University System News
2014 GENERAL ASSEMBLY SESSION NEWS:
www.ajc.com
http://www.ajc.com/news/news/state-regional-govt-politics/house-gun-bill-still-expected/nc4Yy/
House gun bill still expected
By Aaron Gould Sheinin
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Supporters of expanded gun rights in Georgia had expected to have legislation introduced in the House on Monday, but legislative leaders said Tuesday is now the target.
Rep. Rick Jasperse, R-Jasper, the main sponsor of the bill, last week said he hoped to file legislation Monday. But he was still circulating a draft for support.
CONSOLIDATION:
www.bizjournals.com
http://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/print-edition/2014/01/24/ksu-southern-poly-prepare-to.html
KSU, Southern Poly prepare to consolidate
Tonya Layman, Contributing Writer
As Kennesaw State University and Southern Polytechnic State University prepare to consolidate, many higher education officials believe the end result will be a large, diverse educational institution with increased visibility and the ability to capture research dollars. …Papp believes there are many positives in consolidating the two schools.
“The first and one of the biggest is that by eliminating duplicate administrative and back-office functions more funds will be available to use for the delivery of education, education support and research programs,” he said. “A second major advantage is that by combining student support functions at both institutions, students will have more things to plug into beyond the academics.” Perhaps the biggest coup for Cobb County is that as a larger institution the school will have greater visibility.
USG NEWS:
www.news-daily.com
http://www.news-daily.com/news/2014/jan/24/clayton-state8217s-launches-a-new-digital-film/
Clayton State’s launches a new digital film program
By Johnny Jackson
MORROW — While the film industry continues to blossom in Georgia, officials at Clayton State University are attempting to keep pace with its demands. Officials expect the program will have a major impact on economic development in metro Atlanta, providing potential jobs to the area and another way locals can realize their dreams. The Digital Film Technician Certificate program is two courses with day and evening classes, designed to introduce students to production of digital media and film.
www.statesboroherald.com
http://www.statesboroherald.com/section/1/article/56640/
Region prepares for strong, icy punch
Bulloch schools, Ga. Southern, OTC announce closings
By Al Hackle
Predictions of freezing rain, sleet and snow for this afternoon through Wednesday prompted school cancellations and official advice that everyone should avoid driving on icy roads.
Bulloch County Schools Superintendent Charles Wilson decided Monday afternoon that schools will be closed for all students and employees both today and Wednesday. Then Georgia Southern University announced that it will be closed for classes beginning at noon today, and all day Wednesday. All public school and university sports and other extracurricular activities are also canceled. …An alert had gone out that East Georgia State College’s Statesboro campus would close at noon today through Wednesday, said a public safety officer on duty at the Swainsboro main campus. A decision for the Swainsboro campus was to be made this morning, he said. At Georgia Southern, the Dining Commons will be the only campus location open for meals after noon today.
Related article:
www.savannahnow.com
http://savannahnow.com/latest-news/2014-01-27/georgia-southern-classes-cancelled-tuesday-wednesday#.UufApij0Ce8
Georgia Southern classes cancelled Tuesday, Wednesday
www.americustimesrecorder.com
http://www.americustimesrecorder.com/local/x1139776969/GSW-closing-early-Tuesday-all-day-Wednesday
GSW closing early Tuesday, all day Wednesday
The Americus Times-Recorder
AMERICUS — Georgia Southwestern State University issued a weather alert on Monday: Georgia Southwester State University will be closd due to severe weather beginning at 12:15 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 28 at 12:15 p.m. and all day Wednesday, Jan. 29.
GOOD NEWS:
www.mdjonline.com
http://mdjonline.com/view/full_story/24461561/article-Superior-Plumbing-puts-up-%241-5M-to-partner-with-KSU?instance=home_lead_story
Superior Plumbing puts up $1.5M to partner with KSU
by John Bednarowski
KENNESAW — For the second time in less than a week, Kennesaw State University Athletics has entered into a multi-year sponsorship agreement. Monday, Kennesaw State Athletic Director Vaughn Williams announced that Superior Plumbing will be contributing $1.5 million in 10 equal installments to the KSU Athletic Department. Jay Cunningham, president and owner of Superior Plumbing, said the partnership with KSU isn’t just the latest deal with a local sports team for his organization, but something that is an opportunity to help out a neighbor.
