University System News

GOOD NEWS:
www.gwinnettdailypost.com
http://www.gwinnettdailypost.com/news/2014/may/15/ggc-graduating-class-makes-history/?news
Georgia Gwinnett College graduating class makes history | PHOTOS
Largest class in school history features first commissioned ROTC cadet
By Chris Stephens
LAWRENCEVILLE — Georgia Gwinnett College created history in more ways than one during Thursday’s spring graduation ceremonies. Not only did the eight-year school graduate its biggest class ever (310), but it also commissioned it’s first Reserve Officer Training Corps cadet into the U.S. Army.

www.onlineathens.com
http://onlineathens.com/uga/2014-05-15/university-liverpool-delegation-visits-uga-formalize-international-partnership
University of Liverpool delegation visits UGA to formalize international partnership
By UGA NEWS SERVICE
The University of Georgia recently signed a cooperative agreement with the University of Liverpool. The agreement will further deepen ongoing collaborations between the two universities by specifying joint research activities, faculty and staff exchanges and graduate student exchanges.

USG NEWS:
www.m.albanyherald.com
http://m.albanyherald.com/news/2014/may/13/albany-state-university-president-art-dunning/?templates=mobile
Albany State University President Art Dunning: Time to leverage the intellectual assets in Albany
ASU Interim President Art Dunning says an educational collaborative can lift the community
Story by Terry Lewis
ALBANY — Albany State University Interim President Art Dunning, speaking to the Dougherty County Rotary Club on Tuesday, touted Albany’s “intellectual capital,” saying it’s time for the community to “leverage those assists.” “We have assets here that many communities in this state would love to have,” Dunning, who has been at ASU since December, said, calling attention to the three institutions of higher learning which called Albany home.

www.bizjournals.com
http://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/print-edition/2014/05/16/metro-leaders-on-philadelphia-visit-see-parallels.html?page=all
Metro leaders on Philadelphia visit see parallels to Atlanta
Maria Saporta
Contributing Writer- Atlanta Business Chronicle
A delegation of 111 metro Atlanta leaders, who just returned from a study mission to Philadelphia, learned how Drexel University hopes to bridge its campus with its surrounding community by building over rail yards near the 30th Street Amtrak train station… Interestingly enough, the The Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation has been working behind the scenes to foster the concept of “anchor institutions” becoming more engaged in building bridges in the community. On Sept. 11, 2013, it held a dinner at its family office, where the presidents of Georgia State University (Mark Becker), Georgia Tech (Bud Peterson), Spelman College (Beverly Tatum), Clark Atlanta University (Carlton Brown), Morehouse College (John Wilson) and Morehouse School of Medicine (both John Maupin and Valerie Montgomery Rice) were joined with executives of other key anchor institutions.

www.globalatlanta.com
http://www.globalatlanta.com/article/26915/japanese-auto-supplier-to-build-in-griffin-eco-park/
Japanese Auto Supplier to Build in Griffin ‘Eco-Park’
by Trevor Williams
A Japanese maker of titanate friction materials for car brake pads will put a factory and headquarters near Griffin, Ga., creating 32 jobs. Otsuka Chemical Co. Ltd. is a subsidiary of the Otsuka conglomerate, which makes pharmaceuticals, drinks and vitamins, including the Nature Made brand. The U.S. operation, Otsuka Chemical America Inc., will be based at a mixed-use development on Georgia Highway 16 that includes what is being called Georgia’s first eco-friendly industrial park. The Lakes at Green Valley concept was jointly developed by the Griffin-Spalding County Industrial Development Authority and Georgia Institute of Technology.

RESEARCH:
www.poultrytimes.net
http://poultrytimes.net/?p=8359
Five universities receive research grants
TUCKER, Ga. — U.S. Poultry & Egg Association and the USPOULTRY Foundation recently approved a total of $314,441 for six new research grants at five institutions.
Institutions receiving the research grants were the University of Georgia, North Carolina State University, Ohio State University, Auburn University and the University of Delaware. The research funding was approved by the boards of directors of both organizations, based on recommendations from the Foundation Research Advisory Committee. The committee evaluates research proposals to determine their value to the industry and then makes recommendations to the boards for funding.

