University System News

USG NEWS:
www.onlineathens.com
http://onlineathens.com/uga/2014-10-18/washington-post-journalist-speak-ebola-crisis-uga
Washington Post journalist to speak on Ebola crisis at UGA
Washington Post journalist to speak on Ebola crisis at UGA
Todd C. Frankel, a reporter with The Washington Post, will discuss the challenges reporters face in covering the emerging Ebola crisis during a 4 p.m. talk on Thursday at the University of Georgia Chapel. The talk, “Eyewitness to Ebola: A Journalist’s Perspective,” is free and open to the public. The original speaker for this event was Liberian journalist Wade C.L. Williams, but her visit has been postponed.

www.myajc.com
http://www.myajc.com/news/news/health-med-fit-science/uga-cancels-liberian-journalists-lecture/nhnQ5/
UGA cancels Liberian journalist’s lecture
By Brad Schrade
The University of Georgia has canceled a guest lecture by an award-winning Liberian journalist after concerns were raised that it could expose students and the campus community to the Ebola virus. Wade C.L. Williams was to set to deliver the McGill lecture on Thursday — a talk about her experiences covering the Ebola crisis. An editor for Front Page Africa, a news website and newspaper in Monrovia, Liberia, she works in one of the West African countries hardest hit by the virus. The university issued a statement saying the change was out of an abundance of caution.

Related article:
www.accessnorthga.com
http://www.accessnorthga.com/detail.php?n=280892
UGA postpones visit from Liberian journalist

www.chronicle.com
http://chronicle.com/article/Publishers-Win-Reversal-of/149523/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
Publishers Win Reversal of Court Ruling That Favored ‘E-Reserves’ at Georgia State U.
By Jennifer Howard
How much copyrighted material can professors make available to students in online course reserves before they exceed the boundaries of educational fair use? That’s the essential question at the heart of a long-running copyright-infringement lawsuit that has pitted three academic publishers against Georgia State University. The answer matters not just to the parties to the case, Cambridge University Press et al. v. Carl V. Patton et al., but publishers, librarians, and professors at many other institutions. It’s already been more than six years since Cambridge, Oxford University Press, and SAGE Publications sued Georgia State for copyright infringement. And the latest round of legal action guarantees that the case will drag on a while longer before it produces a reliably precedent-setting answer, if it does.

www.insidehighered.com
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/10/20/federal-appeals-court-rejects-georgia-state-us-10-percent-rule-determining-fair-use
A ‘Partial Win’ for Publishers
By Carl Straumsheim
While academic publishers on Friday notched a rare win in the ongoing legal debate about digital access to copyrighted works, proponents of fair use said the opinion in Cambridge v. Patton recognizes that colleges and universities can legally create digital reserves of books in their collections. In a unanimous decision, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, which covers Alabama, Georgia and Florida, rejected a broad ruling on how to determine fair use. The decision guarantees the case has a long and litigious road ahead of it by reversing the district court’s opinion and sending the case back for further deliberations.

GOOD NEWS:
www.times-herald.com
http://www.times-herald.com/education/20141019-UWG-named-one-of-the-best-colleges-in-the-Southeast
UWG Named One Of The Best Colleges In The Southeast
by CELIA SHORTT
The Princeton Review recently named University of West Georgia as one of the 138 best colleges in the Southeast. “We’re proud to again be chosen a Princeton Review best Southeastern College,” said UWG President Dr. Kyle Marrero in a press release. Marrero believes this ranking shows the caliber of what UWG offers. “We believe that these rankings validate the quality of our programs and faculty at UWG,” he said. “Certainly, national rankings play a part in the way current and prospective students and parents think about UWG.”