RESEARCH:
www.youtube.com
UGA, Georgia Tech Work To Improve Agricultural Technologies
The University of Georgia is working with Georgia Tech on technologies that could improve agricultural production. They could also help improve the bottom line for farmers in Georgia, and around the world. Damon Jones explains.
Editorials/Columns/Opinions
www.ajc.com
http://www.ajc.com/weblogs/get-schooled/2014/jan/09/georgia-schools-rank-17th-nation-annual-quality-co/
Get Schooled with Maureen Downey
Georgia schools rank 17th in nation in annual Quality Counts review
Georgia has some highs and lows in this year’s Quality Counts report. Quality Counts is Education Week’s annual report on state-level efforts to improve public education. The state Department of Education does a good job below highlighting the highs, so I will mention the lows.
www.washingtonpost.com
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/01/27/why-support-for-common-core-is-sinking/?wpisrc=nl_cuzheads
The Answer Sheet By Valerie Strauss
Why support for Common Core is sinking
Over the weekend, the Board of Directors of the New York State United Teachers, a union with more than 600,000 members, passed a resolution withdrawing support for the Common Core State Standards “as implemented and interpreted” by the state Education Department and also declaring “no confidence” in the policies of State Education Commissioner John King. Why is support for the Core sinking rapidly? Carol Burris, principal of South Side High School in New York, explains in the following post.
www.universitybusiness.com
http://www.universitybusiness.com/news/institutions-should-diversify-general-education-requirements
Institutions should diversify general education requirements
Pitt News
People often consider a bachelor’s degree as necessary to a student’s career — a stepping stone for future success and career paths. Through the past five decades, however, the degrees students have obtained have become increasingly polarized: Students are specializing, studying in particular subject areas for postgraduate plans. General education requirements, which are set into the requisites as a threshold for graduation, have since dwindled in importance. Many institutions have yet to address this trend, and students are realizing that general education requirements are more of an obligation than an opportunity.
www.universitybusiness.com
http://www.universitybusiness.com/news/colleges-need-better-ways-evaluate-courses
Colleges need better ways to evaluate courses
Centre Daily Times
Should Yale University have shut down a website allowing users to compare student evaluations of the university’s courses? Of course not. The students should have the right to receive that information, and they were rightly scandalized when the site was blocked. But the evaluations themselves don’t say very much about educational quality. Indeed, nobody really knows how well professors teach — or how much their students learn — in college. And that might be the biggest scandal of all.
www.insidehighered.com
http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/globalhighered/no-moocs-iran-or-syria
No MOOCs for Iran or Syria?
Kris Olds
Yesterday’s news that Coursera and Udacity need to follow US sanction rules is a reminder that the forces shaping the evolving global geographies of MOOCs is an issue that needs to be grappled with more thoroughly and systematically.
www.insidehighered.com
http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/technology-and-learning/academic-library-and-campus-visit
The Academic Library and the Campus Visit
By Joshua Kim
This February we will pack up the car and leave our small NH town for an 6-day campus tour roadshow. 8 campus tours booked. 8 info sessions arranged. Our future class of 2019 daughter will be listening closely to the campus tour guide, checking out the classrooms, sampling the food, and investigating the student center and athletic facilities. Her father will want to head to library. I’ll be interested to observe how big a billing the library gets on the campus tour. I’m of the belief that the academic library is the heart of the academic enterprise.
www.insidehighered.com
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2014/01/28/essay-calls-humanities-graduate-programs-resist-calls-shrink
Don’t Shrink
By David B. Downing
As Scott Jaschik points out in his January 13, 2014 article, “The Third Rail,” the terrible stress our newly minted Ph.D.s in English, comp lit, and foreign languages confront when they begin the job search seems only to be escalating rather than abating. Understandably, then, many Modern Language Association convention sessions, as well as a growing body of publications, have been taking up a variety of proposals for addressing the job crisis.
Education News
www.universitybusiness.com
http://www.universitybusiness.com/news/guns-do-not-belong-campus
Guns do not belong on campus
The Norman Transcript
Oklahoma lawmakers will once again be confronted with legislation that seeks to allow the carrying of handguns on college campuses. It’s becoming an annual debate at the legislature following shootings at college campuses in other parts of the country in the past few years.
www.redandblack.com
http://www.redandblack.com/uganews/politics/change-in-hope-could-affect-athens-students-need-for-financial/article_52d8a84c-86e2-11e3-a999-001a4bcf6878.html
Change in HOPE could affect Athens students’ need for financial aid
Savannah Levins
For thousands of high school students in Georgia, advanced placement, honors and dual enrollment courses will no longer be optional for those who want the HOPE Scholarship.