www.moultrieobserver.com
http://www.moultrieobserver.com/local/x1667052052/YMCA-to-lead-workshops-under-3-2M-UGA-grant
YMCA to lead workshops under $3.2M UGA grant
Kevin Hall
The Moultrie Observer
MOULTRIE — Chronic health conditions are a problem — not only for the sufferer but also for his employer. As more older workers remain in the workforce and problems of obesity continue among younger ones, chronic conditions like cardiovascular disease and diabetes are expected to have a greater impact on businesses. A University of Georgia study aims to test whether workers with chronic conditions can be taught through their workplaces to better manage those ailments. Teaching those workshops will be the Moultrie YMCA.

www.bizjournals.com
http://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/print-edition/2014/05/16/dr-amy-baxter-and-dr-kirk-kanter.html?page=all
Dr. Amy Baxter and Dr. Kirk Kanter
Janet Jones Kendall, Contributing Writer
…When a baby’s heart is as small as a strawberry, impeccable precision and specialized care are required during open heart surgery. That’s why Kirk Kanter, a pediatric heart surgeon at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, in collaboration with Georgia Tech and Emory University, has pioneered a new advanced technology that allows surgeons to practice the optimal operation for a child based on the child’s unique anatomy before going to the operating room. This new technology is called computational modeling, generating a 3-D image of a heart so cardiothoracic surgeons understand the nuances of each child’s heart prior to surgery.

www.bizjournals.com
http://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/print-edition/2014/05/16/sharp-works-to-combat-pediatric-feeding-problems.html?page=all
Sharp works to combat pediatric feeding problems
Janet Jones Kendall, Contributing Writer
Most people are aware that children with severe autism have impairments in the areas of social interaction, language and behavior. … As director of the Pediatric Feeding Disorders Program at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta’s Marcus Autism Center, Will Sharp has dedicated his career to improving treatment and access to care for kids with these issues. Sharp is also leading efforts to develop “iEat,” the first feeding disorder decision support tool and eventually an iOS and Android mobile application. The tool, developed with the Georgia Tech Research Institute, will begin a clinical trial at Marcus this spring and the team hopes it will prove effective as a form of treatment beyond intensive programs. The app would allow a parent to access a computerized treatment manual with decision support.

www.scientificamerican.com
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/4-new-innovations-to-energize-the-world/
4 New Innovations to Energize the World
From delivering electricity without wires to using fir trees to produce rocket fuel, science is making ingenious breakthroughs in energy alternatives
By Tim Radford and The Daily Climate
LONDON – New scientific discoveries have been made to beef up a biofuel, re-use waste heat, get more power from solar panels – and even deliver electricity across a room without using wires. Here are four promising inventions that offer tantalizing potential to improve our lives and change how we generate and use power. Scientists in the United States have crossed a fir tree with a gut bacterium, fed it beef soup, and watched it deliver the chemistry of the highest-octane rocket fuel. They combined genetic manipulation and microbiology to open the way for a new kind of biofuel manufacture for military aviation and space technology. Pamela Peralta-Yahya and research collaborators at the Georgia Institute of Technology report in the journal Synthetic Biology that their new technique has some way to go before it delivers a high-energy spirit to match the missile fuel JP-10, a high-octane fuel that costs $25 a gallon and of which only tiny amounts can be extracted from each barrel of crude oil.

www.bizjournals.com
http://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/print-edition/2014/05/16/kabbage-raises-50m-in-venture-cash-will-expand.html?page=all
Kabbage raises $50M in venture cash, will expand products, reach
Urvaksh Karkaria
Staff Writer- Atlanta Business Chronicle
Starmobile wins backing from Yahoo chairman (2nd article down)
Mobile software startup StarMobile has raised capital from Webb Investment Network (WIN), the investment vehicle of Yahoo Inc. Chairman Maynard Webb. StarMobile, a Georgia Tech spinoff, says its technology can convert desktop enterprise software, such as Oracle and SAP, into mobile applications for 80 percent less than third-party mobile platforms. StarMobile, which targets Global 2000 companies, gets paid a monthly fee for the use of the platform. Customer contracts run between one and three years.

