University System News
www.lagrangenews.com
Residents give input on new library
http://www.lagrangenews.com/news/home_top-news/151584991/Residents-give-input-on-new-library
By Matthew Strother
Attendees of a public hearing Thursday for the proposed Hogansville library want a building that can serve as a community gathering place and technology hub with a look that is consistent with the historical district where it will be located. “I think libraries are customized to communities,” said David Moore, architect with McMillan Pazdan Smith Architecture, which has been contracted to design the library. “Each library is custodian to the the needs and aspirations of the community, so the only way someone who is not from Hogansville can design a library for Hogansville is to listen to what the people want and incorporate that into the design.” …The library project is funded with $1.1 million in countywide special-purpose, local-option sales tax – or SPLOST – funds, and a $2 million construction grant from the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia, which oversees the state’s public libraries.

www.foodconsumer.org
Working Toward a Tobacco-Free Generation: 51 Years of Progress
http://www.foodconsumer.org/newsite/Non-food/Miscellaneous/tobacco-free_generation_0130150128.html
By Vivek H. Murthy
Eliminating tobacco use seemed like an impossible task when the first Surgeon General’s report on smoking came out in 1964. Almost half of our population smoked, and tobacco use was everywhere from airplanes and restaurants to sports and magazines. However, one year ago this month, when we released the Surgeon General’s Report, The Health Consequences of Smoking-50 Years of Progress, we recognized how much progress we’ve made in lowering those statistics-from nearly one in two to now less than one in five American adults who smoke cigarettes. …These are just a few examples of the incredible work done on the local, state, and national levels this past year: …o The University System of Georgia and University of California system became tobacco-free, adding 31 and 10 campuses, respectively, to the more than 1,500 college campuses now with similar policies.

Editorials/Columns/Opinions:
www.chronicle.augusta.com
Interesting times in the health-care arena make for unexpected partners
http://chronicle.augusta.com/opinion/opinion-columns/2015-01-31/interesting-times-health-care-arena-make-unexpected-partners
By James R. Davis
Guest Columnist
On Jan. 23, there was an announcement regarding discussions between the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia and University Health Care System to explore partnership possibilities. You may have wondered why. Today, all hospitals find themselves battling reimbursement cuts from Medicare as a result of the Affordable Care Act that was signed into law in 2010. In Georgia, there has been little expansion of coverage for the uninsured to offset those cuts. Approximately 20 percent of Georgians continue to have no health-care coverage. …IF YOU COUPLE these economic challenges with the Board of Regents’ desire to make the Medical College of Georgia a national top-50 medical school, it only makes sense for our two organizations to work together to find solutions for a brighter future. Together we can find ways to reduce costs while making a better environment to attract, train and retain physicians and medical professionals for Georgia’s future.

www.insidehighered.com
5 Myths About Open Online Courses at Scale
https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/technology-and-learning/5-myths-about-open-online-courses-scale
By Joshua Kim
This week at Dartmouth we are launching our first open online edX (DartmouthX) course, Introduction to Environmental Science. Everyone I know in higher education seems to have a set of strong opinions about open online education at scale. What have we actually learned from participating in this movement? What are the biggest myths about open online courses at scale?

www.washingtonpost.com
How sorority culture contributes to the campus rape problem
Don’t blame the sisters. Blame the institutions.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/01/30/how-sorority-culture-contributes-to-the-campus-rape-problem/
By Alexandra Robbins
The order for sorority sisters at the University of Virginia to stay home this weekend and avoid fraternity bid night parties was a boneheaded move by national sorority officers, to say the least. “This policy promotes a culture that reduces women to objects of sexual pleasure, only useful as subjects of the male gaze and desire,” wrote one U-Va. junior. The Washington Post’s Petula Dvorak suggested that the mandate effectively blamed sorority sisters for the high number of sexual assaults on college campuses. No, the sisters are not to blame. But the national sororities’ decision to lock them in a tower rather than empower them to face the world reveals more about sororities’ flaws than fraternities’ dangers. In truth, historically white national sorority officers, with their tendencies to hush-hush controversial incidents and to center so much of sorority social life around fraternities, may themselves be partly, indirectly at fault. …Some women said they faced sanctions or even fines if they refused to go to fraternity events. A former Georgia State University sorority sister – who said she was fined approximately $25 for each fraternity party she missed – said that her chapter emphasized that sisters speak with a quota of fraternity members at these events.