www.redandblack.com
http://www.redandblack.com/uganews/uga-school-of-social-work-ranked-th-in-us/article_230a7d2a-562b-11e4-bea8-0017a43b2370.html
UGA School of Social Work ranked 10th in US
Richard Banton
The University of Georgia School of Social Work ranked No. 10 in College Factual’s list of Top Colleges for Social Work. The methodology for the ranking involved the use of weighted factors such as graduate earnings, accreditation and overall college quality to rank schools.

www.finance.yahoo.com
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/20-schools-most-grads-amazon-140258833.html
The 20 Schools With The Most Grads At Amazon
By Drake Baer
If you can land a job at Amazon, you’re in good hands. The Harvard Business Review recently named its leader, Jeff Bezos, the highest-performing CEO alive. It all comes down to the company’s model — work hard, have fun, make history — which has turned the Seattle retailer into an empire that brings in $75 billion a year. If you want to be a part of the 100,000-person company, LinkedIn data suggests that you should go to schools around Seattle. The University of Washington, Western Washington University, Washington State, and Seattle University have a combined 3,038 alums working for Amazon, or 41% of the top-20 feeder schools. That said, here are the 20 schools with the most alumni at Amazon, according to LinkedIn: … 20. Georgia Institute of Technology (188 alumni)

RESEARCH:
www.huffingtonpost.com
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brad-spirrison/how-google-glass-apps-sho_b_5979230.html
How Google Glass Apps Showcase the Potential of Wearable Educational Technology
Brad Spirrison
Last month Google made its wearable Glass product available to the general public for the first time. While you no longer need to be an invited Google Glass Explorer to play around with the pioneering (albeit unfashionable) platform, you still need $1,500 to get one shipped to you from the Google Play Store. It’s unclear whether this high profile focus on wearable computing will come anywhere close to matching the success of Google’s Android operating system. Many, including famed tech commentator Robert Scoble, believe that Glass is not ready for prime time and will ultimately sink like Google’s once trendy Wave messaging platform… Serving students with audio and visual disabilities Developed at the Georgia Institute of Technology, the Captioning to Glass app converts audio spoken into a smartphone to captioning that will be visible to anyone wearing the device.

www.popsci.com
http://www.popsci.com/article/science/week-numbers-secret-robot-space-planes-elephant-weathermen-and-suspended-animation
The Week In Numbers: Secret Robot Space Planes, Elephant Weathermen, And Suspended Animation
By Alissa Zhu
10: Percent of people who are frightened of needles. They could benefit from a new technology which may make injections pain-free. 6: Episodes in the first season of a new show called How We Got to Now, which tells the story of simple inventions that shaped the modern world. 200,000: Number of applicants who applied to the Mars One mission, which MIT students recently predicted will end in starvation. 1 atom: Thickness of the thinnest possible electrical generator, as demonstrated by researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology and Columbia Engineering.

www.eetimes.com
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1324313&_mc=RSS_EET_EDT
First 2D Atomic Piezoelectric Discovered
R. Colin Johnson
The world’s first 2D piezoelectric material has been demonstrated by researchers at Columbia University, in collaboration with those at Georgia Institute of Technology. The new miracle material — an inorganic compound called molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) — is a semiconductor that is a possible candidate for the post-silicon era. Bulk MoS2 is not piezoelectric. However, professor Zhong Lin Wang at Georgia Tech — who specializes in piezoelectric materials — and professor James Home at Columbia University — who specializes in nano-fabrication techniques — found that MoS2 generates electricity when flexed and deposited as a single atomic monolayer on a flexible substrate — the hallmark of being a piezoelectric material.

www.techtimes.com
http://www.techtimes.com/articles/18198/20141019/this-atom-thin-2d-generator-creates-electricity-from-movement.htm
This atom-thin 2D generator creates electricity from movement
By Jim Algar
Smartphone need recharging? Someday you may be able to plug it into your shirt, say scientists who’ve develop a thin, 2D material that generates electricity during movement. The new flexible, transparent material just one atom thick can produce electricity when it is stretched or bent, suggesting it could be sewn into clothing or incorporated in medical implants as a power source, they say. “This material — just a single layer of atoms — could be made as a wearable device, perhaps integrated into clothing, to convert energy from your body movement to electricity and power wearable sensors or medical devices, or perhaps supply enough energy to charge your cell phone in your pocket,” says James Hone of Columbia University, one of the leaders of a research team from Columbia and the Georgia Institute of Technology.