Beginning with the high school class of 2015, students will be required to take a certain amount of courses that are considered “rigorous” in order to be eligible for the HOPE Scholarship. The class of 2015 will have to take at least two rigorous courses, the class of 2016 will have to take three and the class of 2017 — high school freshman — and beyond will be required to take four.
www.universitybusiness.com
http://www.universitybusiness.com/news/academic-partnerships-launches-new-online-global-specializations-credential-top-us-public-and
Academic Partnerships launches new online global specializations credential with top U.S. public and private universities
Academic Partnerships (AP), one of the world’s largest representatives of online learning, today announced that it has launched a new Specializations initiative designed to help partner universities capitalize on the globalization of higher education. AP has been working with prestigious, private universities that are leaders in the digital education space, such as Rice University, as well as top public universities on the development of this credential. Under development for the past 18 months, Specializations are designed to expand reach and increase revenues for U.S. universities, while filling a void for accessible and affordable higher education globally.
www.universitybusiness.com
http://www.universitybusiness.com/article/smartphones-mixed-blessing-during-study-time
Students say phones are both a great study tool and a distraction
By: Lauren Williams
University Business
More college students are using their smartphones as a study tool even though the internet and activities like texting were cited as the biggest distractions to hitting the books, according to a new study by McGraw-Hill Education. Of the 500 students who responded to the “Impact of Technology on College Student Study Habits” survey, 36 percent said they used smartphones at least some of the time for studying.
www.universitybusiness.com
http://www.universitybusiness.com/news/personal-text-messages-offer-support-students-face-higher-education
Personal text messages offer support as students face higher education
TimesWV.com
The West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission recently launched a three-year pilot project that will help high school seniors prepare for college and begin their freshman year of higher education. The text message support project, which has not yet been officially named, has two main goals: to remind students of deadlines and important steps in the college application process, and to provide them with support and answers to any questions they have along the way.
www.universitybusiness.com
http://www.universitybusiness.com/news/school-capacity-enrollment-stand-way-66-2020-goal
School capacity, enrollment stand in way of ’66 by 2020′ goal
Deseret News
Utah is one year closer to 2020, the deadline for a package of statewide goals for education. Officials report that the state is on track, but maintaining that momentum will be difficult and costly. Last year, lawmakers formally endorsed the so-called “66 by 2020” goal, which calls for two-thirds of Utah’s adult population to hold a degree or certificate by the year 2020.
www.universitybusiness.com
http://www.universitybusiness.com/news/nations-youngest-will-face-less-competition-getting-college
Nation’s youngest will face less competition getting into college
Forbes
Demographics are changing rapidly in the United States. From the late 1980’s until a few years ago, the number of high school graduates has been steadily increasing until it peaked in 2008 at about 3.3 million students. This number has been declining and will continue to decline for the next few years. For every 100 18-year-olds there are today, there are only 95 four-year-olds and in some parts of the country the spread is much greater.
www.universitybusiness.com
http://www.universitybusiness.com/news/cu-boulder-works-confront-rising-veteran-suicide-rate
CU-Boulder works to confront rising veteran suicide rate
Daily Camera
The number of young veterans committing suicide spiked dramatically from 2009 to 2011, a trend that University of Colorado officials say they hope to confront by integrating services on the Boulder campus and removing the stigma around asking for help.
www.universitybusiness.com
http://www.universitybusiness.com/news/ncs-historically-black-colleges-battle-students-money
NC’s historically black colleges battle for students, money
News Observer
At North Carolina A&T State University, students hurry to and from class, iPod cords draped over their shoulders, past a small courtyard where a painful history is pockmarked in four brick slabs. …A&T, like the state’s four other taxpayer-supported historically black universities, celebrates its historic mission to educate a population that had no other opportunities in the segregated South. But the schools that are so defined by heritage are now searching for a formula to stay viable in a new era of scarce resources and unparalleled competition for students.
www.universitybusiness.com
http://www.universitybusiness.com/news/louisiana-state-treasurer-pushing-higher-education-funding
Louisiana state treasurer pushing for higher education funding
The Advertiser
State treasurer John Kennedy spoke to the Daily Advertiser editorial board Monday about a way to boost funding for higher education. Kennedy suggested that bill HB 73 (formally HB 327) be reintroduced and passed, which directs every agency in the state government to reduce spending on consulting contracts by 10 percent. This would save $528 million annually that would be dedicated specifically to higher education, Kennedy said to the board.
