University System News
www.SouthernPoliticalReport.com
Gov. Deal budget plan reflects return to pre-recession spending levels
by Louis Mayeux | Jan 22, 2015 | Top Story |
Gov. Deal budget plan reflects return to pre-recession spending levels
Gov. Nathan Deal begins his second term with a state budget closer to those of Georgia’s boom years before the recession slashed state revenues to the bare bone.Deal on Friday offered a proposed $21.78 billion spending plan for FY 2016, which begins July 1, an increase of about $900 million over this year’s budget. The state budget had reached $21 billion before economic bad times sunk state spending to around $18 billion. But while revenues continue to increase, so has the state’s population, which means that the state’s spending doesn’t go as far as it did before the recession. The University System of Georgia’s $198 billion in bonds for capital projects allocates $60 million for facility improvements and renovations system wide and $3.3 million to equip a new science learning center at the University of Georgia. Local school districts will receive $230 million from bonds for capital projects.
www.PolitiFact.com
Merger will produce one of nation’s largest universities
By Nancy Badertscher on Friday, January 23rd, 2015 at 12:00 a.m.
http://www.politifact.com/georgia/statements/2015/jan/23/gsu-alumni-association/merger-will-produce-one-nations-largest-universiti/
Since 2011, the University System of Georgia has been consolidating some of its 35 colleges and universities. The biggest of these mergers — combining four-year Georgia State University in downtown Atlanta and largely two-year Georgia Perimeter College anchored in the suburbs — is slated to be final in 2016. When this merger was approved earlier this month by the university system’s Board of Regents, officials said the university that emerges would retain the Georgia State name. They said it also would become the largest university in Georgia.
www.Macon.com
Midstate colleges fight enrollment decline
By MAGGIE LEE
January 22, 2015
http://www.macon.com/2015/01/22/3545409_midstate-colleges-fight-enrollment.html?rh=1#storylink=cpy
The chancellor of the University System of Georgia says overall enrollment was up last fall, but it’s not evenly spread among Georgia’s public colleges and universities. At a budget presentation this week, University System of Georgia Chancellor Hank Huckaby called out 15 schools for slipping student populations, including Fort Valley State University and Middle Georgia State College.Both institutions say they’re well aware of the challenge and are stepping up new offerings ranging from Greek life to international recruitment.
Read more here: http://www.macon.com/2015/01/22/3545409_midstate-colleges-fight-enrollment.html?rh=1#storylink=cpy
www.GwinnettDailyJournal.com
State gets poor grades on fight against smoking
By Andy Miller
As of Friday, January 23, 2015
http://www.gwinnettdailypost.com/news/2015/jan/22/state-gets-poor-grades-on-fight-against-smoking/
Still, more Georgia municipalities are adopting or considering smoke-free ordinances. The state has been successful in promoting tobacco-free school districts. And the University System of Georgia has banned smoking and tobacco products on all its campuses.
www.OnlineAthens.com
UGA stronger than ever, but president wants to increase diversity
By Lee Shearerupdated Thursday, January 22, 2015 – 10:37pm
http://onlineathens.com/uga/2015-01-21/uga-stronger-ever-president-wants-increase-diversity
The University of Georgia is “stronger now than at any point in our 230-year history,” said UGA President Jere Morehead on Wednesday.
For the second year in a row, UGA’s freshman class was the most academically qualified in the university’s history, faculty are earning national and international accolades, and close to $200 million in construction projects underway or beginning soon. Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal’s proposed new budget, Morehead noted, includes money for two other big projects — $43 million for a new building for the university’s business school and $17 million for UGA’s Center for Molecular Medicine.
