USG NEWS:
www.statesboroherald.com
http://www.statesboroherald.com/section/1/article/62132/
GSU to go tobacco free
New campus policy goes into effect Friday
BY JENNIFER ARTHURS
Herald Intern
Georgia Southern University will be tobacco free starting Friday, in accordance with a new policy by the University System of Georgia’s Board of Regents. The board’s policy calls for colleges and universities within the system to be tobacco free by Oct. 1. Georgia Southern elected to adopt the policy on August 1, two months ahead of the regents’ deadline.

www.statesboroherald.com
http://www.statesboroherald.com/section/1/article/62134/
Gun ban still in effect at local colleges, university
New carry law has provision for local control in schools
BY Holli Deal Saxon
Georgia’s new gun law may allow licensed citizens to take their guns into bars, churches and some government buildings, but colleges reserve the right to ban firearms from their campuses. If a gun owner is simply passing through campus, a firearm in the vehicle is allowed. Otherwise, guns are prohibited in school “safety zones,” according to spokespersons at East Georgia State College, Ogeechee Technical College and Georgia Southern University. …Georgia’s Safe Carry Protection Act allows schools to fine those in violation of their bans if guns are visibly displayed in off-limits areas, but firearms are allowed in cars parked or traveling through a school safety zone. East Georgia State doesn’t allow guns on campus other than what the law allows, said Elizabeth Gilmer, the college’s director of external affairs. …Georgia Southern follows the same policy, said Paige E. Fluker, the university’s assistant director of communications.

GOOD NEWS:
www.bizjournals.com
http://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/news/2014/07/25/top-of-the-list-professional-education-lists.html
Top of the List: Professional Education lists
Courtney O’Neal
Research Associate- Atlanta Business Chronicle
Atlanta Business Chronicle’s July 25 edition features lists of Atlanta’s 10 Largest Technical Colleges, Atlanta’s 10 Largest Business Schools and Area MBA Programs. Also included is a directory of area Continuing Education Programs. … The Business Schools list is headed by Georgia State University’s J. Mack Robinson College of Business at No. 1. With undergraduate enrollment of more than 6,000 students and established in 1913, it is the second-oldest school (behind Scheller College of Business at Georgia Tech (No.8), established in 1912) on the list. J. Mack Robinson College, Terry College of Business at The University of Georgia (No. 5) …Strayer University and Michael J. Coles College of Business at Kennesaw State University complete the top three spots on the list with 5,210 and 5,100 undergraduates, respectively. …J. Mack Robinson College of Business ranks No. 2 with just over 900 enrolled.

RESEARCH:
www.wtoc.com
http://www.wtoc.com/story/26116569/national-science-students-study-biofuels-at-georgia-southern
National science students study bio fuels at Georgia Southern
By Dal Cannady
STATESBORO, GA (WTOC) – University students from across the country have spent much of the summer at Georgia Southern University, in a nationally recognized laboratory. They’ve been studying biofuels in the Renewable Energy and Engine Lab under Dr. Valentin Soloiu. “We are a hands on program,” Dr. Soloiu explained. “As opposed to other universities that mainly teach the fundamentals. Our laboratory and our mechanical engineering have brought in about $1 million in grant funding.”

www.gpb.org
http://www.gpb.org/blogs/on-the-story/2014/07/25/two-way-street-what’s-happening-to-the-honey-bees
Two Way Street: What’s Happening To The Honey Bees?
All is not well in the world of the honey bee. Over the past 7 or 8 years, honey bees have been dying off or disappearing at alarming rates. Since 2007, an average of 30 percent of all colonies has died every winter in the United States. This loss is about twice as high as U.S. beekeepers consider economically tolerable… Here in Georgia, Georgia Tech and Georgia State University are now working together to find remedies that will keep honey bees alive and thriving.

