University System News

USG NEWS:
www.ecampusnews.com
http://www.ecampusnews.com/top-news/mission-key-moocs-237/
Mission is key to MOOCs, online programs
By Meris Stansbury, Managing Editor
CIOs, IT leaders say the key to expanding online is knowing your goals and vision
By now, most colleges and universities know that providing some type of online program—fully online, MOOCs, or blended learning—is critical to staying current in today’s changing higher ed landscape. But how do you determine your institution’s online readiness, and how can MOOCs work for everyone? According to Elke Leeds, assistant vice president for Technology Enhanced Learning and executive director of the Distance Learning Center at Kennesaw State University, the one question all institutions must first ask themselves is: “Why would we want to do this?” …For Kennesaw, the value was in most institutions’ perceived values of offering a MOOC, such as increasing enrollment, strengthening brand, increasing community engagement, promoting lifelong learning, and promoting higher education relevance.

www.times-herald.com
http://www.times-herald.com/local/20141218-UWG-Newnan-to-be-substantially-complete-in-January
UWG Newnan: Finish Line In Sight
by CELIA SHORTT
University of West Georgia’s new campus in Newnan will be substantially complete in January, according to Newnan City Manager Cleatus Phillips. Phillips made the announcement at the regular Newnan City Council meeting for December on Tuesday. With the substantial completion in January, Phillips said the final completion of the facility will be in mid- to-late February. According to a recent announcement by UWG President Dr. Kyle Marrero, the new campus, located at the site of the old Newnan hospital on Jackson Street, should have a soft opening in April and a grand opening in August. The campus is currently located in the Shenandoah Industrial Park. …•Approved an intergovernmental rental agreement between Newnan and the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia regarding the lease for UWG campus at 80 Jackson St. Newnan City Manager Cleatus Phillips said the UWG cannot move assets onto the property until they either own or rent it. To allow them to move onto the property, the city is entering into a short term lease agreement with them.

www.statesboroherald.com
http://www.statesboroherald.com/section/1/article/64879/
Georgia Southern University suspicious person’s ‘weapon’ was umbrella
Graduate student arrested on misdemeanor charge after parts of campus locked down Dec. 5
BY Holli Deal Saxon
The “weapon” reportedly carried by a masked man who caused a lockdown on parts of Georgia Southern University’s campus Dec. 5 turned out to be an umbrella, police said. A university police report released Wednesday in response to an Open Records Act request by the Statesboro Herald says that a woman who saw Daniel Ambrose Cistola, 23, of Statesboro Place Circle, “wearing all black, black gloves and a gorilla mask” called to report the sighting around 8:06 a.m. Dec. 5. She said the man later identified as Cistola carried “what appeared to be a rifle hanging from his back with the strap around his chest,” the report states. The witness saw Cistola walking into Georgia Southern’s Natural Sciences Building on Georgia Avenue and was alarmed, according to the report. University police, as well as Statesboro police, the Bulloch County Sheriff’s Office, Georgia State Patrol, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and others, responded to the scene and locked down the building and nearby areas until it was determined to be safe. The building was reopened around 11:30 a.m., the report says. University officials gave the “all clear” on the incident by 12:30 p.m. that day.

GOOD NEWS:
www.mdjonline.com
http://mdjonline.com/view/full_story/26255365/article–KSUGraduation—Communications-is-top-degree-at-winter-commencement
#KSUGraduation – Communications is top degree at winter commencement
by Hilary Butschek
KENNESAW — Cobb County native Tara Rich had to take a day off from work to graduate from Kennesaw State University on Wednesday. Rich, a 2010 Kell High School graduate, said she’s already entered the workforce, putting her bachelor’s in early childhood education to use as a first-grade teacher at King Springs Elementary School in Smyrna. “I actually had to find a substitute teacher for my class today,” Rich said as she prepared to walk across the stage and receive her diploma at KSU’s 164th commencement ceremony Wednesday evening. …Rich was one of 1,706 to graduate this month, compared to the 1,585 students who graduated last December, said Jennifer Hafer, spokeswoman for the university. Those graduates were part of the 25,714 students enrolled at KSU as of fall 2014, Hafer said.

www.savannahtribune.com
http://www.savannahtribune.com/news/2014-12-17/Social_%28and%29_Community_News/SSU_Holds_Commencement_Ceremony.html
SSU Holds Commencement Ceremony
The 185 th Commencement Ceremony of Savannah State University (SSU)was held Saturday, December 13,2014. During the ceremony, approximately 250 students received bachelor’s and master’s degrees.