www.newindianexpress.com
http://www.newindianexpress.com/education/edex/Snake-Bots-to-the-Rescue/2014/10/20/article2482753.ece
Snake Bots to the Rescue
By Kaviya Sanjeevi
There have been many nature-inspired gadgets and devices. This method is called biomimicry or biomimemtics. You have products like shark skin which inspired swim suits and submarine coatings; Velcro, the hook and loop fastener that was inspired by plant burrs that stick to dog hair and a new adhesive inspired by Geckos. Now, snakes have inspired the creation of a robot that will mimic its actions and can move through tiny holes… Georgia Tech students have also developed search and rescue snake robots in 2012. Says a report on the college website, www.news.gatech.edu, while studying and videotaping the movements of 20 different species at Zoo Atlanta, Hamid Marvi developed Scalybot 2, a robot that replicates the rectilinear locomotion of snakes.

www.data-informed.com
http://data-informed.com/remember-tomorrow-future-analytics-rest-m/
Remember Tomorrow: Is Our Memory the Future of Analytics?
by Joshua Whitney Allen
Earlier this year, tech news agency VentureBeat reported that Saffron Technology, a U.S. analytics firm, secured $7 million in venture funding. For a company specializing in data analysis, that figure is impressive. But so are the budgets of Saffron’s clients. Saffron markets a product based on a concept the company calls associative analytics and has secured contracts with several blue-chip firms, including defense company General Dynamics, aerospace leader Boeing, and engineering company Curtiss Wright… To be sure, as a template for data usage, human memory offers a thrilling rate of performance. Two decades ago, a researcher at the Georgia Institute of Technology reported that 20-year-old subjects recalled, in a fraction of a second, word and character combinations with almost 100 percent accuracy. At the basic level, Saffron expands these powers of retention to a commercial scale.

Editorials/Columns/Opinions
www.politics.blog.ajc.com
http://politics.blog.ajc.com/2014/10/19/nathan-deal-orders-up-an-ebola-response-team/
Political Insider with Jim Galloway
Nathan Deal orders up an Ebola response team
Just over an hour before his 7 p.m. Atlanta Press Club/Georgia Public Broadcasting debate, Gov. Nathan Deal indicated that he’s anticipating a question about the Ebola virus. From the press release: Gov. Nathan Deal today announced that he will sign an executive order to create an Ebola response team, which will assess current state health and emergency management procedures and produce necessary recommendations to minimize any potential impact of the disease in Georgia. …The team will be comprised of representatives from the following: Georgia Emergency Management Agency, Georgia Department of Community Health, Georgia National Guard, Emory University Hospital, University System of Georgia infectious disease experts, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, city of Atlanta and members of the nursing, rural hospital, EMT and education communities. Individuals on the response team will be named in the executive order tomorrow.

www.insidehighered.com
https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2014/10/20/ruling-copyright-fair-use-will-hurt-professors-students-and-publishers-essay
Why We Need Bright Lines
By Joseph Storch
In Friday’s decision in Cambridge University Press v. Patton, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit followed decades of jurisprudence in casting aside bright line rules for determining whether faculty made fair use of copyrighted material. This is regrettable, as the celebrated 2012 district court opinion in the same case had opened up the possibility of teaching faculty how to properly make fair use of material using plain terms and easy-to-understand concepts, while the appeals court opinion returns us to the days of case-by-case holistic analysis and detailed exceptions, loopholes, and caveats. The case revolves around a challenge by several companies that published non-textbook scholarly works to Georgia State University’s electronic reserve systems, wherein faculty and librarians would scan in excerpts of books for students to access digitally, a technological improvement over the traditional practice of leaving a copy or two on reserve at the library circulation desk.