www.livescience.com
http://www.livescience.com/47013-scientific-ways-beat-summer-heat.html
Roasting? 7 Scientific Ways to Beat the Heat
By Anne Harding, Contributing Writer
With the hottest June on record behind us, and a quadrupling of extreme heat events predicted by the end of this century, humans are facing a heat-adaptation challenge. Sweltering summer days aren’t just oppressive and uncomfortable; they can be lethal, if the body’s core temperature climbs much beyond 104 degrees Fahrenheit (40 degrees Celsius). Scientists studying people working under super-hot conditions — think firefighters, foundry workers and soldiers marching with fully loaded packs — have learned a lot about how the body handles heat. Beyond the basic advice of staying hydrated while avoiding sugary drinks, caffeine and alcohol, here are some evidence-based strategies for coping with our overheating world. “Humans have a tremendous ability to acclimatize to heat stress,” says Michael Sawka, a professor at Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, who studies how humans adapt to extreme conditions.

Editorials/Columns/Opinions
www.ajc.com
http://www.ajc.com/weblogs/get-schooled/2014/jul/27/has-freshman-year-college-become-grade-12/
Get Schooled with Maureen Downey
Has freshman year in college become grade 121Ž2?
Local college instructor Rick Diguette has written many provocative pieces for the blog. Today, he provides another great column on a topic that gets little discussion — student writing skills. By Rick Diguette – Once upon a time I taught college English at a local community college, but not any more. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still on faculty and scheduled to cover three sections of freshman composition this fall. But it has become obvious to me that I am no longer teaching “college” English.

Education News
www.gainesvilletimes.com
http://www.gainesvilletimes.com/section/6/article/102588/
State’s education fund gets record lottery payout
Sum still falls short of mandated 35 percent of profit
By Joshua Silavent
The Georgia Lottery Corp. last week reported its largest single-year transfer to the state’s education fund, which supports financial aid for pre-kindergarten and higher education students. The lottery’s $945 million transfer to the state for the 2014 fiscal year surpasses last year’s record by $17.6 million. The total raised for education is now more than $15.5 billion since the lottery’s inception in 1993. Legislation authorizes the lottery state’s payouts to education should be around 35 percent. But the Georgia Lottery Corp. has not met that mark since 1997.

www.ajc.com
http://www.ajc.com/news/news/state-regional/education-study-committee-to-meet/ngpkr/
Education study committee to meet
By Wayne Washington
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A state government committee set up to examine the role of the federal government in public education will hold its first meeting on Wednesday at the Coverdell Legislative Office Building Wednesday from 1:30 to 5 p.m. in room 606. The committee, called for with the passage of House Resolution 550, is expected to review federal education mandates and the origins of Common Core, the national set of academic standards some now view as a federal intrusion into state authority over public education.

www.members.jacksonville.com
http://members.jacksonville.com/news/georgia/2014-07-26/story/georgia-milestones-first-checkpoint-getting-past-education-controversy
Georgia Milestones’ first checkpoint: Getting past education controversy
The rules have changed for evaluating students and their teachers
By Walter C. Jones
ATLANTA | Students and teachers heading back to school after the summer break can expect a new type of test designed to gauge how each is doing, called Georgia Milestones.
The new testing series replaces the Criterion Referenced Competency Tests, or CRCT, and the end-of-course tests required of high school students. It is intended to link what students need to know to succeed once they pass to the next grade level, while giving teachers and parents an ongoing signal of how well a student is doing and what areas of weakness need addressing.

www.insidehighered.com
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/07/28/podcast-interview-spelman-college-president-fund-raising-fitness-race-relations-and#ixzz38lXWmaTy
Looking Ahead at Spelman
By Scott Jaschik
In an era when some black colleges are straining financially and some women’s colleges have struggled to attract enough applicants, Spelman College appears to be thriving. The historically black women’s college in Atlanta just completed a $157.8 million fund-raising campaign, allowing the institution to double the scholarships it awards each year.

www.chronicle.com
http://chronicle.com/blogs/headcount/does-your-admissions-office-have-cultural-intelligence/38791
Does Your Admissions Office Have ‘Cultural Intelligence’?
by Eric Hoover
Chicago — The modern admissions office doesn’t need a good student-recruitment plan—it needs many of them. After all, what resonates with one applicant might not matter to another. At the ACT’s Enrollment Planners Conference here on Friday, two admissions officials described how class and culture affect students’ college choices. The discussion was based on Inside the College Gates: How Class and Culture Matter in Higher Education, a recent book by Jenny M. Stuber.