www.tiftongazette.com
http://www.tiftongazette.com/news/cost-of-degree-at-uga-worth-the-investment/article_a28e3f24-856e-11e4-8a77-3b913192880c.html
Cost of degree at UGA ‘worth the investment’
Jordan Hill and Clint Thompson
TIFTON — University of Georgia Tifton Campus students are getting the most bang for their academic buck. One of three UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences (CAES) campuses in Georgia, UGA Tifton boasts a 99 percent career placement rate after graduation. The cost of a UGA degree is worth the investment to many UGA CAES students, considering the high salaries they’re earning after graduation. The college ranks second in the university as far as graduates finding jobs post-graduation and attending graduate school, and third for highest starting salaries.

www.kiplinger.com
http://www.kiplinger.com/article/college/T014-C000-S001-best-values-in-large-colleges-2015.html
25 Best Values in Large Colleges, 2015
By the editors of Kiplinger’s Personal Finance
…14. University of Georgia

RESEARCH:
www.textileworld.com
http://www.textileworld.com/Articles/2014/December/Herty_Launches_CRADA_With_The_Nonwovens_Institute_To_Develop_Specialty_Fibers
Herty Launches CRADA With The Nonwovens Institute To Develop Specialty Fibers
SAVANNAH, Ga. — The Georgia Southern University Herty Advanced Materials Development Center (Herty) and the Nonwovens Institute at North Carolina State University (NWI) announced today the launch of a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement to the accelerate the development of novel specialty fibers including islands-in-the-sea and other advanced bi-component fibers.

www.connectsavannah.com
http://www.connectsavannah.com/NewsFeed/archives/2014/12/17/skidaway-institute-scientist-shares-gulf-oil-spill-research-grant
Skidaway Institute scientist shares Gulf oil spill research grant
Posted By staff
University of Georgia Skidaway Institute of Oceanography scientist Catherine Edwards is “part of a research team that has received an $18.8 million grant to continue studies of natural oil seeps and track the impacts of the BP/Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico ecosystem,” a UGA SkIO spokesman says. Known as ECOGIG-2 or “Ecosystem Impacts of Oil and Gas Inputs to the Gulf,” the project is a collaborative, multi-institutional effort involving biological, chemical, geological and chemical oceanographers led by the University of Georgia’s Samantha Joye. The research team has worked in the Gulf since the weeks following the 2010 Macondo well blowout. The three-year, $18.8 million ECOGIG-2 program was funded by the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative, or GoMRI.

www.redandblack.com
http://www.redandblack.com/uganews/after-the-outbreak-uga-researchers-fighting-ebola-spread/article_792c1f82-8494-11e4-b1db-0ff6ee37061c.html
After the outbreak: UGA researchers fighting Ebola spread
Gabe Cavallaro
With Ebola persisting as a global health issue, University of Georgia researchers are working on ways to fight further spread. Scientists at UGA are involved in projects such as developing an Ebola vaccine, using diagnostic tools to identify the virus, working on a statistical modeling system and even making contingency plans in the unlikely case of an emergence of the virus in the U.S.

www.northwestgeorgianews.com
http://www.northwestgeorgianews.com/uga-emory-collaborate-to-leverage-strengths-in-infectious-disease-research/article_d641095e-8600-11e4-9ec3-a336a91a3d9a.html
UGA, Emory collaborate to leverage strengths in infectious disease research
Athens, Ga. – The University of Georgia and Emory University are strengthening their collaborations to elevate the position of the Atlanta-Athens corridor as a national hub for infectious disease research. The two institutions are currently working together on grant and contract-funded projects totaling more than $45 million, including a Center of Excellence for Influenza Research and Surveillance and a malaria research consortium, both funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). In addition, they are developing a new diagnostic test for tuberculosis and working to create a new HIV vaccine, among other projects.