www.insidehighered.com
https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/confessions-community-college-dean/barriers
Barriers
By Matt Reed
On Friday I attended a statewide meeting of public colleges and universities dealing with transfer issues. The meeting consisted primarily of faculty from two-year and four-year public colleges, although a few stray administrators (hi!) managed to sneak past security. The goal of the meeting was to have the two-year folk and the four-year folk come to agreement on what the first two years of each of several different majors should look like, so students could choose courses at community colleges with confidence that the courses will count towards their eventual major. The purpose of the meeting was to identify, and knock down, arbitrary barriers to successful student transfer. It was one of those “why haven’t we done this before?” ideas that brought to the surface a host of issues that nobody really anticipated.

www.wired.com
http://www.wired.com/2014/10/on-learning-by-doing/?mbid=social_fb
American Schools Are Training Kids for a World That Doesn’t Exist
BY DAVID EDWARDS
Are Americans getting dumber?
Our math skills are falling. Our reading skills are weakening. Our children have become less literate than children in many developed countries. But the crisis in American education may be more than a matter of sliding rankings on world educational performance scales. Our kids learn within a system of education devised for a world that increasingly does not exist.

www.chronicle.com
http://chronicle.com/article/Higher-Ed-Reform-or-Drinking/149507/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
Higher-Ed Reform or Drinking Game? You Decide.
By Steven Ward
“Because each course in General Studies has been approved to meet specific learning outcomes associated with the General Studies curriculum, the course student learning outcomes listed on the syllabus must include learning outcomes that align with the identified General Studies learning outcomes and include assignments that will serve as embedded assessments for these learning outcomes. Courses must also include learning outcomes that align with the contribution the course makes to other program learning outcomes (e.g., if the course is a required course in the major). Instructors may include additional course learning outcomes that align with individual instructor learning goals.”
— Components required for General Studies courses, General Studies Syllabus Guidelines, Center for University Teaching, Learning, and Assessment, University of West Florida.
That statement might easily be confused as a drinking game centered on repeating the words “learning outcomes,” but actually it exemplifies a significant shift in the way students are assessed at universities across the country. It also represents an important challenge to the academic freedom of professors to conduct their courses as they deem appropriate.

www.chronicle.com
http://chronicle.com/article/TownGown-What-Great/149511/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
Town and Gown: What Great Cities Can Teach Higher Education
If colleges are going to survive the 21st century, they must not make the mistakes that cities made in the 20th
By Geoffrey M. Vaughan
Cities and colleges are more alike than people think. Both are considered economic engines that also offer rites of passage and an escape from parochialism. Both host sports teams and their own police forces. Recently the overwhelming debts run up by cities and by students have forced themselves on the public’s attention. Yet despite the significant woes of Detroit and the impending bankruptcies of other American cities, no one is expecting urban living to disappear or be radically transformed. Higher education, however, is not so lucky.

www.savannahnow.com
http://savannahnow.com/sports/2014-10-19/donald-heath-battle-letter-u
DONALD HEATH: The battle for the letter ‘U’
By Donald Heath
The time has finally come. Georgia Southern University versus Georgia State University. GSU versus GSU. And if you think broadcasters doing Georgia Southern games get the Eagles mixed up with the Panthers too often, Saturday’s game could very well be confusion multiplied by infinity. Who will be the first clever person to say, “I’m picking GSU to win this game”? The moment Georgia Southern accepted an invitation to the Sun Belt Conference two years ago, the battle for initials intensified. …Locally, Armstrong Atlantic State University dropped the “Atlantic.” The school once bounced from the nickname “Pirates” to “Stingrays” back to “Pirates.” A stingray must have complained.