www.online.wsj.com
http://online.wsj.com/articles/at-purdue-a-case-study-in-cost-cuts-1406326502
At Purdue, a Case Study in Cost Cuts
Former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, Now University President, Spurs Rethinking on Value of a Degree
By Douglas Belkin
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind.—Three months into his tenure as president of Purdue University, Mitch Daniels leaned over a table covered with financial statements and pointed to items labeled “cash” sprinkled throughout the pages. “That’s part of the endowment, right?” Mr. Daniels asked the school’s treasurer. “Nope,” the treasurer said, “that’s cash.” Mr. Daniels suggested the rainy-day funds, which totaled “somewhere in the mid-nine figures” and were kept by a host of academic departments for operating expenses, be moved out of low-interest-bearing accounts and put to better use. It was the first of many steps Mr. Daniels has taken as he seeks to reorganize Purdue’s sometimes-antiquated systems.

www.ajc.com
http://www.ajc.com/news/business/when-tech-workers-are-in-demand-companies-will-do-/ngpmX/
When tech workers are in demand, companies will do their own training
By Michael Kanell
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
In high-tech hiring, training is more important than a degree, according to a survey to be released Tuesday. Many information technology professionals can be trained to the specifics of a job and a company – whether they have experience in that niche or a degree focused on that corner of tech, according to a majority of 1,300 Atlanta IT area hiring managers polled by MDI Group. “Hiring mangers value employer training more than undergraduate degrees or post-graduate skill certifications,” said John Hurst, managing director of MDI Group’s Atlanta office in a statement.

www.chronicle.com
http://chronicle.com/article/In-Hard-Times-Independent/147917/
In Hard Times, Independent Research Institutes Give Up Freedom in Order to Survive
By Paul Voosen
A year ago, the faculty governing board of the 126-year-old Marine Biological Laboratory of Woods Hole, Mass., on the verge of the busy summer research season on Cape Cod, gathered for an emergency meeting with a terminal purpose: to vote itself out of existence. The independent lab, reliant on diminishing federal research grants, had been in dire financial straits for years. To save itself, its leaders proposed surrendering its autonomy to the University of Chicago—adding some salt to Chicago’s freshwater veins, as one dean put it.

www.insidehighered.com
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/07/28/are-college-marching-bands-hotbeds-hazing#ixzz38lXL8IYy
And the Band Plays On
By Charlie Tyson
Are college marching bands hotbeds of hazing? No more so than any other student group that enjoys prestige on campus, demands copious amounts of time and draws on a set of “traditions” to define itself, anti-hazing advocates and student affairs experts say. Yet in recent years marching bands have been the focus of conversations about college hazing.

www.nytimes.com

U.S. Moves to Align Student Exchanges With Policy Goals
By IAN WILHELM | THE CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION
WASHINGTON — This summer, 500 Africans studied business, leadership and public management on American campuses as part of a new State Department program. The Obama administration has hailed the effort, which is part of the larger Young African Leaders Initiative, as a fresh take on public diplomacy. But the fellowship program — or really the strategy behind it — has generated a debate about the future of American-sponsored exchanges and whether a venerable program, the Fulbright, will suffer as a result.

www.insidehighered.com
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/07/28/student-debt-once-again-popular-campaign-trail-democrats-look-keep-senate#ixzz38lWpHHKm
Student Debt on Campaign Trail
By Michael Stratford
Student debt attracted unprecedented levels of attention during the 2012 presidential election. As the nation’s collective student loan bill for the first time surpassed the $1 trillion threshold and a Congressional deadline on interest rates loomed, student debt captured the attention of both presidential candidates. Two years later, student debt remains a hot topic in Washington. And even without the drama of a presidential contest, the issue is cropping up on the 2014 campaign trail in some of the most contentious Senate races.