www.sciencecodex.com
http://www.sciencecodex.com/study_shows_how_breast_cancer_cells_break_free_to_spread_in_the_body-147745
Study shows how breast cancer cells break free to spread in the body
More than 90 percent of cancer-related deaths are caused by the spread of cancer cells from their primary tumor site to other areas of the body. A new study has identified how one important gene helps cancer cells break free from the primary tumor. A gene normally involved in the regulation of embryonic development can trigger the transition of cells into more mobile types that can spread without regard for the normal biological controls that restrict metastasis, the new study shows. …”This gene relates directly to the mechanism that metastatic cancer cells use to move from one location to another,” said Michelle Dawson, an assistant professor in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. “If you have a cell that overexpresses SNAIL, then it can potentially be metastatic without having any environmental cues that normally trigger this response.” The study was sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and was published December 9 in the Journal of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB).

www.techtimes.com
http://www.techtimes.com/articles/22322/20141217/what-are-the-real-causes-of-seasonal-affective-disorder.htm
What Are The Real Causes Of Seasonal Affective Disorder?
By Robin Burks
Seasonal Affective Disorder is often misunderstood and even dismissed as the winter blues. However, its symptoms are all too real: a depression that comes with a seasonal pattern, usually occurring in winter. SAD usually begins in the fall and then gets worse as colder weather moves in during the winter. …Less sunlight also means less vitamin D. A study done by the University of Georgia recently showed the link between vitamin D deficiency and depression. “We hypothesize that rather than functioning primarily as a proximal or direct sub-mechanism in the etiology of SAD, vitamin D likely functions in a more foundational and regulative role in potentiating the sub-mechanisms associated with the depressive and seasonality factors,” says the researchers.

www.fiercedrugdelivery.com
http://www.fiercedrugdelivery.com/story/molecular-hats-disguise-peptides-until-shone-uv-light-activate-target/2014-12-17
Molecular ‘hats’ disguise peptides until activated with UV light at a target
By Michael Gibney
Introducing biomaterials such as peptides into the body often leads to an immune response that, in an effort to protect the body from foreign substances, can render the biomaterial useless. Normally, this is a necessary function, but when that biomaterial is a drug devoted to a higher purpose, this process can be a hindrance to successful treatment. Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have found a way to sneak peptides past the immune system by fitting them with cages that cover binding sites on the proteins like a hat, according to the university.

www.newswest9.com
http://www.newswest9.com/story/27654049/image-sensor-market-by-technology-cmos-ccd-spectrum-array-scanning-method-application-consumer-electronics-healthcare-industrial-security-automotive
Image Sensor Market by Technology (CMOS, CCD), Spectrum, Array, Scanning Method, Application (Consumer Electronics, Healthcare, Industrial, Security, Automotive, Aerospace, and Defense) and by Geography – Analysis and Forecast (2013 – 2020)
…There has been a growing need for image sensors in the application such as; consumer electronics, automotive & transportation, healthcare, industrial, security & surveillance, and aerospace and defense. For instance, in healthcare application, researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed the catheter-based device equipped with a CMOS image sensor that would provide real-time 3D images of heart, coronary arteries, and peripheral blood vessels, which would help to guide surgeons during heart procedures.

STATE NEEDS/ISSUES:
www.accessnorthga.com
http://www.accessnorthga.com/detail.php?n=283097
Georgia jobless rate posts largest monthly decline since 1976
By The Associated Press
ATLANTA (AP) State officials say Georgia’s unemployment rate has dropped to 7.2 percent. The Georgia Department of Labor on Thursday announced the new figure, which is the seasonally adjusted jobless rate for November. State officials say the new rate represents what they call a significant drop. …Butler said in a statement that Georgia employers added 23,400 new jobs in November for a total of about 4.17 million. Labor officials said most of the job growth came in trade, transportation and warehousing, areas where 16,000 jobs were created primarily because of holiday hiring.

Editorials/Columns/Opinions:
www.getschooled.blog.ajc.com
http://getschooled.blog.ajc.com/2014/12/17/new-survey-high-school-grads-feel-unprepared-are-their-schools-at-fault-or-are-they/
Get Schooled with Maureen Downey
New survey: High school grads feel unprepared. Are their schools at fault or are they?
A new survey released today found recent high school grads feel unprepared for college and career and wish they’d been better informed about what they needed and encouraged to meet higher expectations. After reading the results of the survey by Achieve, I have to ask whether the problem is high school students aren’t being told what they need or aren’t embracing the information?

