5,000 early action students. All 50 states represented for first time.
The quality of student earning admission into Georgia’s premiere public campuses is rising. We’ve already seen the stats on the early action admission students at UGA who had an average GPA of almost 4.0 and a mean SAT of 1355 (with a mean SAT writing score greater than 650), or a mean ACT of 30. They also took an average of seven advanced placement or international baccalaureate classes. Now, Georgia Tech has released a profile of its early action admits. On average, the students admitted to Tech have a 4.0 GPA, an SAT score of 1485 out of a possible 1,600 and will have taken 9.4 AP/IB/Dual enrollment courses by high school graduation.
www.insidehighered.com
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2014/01/07/essay-real-meaning-institutional-boycotts
The Myth of Institutional Boycotts
By David Hirsh
Supporters of the American Studies Association’s call for a boycott of Israel universities are distorting what the boycott is – and how it will affect academe. The “institutional boycott” is likely to function as a political test in a hidden form. It violates principles of academic freedom. And in practice, it has been, and is likely to continue to be, a campaign for the exclusion of individual scholars who work in Israel, from the global academic community. It’s time to look with more care at the boycott and what it’s really about.
www.insidehighered.com
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2014/01/07/essay-says-israel-boycott-runs-counter-leftist-intellectual-traditions
The Boycott Isn’t Leftist
By Chad Alan Goldberg
What the social-democratic left has always objected to is not the liberal aspiration to universal rights and freedoms, but rather the way that classical liberalism generally ignored the unequal economic and social conditions of access to those freedoms. The liberal’s abstract universalism affirmed everyone’s equal rights without giving everyone the real means of realizing these formally universal rights. The rich and the poor may have an equal formal right to be elected to political office, for instance, but the poor were effectively excluded from office when it did not pay a full-time salary.
www.insidehighered.com
http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/confessions-community-college-dean/saving-students-themselves
Saving Students from Themselves
By Matt Reed
This one is really looking for advice. Like many colleges, mine has a January Intersession. Intersession is two weeks long, and the courses are intense. They’re taken by a blend of our own students and visiting students from other colleges who are looking to pick up some gen ed credits during the break. The logic behind intersession is that there can be a real pedagogical benefit to focusing intently and solely on one thing at a time.
www.chronicle.com
http://chronicle.com/article/Why-You-Should-Consider/143851/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
Why You Should Consider Community Colleges
By Rob Jenkins
Reading over my two most recent columns on job hunting at community colleges, I’m afraid I might have discouraged some graduate students from applying. That was not my intention, although I can’t help being reminded of the answer Flannery O’Connor supposedly gave an interviewer who asked if she thought writing programs were squelching young writers: “Not enough of them.” Seriously, though, I’ve been trying to be as candid as possible about both the advantages and disadvantages of a faculty career at a community college.
Education News
www.edweek.org
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2014/01/08/15sessions_ep.h33.html?tkn=UZTFQVnOoSNtWB38mhRxSlzdg9smnSssh85w&cmp=ENL-EU-NEWS1
State Lawmakers Face Tough Choices on Common Core
Common core likely flash point
By Andrew Ujifusa
State legislators begin their 2014 sessions this month grappling with the best way forward on the Common Core State Standards in a tricky political climate, with a majority of governors and lawmakers up for election in the fall. For many states, this year will be a key juncture for decisions about the standards—and related exams—before their full weight is felt in classrooms, district offices, and state education departments in the 2014-15 school year.
www.chronicle.com
http://chronicle.com/blogs/data/2014/01/06/18-million-undergrads-enrolled-in-fall-2012-and-other-new-data/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
18 Million Undergraduates Enrolled in Fall 2012, and Other New Data
The U.S. Department of Education sure knows how to ring in the New Year! Last week the National Center for Education Statistics released lots of new data from its vast Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, or Ipeds. The numbers provide a fresh look at enrollment, graduation rates, finances, and employment in 2012-13 at more than 7,000 institutions nationwide.
www.insidehighered.com
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/01/07/potential-loosening-parental-notification-laws-students-mental-health-problems
Chipping Away at FERPA?