www.myajc.com
Big data yielding big results for Georgia State
Updated: 5:17 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 22, 2015 | Posted: 12:00 a.m. Thursday, Dec. 25, 2014
By Janel Davis
http://www.myajc.com/news/news/local-education/big-data-yielding-big-results-for-georgia-state/njT8H/?icmp=ajc_internallink_invitationbox_apr2013_ajcstubtomyajcpremium#3f2bcbc0.3566685.735621
When Aundrea Nattiel goes in for a session with her college adviser at Georgia State University, there are no secrets. A detailed computer profile provides information about every class taken and every grade earned by Nattiel during her time at the school, as well as her academic history at the college she attended before transferring. If the junior sociology major withdraws from a class, forgets to take a prerequisite or doesn’t register for enough credit hours to keep her on track for graduation, her adviser receives an alert and summons Nattiel.
www.myajc.com
Georgia Tech students help Home Depot stay sharp
Posted: 3:47 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2015
By Leon Stafford
http://www.myajc.com/news/business/georgia-tech-students-help-home-depot-stay-sharp/njsjQ/#ea00a9bd.3458751.735621
Home Depot will open an innovation center Thursday at Midtown’s Technology Square in which the young part-timers will study everything from implementation of the connected home to the practical application of 3D printing. The world’s largest home improvement chain is tapping Georgia Tech students to help it keep up with changing technology and stay ahead of the competition.Home Depot will open an innovation center Thursday at Midtown’s Technology Square in which the young part-timers will study everything from implementation of the connected home to the practical application of 3D printing. Their research will guide the company in understanding what consumers of tomorrow will look for, as well as develop ways in which technology can make it easier for Home Depot to help customers in stores.
Education News
www.Chronicle.com
In an Evolving Career Landscape, How Should Colleges Prepare Students?
By Casey Fabris
http://chronicle.com/article/In-an-Evolving-Career/151345/
By all accounts, the career paths of today’s students will hardly resemble those of their parents. So what are colleges doing to help them prepare? On Wednesday the Kettering Foundation, the National Issues Forums Institute, and Augsburg College gathered a group of leaders from higher education, business, government, and other fields here to begin what the organizations hope will be a national conversation on the question of how colleges should adapt to a working world changed by technology, globalization, and the aftermath of the recession.
www.Chronicle.com
Where Free-Community-College Plans May Prosper: In the States
By Katherine Mangan
http://chronicle.com/article/Where-Free-Community-College/151357/?cid=at
Sixty-billion dollars for free community-college tuition will undoubtedly be a tough sell to a Republican-controlled Congress. But in statehouses and city halls around the country, advocates for free tuition are hoping that the national discussion the president’s proposal has unleashed will help them make the case that government-funded education should extend beyond 12th grade to include two years of college. Two of those programs, in Tennessee and Chicago, are familiar to anyone who’s been following the debate thundering around the proposal President Obama promoted in Tuesday’s State of the Union address. His plan, which Republican leaders have already denounced and many presidents of two-year colleges have cheered, calls on the federal government to cover three-quarters of students’ tuition costs, with states providing the rest. The proposal is largely modeled on a plan in Tennessee known as the Tennessee Promise. Mr. Obama also cited Chicago’s version of the idea as evidence that if a Republican governor and Democratic mayor could agree on an approach, a bitterly divided Congress could as well.
www.Chronicle.com
How One College Is Getting Strategic in the Face of Challenges
9:59
Kwang-Wu Kim, Columbia College Chicago
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Columbia College Chicago lost 24 percent of its enrollment in the five years before Kwang-Wu Kim took over as president, in 2013. He has since overseen an effort to re-evaluate the college’s operations and curricula, and to develop a strategy to turn around its fortunes. He shares his thoughts on how a bold new website is only a first step, on making a strategic plan more than a wish list, and on how his experience as a concert pianist helps him as a college president.