www.bryanciountynews.net
http://www.bryancountynews.net/section/3/article/35220/
Keep cronyism out of state school choice
Education insight
By Jim Kelly and Ben Scafidi
Georgia has one of the more popular K-12 tuition tax-credit programs in America, which is funded by the private contributions of approximately 18,000 individual taxpayers and 200 corporate taxpayers, who receive a state income-tax credit for their contributions. These contributions are made to qualified student scholarship organizations (SSOs) that provide scholarships to eligible students, most of whom are from low- or middle-income families. Surveys indicate they are overwhelmingly satisfied with their private-school choices.
In the case of the Georgia GOAL Scholarship Program, the state’s largest SSO, 93 percent of scholarship funds have been given to students who transferred from a public school to a private school, or who entered school for the first time and used a GOAL scholarship to enroll at a private pre-K or kindergarten program instead of a public school. Of course, even without a scholarship, some of these first-time students may have attended a private school. On the other hand, had a scholarship not been available, some of the 7 percent of the scholarship recipients who, as permitted by the law, were enrolled in first grade at a private school, may have had to enroll in a public school.

www.chronicle.com
http://chronicle.com/blogs/conversation/2014/12/17/use-civil-law-to-adjudicate-campus-sexual-assault-cases/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
Use Civil Law to Adjudicate Campus Sexual-Assault Cases
by Paul G. Lannon
There is no debate that more can and should be done to stop and redress sexual assaults and harassment on college campuses. What is debatable are the best methods for achieving those goals. A particularly thorny problem is how best to adjudicate sexual-assault cases involving students.

Education:
www.diverseeducation.com
http://diverseeducation.com/article/68453/?utm_campaign=Diverse%20Newsletter%203&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Eloqua&elq=5a71a6b18dda40aeb3d2aa5e4cc0590a&elqCampaignId=415
Payroll Withholding Offers New Path for Income-Based Repayment by Student Loan Borrowers
by Ronald Roach
Enrolling Americans with student loan debt in an automatic Income-Based Repayment system and automating their repayments through employer payroll withholding could substantially simplify the student loan system and lessen the number of loan defaults, contends three higher education research and advocacy organizations in a new policy paper. Released on Wednesday, the paper, “The Case for Payroll Withholding,” which is co-authored by the New America Foundation, the Young Invincibles organization, and the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, outlines four distinct policy approaches for Income-Based Repayment (IBR) systems.

www.chronicle.com
http://chronicle.com/article/2-Takes-on-Student-Loan/150925/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
2 Takes on Student-Loan Defaults: Is the Glass Half-Full or Half-Empty?
By Kelly Field
Washington
There’s good news, and somewhat discouraging news, in the Education Department’s latest data on student-loan repayment. First, the good news: More borrowers with federal direct loans are opting into income-based plans, lowering their monthly payments and their risk of default. In the 18 months from April 1, 2013, to September 30, 2014, participation in Income Based Repayment, the largest such program, more than doubled, to 1.85 million direct-loan borrowers. The amount of debt being repaid through the program more than doubled, too.

www.chronicle.com
http://chronicle.com/article/A-Call-for-Big-Changes-to-Meet/150927/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
A Call for Big Changes to Meet a Big Challenge at Community Colleges
Quick fixes aren’t enough to boost lagging completion rates, says a new report
By Katherine Mangan
More than a decade of efforts to propel low-income and underserved students through community college have fallen short because states and colleges haven’t made systemwide commitments to strategies like streamlining degree requirements, accelerating remediation, and financially rewarding colleges for raising graduation and persistence rates, according to a report being released on Thursday by Jobs for the Future. The report, “Policy Meets Pathways: A State Policy Agenda for Transformational Change,” calls for sweeping new strategies that affect all students, not just the few participating in pilot programs on individual campuses.

www.insidehighered.com
https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2014/12/18/why-state-policies-fall-short-college-completion
Why State Policies Fall Short on College Completion
The decade-old college completion push has fallen short at the state level because of failures to bring policy solutions to large numbers of lower-income students, according to a new report from Jobs for the Future. State policy makers too often are focused on “quick fixes” and sweeping legislation, the report said. But those strategies often are hindered by an “implementation gap.”

www.insidehighered.com
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/12/18/marquette-professor-who-blogged-about-tas-decisions-class-suspended-pay-pending
Suspended for Blogging
By Colleen Flaherty
Marquette University has suspended with pay and barred from campus the tenured professor who criticized a graduate student instructor in a personal blog, pending an investigation into his conduct. John McAdams, an associate professor of political science at Marquette, last month wrote a controversial blog post accusing a teaching assistant in philosophy of shutting down a classroom conversation on gay marriage based on her own political beliefs.