www.myajc.com
http://www.myajc.com/news/news/state-regional-govt-politics/congress-set-to-move-on-water-bill-allowing-savann/nfxmG/?icmp=ajc_internallink_invitationbox_apr2013_ajcstub1#490c41a6.3566685.735369
Congress set to move on water bill allowing Savannah Port dredging
BY DAN CHAPMAN AND DANIEL MALLOY – THE ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION
WASHINGTON — The final legislative blockade to the start of the Savannah Port deepening is set to fall next week, as congressional leaders from both parties and chambers have signed off on a deal for a multibillion-dollar water resources bill. The Water Resources Reform and Development Act will allow the port project to begin with money the state already has set aside, with a cost estimate that continues to rise. …Savannah is the nation’s fourth-busiest container port and second-busiest on the East Coast, providing a huge economic engine for Georgia. The Savannah and Brunswick seaports constitute an estimated $39 billion a year for the state’s economy, according to a University of Georgia report. About 100,000 jobs across metro Atlanta rely on goods flowing in and out of the ports.

STATE NEEDS/ISSUES:

Editorials/Columns/Opinions
www.chronicle.com
http://chronicle.com/article/RecognizingRewarding/146513/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
Recognizing and Rewarding Presidential Spouses
The old concept of ‘two for the price of one’ is badly outdated
By Raymond D. Cotton
Purdue University’s website has a special page under “Office of the President” that highlights its “First Lady Cheri Daniels.” While that level of institutional acknowledgment remains unusual in academe, colleges and universities are making progress in how they recognize and reward presidential spouses. I last wrote about presidential spouses in 2003. As a lawyer who works on executive contracts, I have met with scores of spouses. I have also met with spousal groups affiliated with various academic associations, including a program about spousal roles and challenges last March at the American Council on Education’s annual meeting. More and more doors are opening for presidential spouses and partners to make a contribution to higher education. And with more female presidents than ever before, especially at large universities, more of those spouses are men.

www.insidehighered.com
http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/technology-and-learning/attempt-reframe-our-active-learning-debate#sthash.iwGLP2SH.dpbs
An Attempt to Reframe Our Active Learning Debate
By Joshua Kim
Without diving into this specific debate about this particular research, I’d like to float a trial idea around how we think and talk about active learning. What if substituted “active learning” for “investing in learning”? What if we stipulated that the instructor is in the best position to describe what sort of investments are needed, and what the desired teaching outcomes will be? Are there aspects of your own teaching that you think would benefit from some additional resources? Any push towards active learning should start with the understanding that, by and large, higher ed has systematically under-invested in teaching and learning.

www.insidehighered.com
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2014/05/15/essay-new-book-beyond-university#sthash.uEwPF9u8.dpbs
A Defense of Liberal Learning
By Glenn C. Altschuler
The debate between advocates of traditional liberal learning and partisans of a more “useful” education, Michael Roth, the president of Wesleyan University, reminds us, has deep roots in American soil. In Beyond the University, (Yale University Press) he provides an elegant and informative survey of the work of important thinkers, including Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, W.E.B DuBois, Jane Addams, William James, John Dewey, and Richard Rorty, who, despite significant differences, embraced liberal education because it “fit so well with the pragmatic ethos that linked inquiry, innovation, and self-discovery.” At a time in which liberal learning is under assault, Roth draws on the authority of these heavyweights to argue that “it is more crucial than ever that we not abandon the humanistic frameworks of education in favor of narrow, technical forms of teaching intended to give quick, utilitarian results.”

www.insidehighered.com
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2014/05/15/dont-evaluate-scholarly-research-public-impact-alone-essay#sthash.GiLDf464.dpbs
How to Evaluate Academic Research
By Johann Neem
Recently, the value of academic research, especially in the humanities and social sciences, has been questioned. The current majority party in the House of Representatives has proposed cutting science funding for social science research and eliminating all funding for the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts. New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof accused faculty of engaging in specialized research disconnected from the interests of the reading public and policymakers, resulting in a broad conversation about whether or not faculty engage in the public sphere. There is no doubt that academics have a responsibility to engage public debates. In many ways, the university is the critical conscience of a democratic society.

www.insidehighered.com
http://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2014/05/16/colleges-must-consider-non-tenured-academic-administrative-jobs-essay#sthash.5Tv2SO40.dpbs
Looking Beyond the Tenured
By Kristan Venegas and Adrianna Kezar
An interesting dilemma lies ahead — where will all the academic administrators come from? Historically, most administrators in academic affairs, whether they be department chairs, program directors, deans, or provosts, have come out of the ranks of tenured faculty. However with faculty increasingly being contingent and off the tenure track (70 percent), there has not been much consideration of where administrators within academic affairs will come from.