By Allie Grasgreen
Under federal law, administrators cannot notify the parents of a student exhibiting troubling behavior – say, isolating oneself for weeks due to depression – unless it’s clearly “in connection with a health or safety emergency.” Many health experts, and the parents of many students, have criticized the law as needlessly strict – potentially leaving vulnerable students unable to get the help they need. That could change under new legislation proposed last month, which appears to slightly broaden the circumstances under which disclosure is allowable.
www.diverseeducation.com
http://diverseeducation.com/article/59900/?utm_campaign=Diverse%20Newsletter%203&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Eloqua&elq=75c30902635e4e79a0f24c87d6682029&elqCampaignId=173#
Community Colleges Creating Pathways for Underprepared Students
By Katti Gray
Teaching high school math during the day, and two evenings a week helping community college students grasp arithmetic they should have mastered years ago, LaTonya Davis has some insight into the root causes of her older students’ deficiencies. “Over the twelve years that I’ve been doing this, the performance of my junior college students has gotten worse,” Davis says. Many of her “developmental math” students in community college balk at the three hours of homework she gives them weekly, Davis says. “They think that they shouldn’t have to do homework because homework is not in their background,” she says. “If students aren’t doing homework assignments in math, science and English — that’s their foundation academically — the teachers who are teaching them should be fired.” With that, Davis, a remedial math instructor at Tarrant County College, headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas, was just beginning her critique of why a disproportionate share of students land on campus unequipped to tackle course work that yields a professional certificate or two-year associate degree.
www.diverseeducation.com
http://diverseeducation.com/article/59904/?utm_campaign=Diverse%20Newsletter%203&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Eloqua&elq=75c30902635e4e79a0f24c87d6682029&elqCampaignId=173#
Taxpayer-Funded Work-Study Program Benefits Richer Students
by Jon Marcus, The Hechinger Report
…In fact, much of the more than $1 billion a year in federal taxpayer-funded work-study money is going to the children of better-off families at expensive private universities, and not their lower-income counterparts, under a 50-year-old formula those pricey universities are unlikely to willingly relinquish. The formula “disproportionately benefits the students who need it the least,” says Rory O’Sullivan, policy & research director at the youth advocacy organization Young Invincibles. “At a time of tight budgets, it doesn’t make sense. It should go to people who can benefit the most.”
www.insidehighered.com
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/01/07/academic-extremism-could-hurt-australian-universities-minister-warns
Warning on Academic Extremism
By Christian Kerr for The Australian
Academic extremism risks damaging the standing of Australia’s universities, the country’s education minister, Christopher Pyne, warned last week. His comments come in the wake of the controversy over the support for the anti-Israel boycott, divestment and sanctions movement by the University of Sydney’s Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies and The Australian’s revelations this week that a Sydney senior lecturer was part of a WikiLeaks Party delegation granted an audience with the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, where they affirmed “the solidarity of the Australian people.”
www.insidehighered.com
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/01/07/study-links-tenure-criteria-long-term-professor-performance
Tenure and Incompetence
By Colleen Flaherty
Want your colleagues to remain effective teachers and researchers after tenure? Then prioritize quality over quantity in publishing during the tenure process, avoid collegiality as a tenure criterion and make sure your administrators aren’t rubber-stamping faculty tenure recommendations. That’s according to a new study out in this month’s PS: Political Science and Politics, a journal of the American Political Science Association.
www.insidehighered.com
http://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2014/01/07/bill-would-require-campuses-report-rape-police
Bill Would Require Campuses to Report Rape to Police
A bill introduced in the California Assembly on Monday would require all colleges in the state to notify the police or sheriff’s department any report of a violent crime, including forcible rape, willful homicide, robbery or aggravated assault, unless the student who filed the report requests otherwise.
www.insidehighered.com
http://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2014/01/07/why-some-colleges-get-more-million-dollar-gifts
Why Some Colleges Get More Million-Dollar Gifts
Veteran college presidents, highly ranked colleges and urban institutions have a better chance of luring big donations, according to a recent study by Johnson, Grossnickle and Associates, a consulting firm, and the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy.
www.chronicle.com
http://chronicle.com/article/Budget-Breakthrough-May-Mean/143801/?cid=at
Budget Breakthrough May Mean Little for Battered Research Agencies
By Paul Basken
Federal science agencies, like most of the government, are expecting to learn by the middle of the month how much money they can spend. And there’s a good chance the amount will be more than it was last year. That, however, may be the extent of the good tidings from Congress, which last month finally reached agreement on the general outline of a budget for the fiscal year that began last October. That’s because any spending increases within that outline will likely be modest compared with the recent pattern of cuts, with the science agencies holding out little hope for even keeping up with inflation.
www.chronicle.com
http://chronicle.com/article/Pressure-on-Accreditation-Is/143855/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
Pressure on Accreditation Is Cause for Concern, Speaker Warns
By Scott Carlson
Marco Island, Fla.
If Judith S. Eaton came to the Council of Independent Colleges’ Presidents Institute to ring the alarms, mission accomplished. Ms. Eaton, president of the Council for Higher Education Accreditation, asserted that traditional accreditation faces unprecedented scrutiny in the halls of government and in the news media for the various failures of colleges. And, she said, what is slowly replacing accreditation should give everyone pause: more federal oversight, increased regulation, and even proposals for government-run college-ratings systems.