www.universitybusiness.com
http://www.universitybusiness.com/news/university-north-carolina-apologizes-fake-classes-promises-real-change
University of North Carolina apologizes for fake classes, promises real change
Business Week
James Dean, the executive vice chancellor and provost of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, flew to New York, arriving at Bloomberg headquarters on Saturday to deliver a heartening message. He wanted to do it in person. “We made mistakes. Horrible things happened that I’m ashamed of,” he said over coffee in our newsroom, sparsely populated on a weekend. “Student-athletes and other students, too, were hurt” as a result of hundreds of phony classes offered beginning sometime in the 1990s. “The integrity of our university was badly damaged.”
www.insidehighered.com
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/01/28/college-endowment-funds-did-well-market-2013
Endowments Up 12%
By Ry Rivard
Colleges’ endowment investment returns are back up — by double digits — just a year after they saw a decline. The average North American college endowment fund grew by nearly 12 percent in the 2013 budget year, according to an annual survey of 835 institutions by Commonfund and the National Association of College and University Business Officers. The survey, released today, tracks closely with preliminary results released in November.
www.insidehighered.com
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/01/28/earnings-lag-community-college-students-who-transfer-profits
For-Profit Wage Gap
By Paul Fain
Community college students who transfer to for-profit institutions tend to earn less over the next decade than do their peers who transfer to public or private colleges. Those are the findings from a study released Monday by the Center for Analysis of Postsecondary Education and Employment, a research center that was created with a federal grant and is housed at the Community College Research Center (CCRC) at Columbia University’s Teachers College.
www.chronicle.com
http://chronicle.com/article/State-Attorneys-General-Open/144255/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
State Attorneys General Open New Investigations Into For-Profit Colleges
By Eric Kelderman
Several companies that own for-profit colleges have recently announced that they are under investigation by more than a dozen state attorneys general. But it’s unclear whether those investigations will put off potential students or investors, and one analyst says a bigger concern for the companies is increasing scrutiny at the federal level.
www.insidehighered.com
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/01/28/state-dept-blocks-access-moocs-countries-economic-sanctions
Massive Closed Online Courses
By Carl Straumsheim
Massive open online course providers have identified global expansion as one of the key goals of 2014, but a recent directive from the federal government has forced some of them to cut off access to students in certain countries.
www.insidehighered.com
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/01/28/new-report-urges-more-emphasis-adjunct-faculty-conditions-accreditatio
Focus on Faculty
By Colleen Flaherty
WASHINGTON – Accreditors “can and should be doing more” on site visits and in their standards to address concerns about adjunct faculty employment and its effect on student learning, says a report out today from the Council for Higher Education Accreditation.
www.universitybusiness.com
http://www.universitybusiness.com/news/europe-leads-way-new-ranking-online-and-distance-mba-programs
Europe leads the way in new ranking of online and distance MBA programs
Europe’s top business schools are currently outstripping their North American counterparts when it comes to the reputation of their online and distance MBA programs, a new global ranking shows.
www.insidehighered.com
http://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2014/01/28/states-investigate-profit-chains
States Investigate For-Profit Chains
Several holding companies of major for-profit chains announced Monday that they have received letters of inquiry from attorneys general in a group of states, usually a dozen or so. The investigations center on business practices, such as the recruitment of students, graduate placement statistics and student lending activities, according to corporate filings.
www.kansascity.com
http://www.kansascity.com/2014/01/24/4774121/female-students-safety-on-campus.html
Title IX could be key in reducing campus rapes
BY MARY SANCHEZ
The Kansas City Star
Can a modern era president, a father of two daughters, cut the horrifying statistic that one in five women is sexually assaulted during her college years? Can he change the fact that only about 12 percent of attacks are even reported? Call me guardedly optimistic. Societal attitudes and behavior don’t shift easily. …Women have a right, a federally enforceable right, to be safe on college and university campuses so they can pursue their educations. The wedge of equality is Title IX, a 1972 law preventing sex discrimination in education at institutions that receive federal funding. Investigations of colleges and universities are already rising in number. The administration will work with campuses where complaints have been lodged under Title IX to improve their response to allegations, enhance education programs and address the mental health needs of victims so they can continue to pursue their educations.