Education News
www.insidehighered.com
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/05/16/us-unveils-75-million-fund-spur-higher-ed-innovation#sthash.UnXOTfDC.zhQetUP2.dpbs
Federal Fund for Innovation
By Doug Lederman
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration on Thursday formally unveiled a new program its officials hope will spur innovation, improve college access and completion, and cut student costs. Yes, that’s all it aims to do. The First in the World competition, as the administration calls the $75 million effort to which it invited applications in today’s Federal Register, will award grants of up to several million dollars to institutions (or consortiums of them) to implement or scale up ideas that might advance President Obama’s goal of increasing the proportion of Americans with postsecondary credentials. Up to $20 million of the total will be set aside for colleges that meet the federal definition of “minority-serving institution.”

www.chronicle.com
http://chronicle.com/blogs/bottomline/when-laying-blame-for-rising-college-costs-dont-forget-about-enrollment/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
When Laying Blame for Rising College Costs, Don’t Forget About Enrollment
by Eric Kelderman
In recent months, higher-education news coverage across the country has focused on the increased share of public-college costs being shifted from state governments to students. The prevailing story line goes like this: States have “disinvested” in higher education during the past quarter-century, “cutting” money for public colleges and forcing institutions to raise tuition to cover the loss of tax dollars. As a result, many of the stories proclaim, students are neck-deep, or worse, in student-loan debt, which is hampering the economy and perhaps even forcing them to borrow more money for other purchases. The first part of this narrative isn’t untrue, according to the figures reported annually by the State Higher Education Executive Officers. But it tells only part of the story.

www.insidehighered.com
http://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2014/05/15/online-grows-two-year-colleges-success-lags#sthash.fZKYjDru.dpbs
Online Grows at Two-Year Colleges but Success Lags
Online course enrollment at California’s community colleges has grown rapidly during the last decade, according to a new report from the Public Policy Institute of California, a nonpartisan research group. However, student success rates in online courses are lower for all types of students, across a wide set of subjects and across almost all of the state’s two-year colleges.

www.chronicle.com
http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/conventional-online-higher-education-will-absorb-moocs-2-reports-say/52603?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
Conventional Online Higher Education Will Absorb MOOCs, 2 Reports Say
by Steve Kolowich
Massive open online courses will not fundamentally reshape higher education, nor will they disappear altogether. Those are the conclusions of separate reports released this week by Teachers College at Columbia University and Bellwether Education Partners, a nonprofit advisory group. Neither report contains any blockbuster news for those who have followed the decline of the MOOC hype over the last year or so. But they support the theory that the tools and techniques Stanford University professors used in 2011 to enroll 160,000 students in a free, online computer-science course will be subsumed by broader, incremental efforts to improve higher education with technology.

www.ccnewsnow.com
http://www.ccnewsnow.com/uc-seeks-to-increase-transfer-students-from-community-colleges/?utm_campaign=051614ccnewsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Eloqua&elq=8656f5d905074bc9b14975a6984b5aaa&elqCampaignId=288
UC seeks to increase transfer students from community colleges
Source: latimes.com
UC officials on Wednesday proposed new efforts to make it easier for students to transfer to a UC campus from all community colleges — not just from the small number of two-year schools that dominate transfer statistics. The move is prompted in part by a UC report that shows eye-popping disparities among community colleges in successfully transferring graduates to UC. Santa Monica College sent 783 students to UC schools last year, the most by far in the state, while 50 other schools each transferred fewer then 100, and many below 50. The transfers from community colleges are so lopsided that just 19 schools sent about half of all the transfer students to UC last year, with 93 other schools making up the other half of enrollments.

www.ccnewsnow.com
http://www.ccnewsnow.com/together-again-community-colleges-and-industry/?utm_campaign=051614ccnewsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Eloqua&elq=8656f5d905074bc9b14975a6984b5aaa&elqCampaignId=288
Together Again: Community Colleges and Industry
Source: edtechmagazine.com
Call it a 21st century irony: Even as the unemployed are struggling to find jobs, businesses can’t find enough workers with strong IT skills. By no means is it a new problem. Since the beginning of the IT revolution, higher education has been challenged to keep programs and curriculum in line with rapid changes in technology and shifting market realities.