Education News
www.insidehighered.com
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/10/20/us-campuses-are-edge-over-ebola
On Edge Over Ebola
By Elizabeth Redden
Navarro College is not accepting any new applications from students residing in Africa – all of Africa, not just those five countries on the continent with confirmed cases of the Ebola virus.

www.chronicle.com
http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/jp/u-s-cancels-funds-for-controversial-studies-of-infectious-diseases?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
U.S. Cancels Funds for Controversial Studies of Infectious Diseases
by Andrew Mytelka
The White House announced on Friday that it would temporarily block federal financial support of controversial biomedical research in which scientists seek to learn about the potential dangers of infectious diseases by intentionally making them more hazardous, The New York Times reported.

www.insidehighered.com
https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2014/10/20/ed-department-colleges-read-instructions
Ed Department to Colleges: Read the Instructions
The U.S. Department of Education has a response to colleges and universities confused by how they are supposed to count students enrolled in distance education courses: Read the instructions. In a study released last month, higher education consultant Phil Hill and the WICHE Cooperative for Educational Technologies found many colleges and universities have under- or overreported thousands of students to the federal government, which tracks those numbers through the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System program, or IPEDS.

www.diverseeducation.com
http://diverseeducation.com/article/67457/?utm_campaign=Diverse%20Newsletter%203&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Eloqua&elq=27402520f29d455e94917f21ebc09280&elqCampaignId=415
Enrollment decrease leads to NMSU spending cuts
by Associated Press
LAS CRUCES, N.M.— A decline in fall enrollment has left New Mexico State University with less revenue. NMSU President Garrey Carruthers says university leaders spent the last few weeks meeting with stakeholders from colleges and departments across campus. They were able to identify about $4.8 million in spending that can be reduced to make up for the drop in revenue. Carruthers had asked each dean and vice president to propose budget reductions ranging from 1 percent up to 5 percent.

www.chronicle.com
http://chronicle.com/blogs/data/2014/10/20/measuring-humanities-degrees-misses-much-of-their-value/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
Measuring Humanities Degrees Misses Much of Their Value
by Sandhya Kambhampati
Plenty of people know how much they paid for their college degree. Fewer can tell you what it’s actually worth. That disparity is something new research from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences’ Humanities Indicators project is hoping to fix. The project is focusing on wage data from the American Community Survey, but some say using earnings as a sole measure of success misses the value of a degree and how it serves society.

www.chronicle.com
http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/college-brings-opportunity-but-paying-for-it-offers-challenges-fed-chair-says/88141?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
College Brings Opportunity, but Paying for It Offers Challenges, Fed Chair Says
by Beckie Supiano
Higher education is one of the “cornerstones” of economic opportunity, Janet L. Yellen, chair of the Federal Reserve Board, said on Friday in an unusual and closely watched speech about growing inequality. But her remarks, given at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, did not cast higher education’s role in an entirely favorable light. The earnings premium of a college degree has grown, Ms. Yellen said in her prepared remarks, and the “net returns for a degree are high enough that college still offers a considerable economic opportunity to most people.”

www.diverseeducation.com
http://diverseeducation.com/article/67459/?utm_campaign=Diverse%20Newsletter%203&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Eloqua&elq=27402520f29d455e94917f21ebc09280&elqCampaignId=415
Ohio College Receives Fundraising Help From Leading Actor
by Associated Press
FAIRBORN, Ohio — Tom Hanks has a new starring role. He’s the leading man in a $150 million fundraising campaign for Wright State University in southwest Ohio. What’s called the “Rise.Shine” effort is being co-chaired by Hanks and Amanda Wright Lane, great-grandniece of the aviation pioneers Orville and Wilbur Wright for whom the school is named.