www.DiverseEducation.com
Million Women Mentors Movement Guiding Females to STEM Careers
by Jamaal Abdul-Alim
http://diverseeducation.com/article/68951/?utm_campaign=Diverse%20Newsletter%203&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Eloqua&elq=e12ce52d801f4a3da68233bbe08ac416&elqCampaignId=415
When Kate Lindsey took over her late husband’s construction firm, one of the first things she did was ask the firm’s 22 women engineers to identify the biggest determent they faced going into the field of construction and engineering. At least two indicated that it was the college instructors who served as their advisers, Lindsey recently told the Women Mayors Caucus of the United States Conference of Mayors. “My college guidance counselor told me that construction isn’t a field for women,” Lindsey recounted, paraphrasing what the female engineers told her when she surveyed them at Alpha Corporation, an international construction and engineering firm headquartered in Dulles, Virginia.
www.DiverseEducation.com
AAC&U Panel: Having a Diversity Officer Doesn’t Mean Mission Accomplished
January 22, 2015 | Category: News,Subfeature | : by Catherine Morris
http://diverseeducation.com/article/68957/?utm_campaign=Diverse%20Newsletter%203&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Eloqua&elq=e12ce52d801f4a3da68233bbe08ac416&elqCampaignId=415
Even for those colleges and universities that value diversity to the extent that they have a dedicated officer or dean of diversity, problems of inclusion and support for faculty and students of color may still be an institutional challenge. A single officer or the mere presence of faculty of color does not solve such issues in one fell swoop. That was the consensus of a panel of faculty and senior administrators of color that discussed institutional issues regarding race at the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) annual conference Thursday afternoon.
www.InsideHigherEd.com
28 Universities Will Participate in Sexual Assault Survey
January 23, 2015
https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2015/01/23/28-universities-will-participate-sexual-assault-survey
Fewer than half of the elite research institutions that comprise the Association of American Universities will participate in that group’s effort to anonymously survey students about the prevalence of sexual assault on campuses. The association said Thursday that 27 of its 60 U.S. members and one non-member college will join the effort.
Some of the universities that declined to take part in the AAU project have said that they’ll design and conduct their own surveys. Dozens of researchers and some victims’ advocates also raised concerns about how the AAU was going about producing the survey.
www.InsideHigherEd.com
Settling Over Speech
January 23, 2015
By Jake New
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/01/23/colleges-settle-free-speech-lawsuits-fire-promises-more-litigation
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education’s attempt to end “the generation-long scandal of campus speech codes” by helping to file free-speech lawsuits against a number of colleges and universities has so far resulted in more than $200,000 in settlements. The lawsuits are part of a campaign – called the Stand Up for Speech Litigation Project — that began in July with litigation against Chicago State University, Citrus College, Iowa State University and Ohio University. FIRE had previously brought lawsuits against Modesto Junior College and the University of Hawaii at Hilo for blocking students from passing out copies of the Constitution, and those suits were also folded into the campaign. The project has since grown to include Western Michigan University.
www.InsideHigherEd.com
Intellectual Connections
January 23, 2015
By Colleen Flaherty
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/01/23/aacu-sessions-focus-integrative-learning
Integrative learning. It sounds good, and it’s a cornerstone of the Association of American Colleges and Universities’ Liberal Education and America’s Promise (LEAP) initiative to advance liberal education. But what is integrative learning, exactly, and how can liberal arts advocates use it to make their case for a broad education – especially in an increasingly jobs-focused environment? A series of sessions focused on that question Thursday at AAC&U’s annual meeting here.
www.InsideHigherEd.com
2015 Survey of Chief Academic Officers
Submitted by Scott Jaschik on January 22, 2015 – 3:00am
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/survey/2015-survey-chief-academic-officers
A majority of provosts are concerned about declining faculty civility in American higher education. And a large majority of provosts believe that civility is a legitimate criterion in hiring and evaluating faculty members. Generally, the provosts are confident that faculty members show civility in their treatment of students, but have mixed views on whether professors show civility in dealings with colleagues and doubt how much civility is shown to administrators.
These results are clear from Inside Higher Ed’s 2015 Survey of College and University Chief Academic Officers. And after a year of intense debate over civility, the survey shows that provosts are not aligned with faculty leaders on the issue.