www.chronicle.com
http://chronicle.com/article/NIH-to-Require-Gender-Balance/146557/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
NIH to Require Gender Balance in Subjects of Animal Studies
By Paul Basken
The National Institutes of Health announced on Wednesday a new policy requiring that both sexes be represented among the subjects of preclinical biomedical research it finances involving animal and cell models. More than two decades after requiring gender balance among human beings in the trials themselves, NIH leaders said they now realize that the same step should be applied to the laboratory experiments that inform those trials.

www.insidehighered.com
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/05/16/dedoose-crash-shows-dangers-handing-data-cloud-services#ixzz31shy92Ca
Stormy Skies
By Carl Straumsheim
The research jeopardized by the Dedoose crash should serve as a warning to colleges and universities as they consider moving sensitive information to the cloud, technology consultants say. Dedoose is an alternative to qualitative data analysis software such as ATLAS.ti, Nvivo and MAXQDA, which date back to the 1980s. Offered as software-as-a-service, Dedoose can be accessed anywhere without first having to be installed, and users can subscribe to it on a monthly basis rather than pay for a software license. But for all its benefits, cloud computing comes with its own concerns.

www.insidehighered.com
http://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2014/05/16/northeastern-u-adjuncts-approve-union-bid#sthash.2bsIPaOJ.dpbs
Northeastern U. Adjuncts Approve Union Bid
Northeastern University adjuncts are the latest to vote to form a union affiliated with Service Employees International Union, they announced Thursday.

www.insidehighered.com
http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/chairman-of-u-of-texas-systems-board-asks-embattled-regent-to-resign/77963?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
Chairman of U. of Texas System’s Board Asks Embattled Regent to Resign
by Charles Huckabee
The chairman of the University of Texas system’s Board of Regents publicly called on the embattled regent Wallace L. Hall Jr. to resign on Thursday, but stopped short of asking the board to vote on ousting him, the Houston Chronicle reported.

www.chronicle.com
http://chronicle.com/blogs/data/2014/05/16/coaches-not-presidents-top-public-college-pay-list/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
Coaches, Not Presidents, Top Public-College Pay List
by Jonah Newman
It’s no secret that in more than 40 states the highest-paid public employee isn’t the governor or even a university president. It’s a public-college football or basketball coach. Coaches’ salaries are well documented and are often cited in comparisons with the salaries of student-athletes ($0) or with professors and college presidents (considerably higher). The Chronicle’s latest survey on executive compensation at public universities, to be published on Sunday, provides even more information for such comparisons. While the focus of the survey remains the compensation of college presidents, this year it will include new information on the biggest earners at public universities aside from the chief executive. Not surprisingly, at many colleges, that’s a coach.

www.insidehighered.com
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/05/15/some-victims-sex-assault-are-going-public-identifying-those-they-say-raped-them#sthash.yusDNyDP.dpbs
Sexual Assault Vigilantes
By Cory Weinberg
Students who walked into women’s bathroom stalls at Columbia University this week could see the frustration about how colleges judge and punish accused rapists scrawled on walls and fliers. Whoever listed the four male student names under the heading “rapists on campus” – written on bathroom walls and fliers tucked on top of toilet paper dispensers – mounted a brief awareness campaign that seemed to combine aspirations of strengthening public safety with inflicting public shame.

www.chronicle.com
http://chronicle.com/article/Ads-Urge-Students-to-Think/146571/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
Ads Urge Students to Think Twice About Colleges With a ‘Rape Problem’
By Robin Wilson
At a gathering last month for students admitted to Dartmouth College’s Class of 2018, a father asked Lorelei Yang, a junior there, whether the campus was a dangerous place for women. He’d heard about sexual assaults at Dartmouth, says Ms. Yang, and wondered if the campus’s problems were unique. Dartmouth is the primary target in a hard-hitting new advertising campaign by the national gender-equality group UltraViolet. “Accepted to Dartmouth?” reads one of the ads that appeared last month on Facebook and other websites, drawing more than 200,000 views. “You should know about its rape problem.” The campaign comes as colleges are under increasing pressure from students and the federal government to improve their response to reports of sexual assault.