www.chronicle.com
http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/alumnus-adds-69-million-to-previous-gifts-to-u-of-hawaii-for-100-million-total/88211?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
Alumnus Adds $69-Million to Previous Gifts to U. of Hawaii, for $100-Million Total
by Charles Huckabee
A University of Hawaii alumnus has added $69-million to his previous gifts to the university and its flagship campus’s Shidler College of Business, bringing his total donations to $100-million, the university has announced. The business college had been named for the donor, the investor and philanthropist Jay H. Shidler, in 2006 after his first gift, of $25-million.

www.chronicle.com
http://chronicle.com/article/Benchmark-Survey-Finds-a/149519/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
Benchmark Survey Finds a Continued Rise in Giving to Colleges
By Mary Bowerman
Wall Street may have had a rough spell recently, but longer-term growth in the national economy and strong gains in the stock market drove fund-raising gains last year at universities and colleges across the country.

www.diverseeducation.com
http://diverseeducation.com/article/67463/?utm_campaign=Diverse%20Newsletter%203&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Eloqua&elq=27402520f29d455e94917f21ebc09280&elqCampaignId=415
Group Asks Temple to Change Ethics Policies
by Autumn A. Arnett
A group of professors, headed by Dr. Byron E. Price at Medgar Evers College, CUNY, are questioning the academic integrity of recent research by two Temple University professors.
Primarily stemming from concerns that research on the prison industry by Temple’s Simon Hakim and Edwin A. Blackstone did not disclose that funding was provided, in part, by “private prison industry,” the coalition of professors from around the country submitted a letter to Temple’s board of trustees Oct. 14 questioning “the integrity of academic research at Temple University.”

www.washingtonpost.com
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/tally-of-federal-probes-of-colleges-on-sexual-violence-grows-50-percent-since-may/2014/10/19/b253f02e-54aa-11e4-809b-8cc0a295c773_story.html?wpisrc=nl-headlines&wpmm=1
Tally of federal probes of colleges on sexual violence grows 50 percent since May
By Nick Anderson October 19 at 9:21 PM
The number of federal investigations into how colleges handle sexual violence reports has jumped 50 percent in the past six months, reflecting a surge of recent discrimination claims and the difficulty of resolving high-profile cases that often drag on for years. On May 1, the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights released the first public list of colleges and universities under scrutiny for possible violations of federal law in their responses to sexual violence allegations.

www.chronicle.com
http://chronicle.com/article/A-Test-Case-for-Sexual-/149509/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
A Test Case for Sexual Harassment
The U. of Colorado’s philosophy department wanted to be seen as more welcoming to women. The plan backfired.
By Robin Wilson
Boulder, Colo.
Philosophy professors at the University of Colorado’s flagship campus here thought they were taking a bold step. They wanted to help solve their field’s longstanding problems over the treatment of women and find ways to improve the climate on their own campus. But instead, the philosophy department’s decision to invite an outside review has left it struggling to survive after the investigators concluded it was rife with “inappropriate, sexualized unprofessional behavior.”

www.insidehighered.com
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/10/20/education-department-publishes-final-rules-campus-crime-reporting
Final Changes to Clery Act
By Jake New
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Education published the final rules to carry out changes to the Clery Act today, requiring colleges and universities to collect and disclose crime statistics about the number of reported crimes that were investigated and determined to be unfounded. Previously, those incidents were not required to be reported, so the rule requires the disclosure of statistics from the past three calendar years as well as those going forward.

www.chronicle.com
http://chronicle.com/article/In-Rules-on-Campus-Sexual/149521/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
In Rules on Campus Sexual Violence, Education Dept. Emphasizes Training
By Max Lewontin
Washington
New federal rules issued on Monday aim to make campuses safer by requiring colleges to train students and employees on preventing sexual assault, dating violence, domestic violence, and stalking. The rules also include new categories for identifying hate crimes (gender identity and national origin) and specify that students can choose advisers, including lawyers, to accompany them in campus disciplinary proceedings. “These regulatory changes provide new tools to improve campus safety,” Arne Duncan, the secretary of education, told reporters on Friday.