www.chronicle.com
http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/u-of-alabama-president-says-shell-step-down-by-next-fall/91453?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
U. of Alabama President Says She’ll Step Down by Next Fall
by Charles Huckabee
Judy L. Bonner, president of the University of Alabama’s flagship campus at Tuscaloosa, announced in a letter to the campus on Wednesday that she planned to step down no later than the end of September. Ms. Bonner said she would like to return to her “first love, which is teaching and working more directly with students.” She said in a letter to the chancellor on Monday that she was announcing her intentions now so the university could begin a search in January and plan for a smooth transition to a new leader.

www.noodls.com
http://www.noodls.com/viewNoodl/26308867/the-university-of-north-carolina-at-chapel-hill/carolina-is-no-1-value-in-public-education-14th-time-in-a-r
Carolina is No. 1 value in public education 14th time in a row
(Chapel Hill, N.C.) – The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill ranks once again – and for the 14th time in a row – as the best value in American public higher education, according to Kiplinger’s Personal Finance magazine. The new ranking appears in the February 2015 issue and is posted today (Dec. 17) online. Carolina has topped the list based on academic quality and affordability every single time since Kiplinger’s began issuing the rankings in 1998.

www.time.com
http://time.com/3637980/college-admissions-mistakes-johnshopkins/
The Long, Sad Tradition of College Admissions Mistakes
Katy Steinmetz
This sort of thing happens pretty much every year
The news that Johns Hopkins University had mistakenly sent acceptance letters to applicants who didn’t actually make the cut was especially cruel for the nearly three hundred kids who were actually rejected. But it was not, unfortunately, uncommon. This kind of spirit-crushing mixup has become a nearly annual rite of college admissions, particularly since application processes went electronic in the early 2000s. Here’s a rundown of some of the worst offenders: 1995: Elizabeth Mikus, a 17-year-old, is among 45 early-acceptance applicants who receive a fat envelope with a form letter that says “Welcome to Cornell!” But it turns out that the envelopes were sent “due to a clerical error.” Mikus suffers a second time in April when she gets a thin envelope rejecting her again. The family threatened to sue the school over the mishap. …2006: About 100 high school students receive a congratulatory note welcoming them to the University of Georgia, only to get another letter a few days later explaining that those notes should be disregarded. Someone picked up “the wrong file,” an administrator explains, and failed to send what the students should have gotten: a letter thanking them for applying.

www.insidehighered.com
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/12/18/us-cuba-announcement-will-have-implications-higher-ed
Easier Path to Cuba
By Elizabeth Redden
Wednesday’s announcement by the White House that the U.S. will re-establish diplomatic relations with Cuba will have implications for further expanding academic travel to the island nation. President Obama has already taken major steps to ease restrictions on educational travel to Cuba, releasing regulations in 2011 that granted accredited American universities authority to sponsor structured, credit-bearing study abroad programs in Cuba on what’s called a “general license” without having to apply for a “specific license” from the U.S. Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, the entity that enforces the decades-old trade embargo against Cuba.

www.insidehighered.com
https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2014/12/18/michigan-reportedly-offering-8m-year-coach
Michigan Reportedly Offering $8M a Year for Coach
The University of Michigan has reportedly offered Jim Harbaugh, head coach of the San Francisco 49ers in the National Football League, a six-year $48 million contract to become head football coach at Michigan, Sports Illustrated reported.

www.insidehighered.com
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/12/18/state-authorization-reciprocity-effort-passes-tipping-point-supporters-say
Sustaining SARA
By Carl Straumsheim
Leaders of a national movement to ease the regulatory burden on colleges and universities that offer distance education say the effort has passed its tipping point after more than a third of the states have joined in less than a year. With Tuesday’s announcement that New Hampshire had joined, the National Council for State Authorization Reciprocity Agreements, or SARA, has 18 member states.

www.insidehighered.com
https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2014/12/18/obama-administration-unveil-college-ratings-plan
Obama Administration to Unveil College Ratings Plan
The U.S. Department of Education will release a much-anticipated outline of its college ratings system on Friday, according to several sources familiar with the department’s plans.
Department officials have indicated to a handful of college leaders and higher education associations that they will publish Friday a draft framework that includes the metrics on which colleges would be rated by the federal government.