www.insidehighered.com
Did You Notice Where the Super Bowl Was Played?
https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2015/02/02/essay-significance-super-bowl-being-played-university-phoenix-stadium
By Karen Gross
With all the Super Bowl hype (and there was plenty before the game, given Deflategate), little attention has been paid to the irony of where the actual game was played in Arizona: the University of Phoenix Stadium. Yes, really. Is there anything we can learn from the Super Bowl’s location for those of us toiling in the weeds of higher education?

www.getschooled.blog.ajc.com
Get Schooled with Maureen Downey
Obama wants to help community college students. What about the people who teach them?
http://getschooled.blog.ajc.com/2015/02/02/obama-wants-to-help-community-college-students-what-about-the-people-who-teach-them/
President Obama wants to increase the number of students in America’s community colleges by making it virtually free to attend. His proposal has prompted questions, including who will teach all these new students. Stung by budget cuts, community colleges in Georgia and around the nation increasingly rely on part-time faculty. In this essay, Rick Diguette discusses the life of adjunct professors. A writer, Diguette teaches English at a local college.

www.getschooled.blog.ajc.com
Get Schooled with Maureen Downey
Gov. Deal’s Opportunity School District: How to get it right
http://getschooled.blog.ajc.com/2015/02/01/gov-deals-opportunity-school-district-how-to-get-it-right/
Eric Wearne is a faculty member in the Georgia Gwinnett College School of Education and a founding board member and current board chair of Latin Academy Charter School in the Atlanta Public Schools. He wrote this piece for the AJC Sunday Opinion section. I wanted to share it here as Dr. Wearne raises excellent points.

USG Institutions:
www.chronicle.augusta.com
GRU documents show investigation, Azziz cost
http://chronicle.augusta.com/latest-news/2015-01-31/gru-documents-show-investigation-azziz-cost
By Tom Corwin
Staff Writer
The resignation of Georgia Re­gents University Pre­sident Ricardo Azziz began a little earlier than first reported and will end up being a little more costly, according to records obtained by The Augusta Chronicle. Also, another former GRU official who resigned last year is under investigation, the documents show.

www.coastalcourier.com
GSU’s education program gets ranking
http://coastalcourier.com/section/5/article/71509/
Special to the Courier
STATESBORO — Georgia Southern University ranked No. 6 on The Best School’s “25 Best Online Master in Education in Early Childhood Education Degree Programs.”

www.georgianewsday.com
Georgia Southern University to host the first World Universities Forum in the United States
http://www.georgianewsday.com/news/savannah/316465-georgia-southern-university-to-host-the-first-world-universities-forum-in-the-united-states.html
STAFF WRITER
STATESBORO, GA (WTOC) – Georgia Southern University will welcome “The Eighth World Universities Forum” to the Coastal Georgia Center, 305 Fahm St. in downtown Savannah, on Feb. 5-6. The gathering at the Coastal Georgia Center is the first time the World Universities Forum (WUF) will hold its annual conference in the United States. Previous forums have been held in Switzerland, India, Hong Kong, Canada, Portugal and Greece. More than 30 countries will be represented at the international gathering of global scholars and policymakers to examine the role and future of the university in a changing world.

www.daltondailycitizen.com
Dalton State to host STEM banquet
http://www.daltondailycitizen.com/news/dalton-state-to-host-stem-banquet/article_c1635fb2-aa8d-11e4-b20a-cbcbeb11b9ce.html
Submitted by Dalton State College
From a high-end scanning electron microscope that can magnify items to several thousands of times, to a turtle assurance colony, Dalton State College has plenty to offer a student interested in a career in Science, Technology, Engineering or Mathematics (STEM). And to make sure high school juniors and seniors know everything that’s available to Dalton State students, there will be a STEM Banquet on Tuesday, Feb. 24, at the college.

www.globalatlanta.com
Clayton State, Indian University Sign Deal on Business Degrees
http://www.globalatlanta.com/article/27406/clayton-state-indian-university-sign-deal-on-business-degrees/
by Trevor Williams
Clayton State University has signed a memorandum of understanding with an Indian university to deepen academic collaboration and student and faculty exchanges. The agreement with Sri Krishna Institutions in Coimbatore, India, calls for a dual four-year degree in business starting in June 2015 in India, whereby students will finish the core aspects of their curriculum in Clayton-approved courses in India, then finish up at Clayton State in metro Atlanta.

www.bizjournals.com
Georgia Tech renames sustainable business center after Ray Anderson
http://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/news/2015/01/30/georgia-tech-renames-sustainable-business-center.html
Staff
Atlanta Business Chronicle
The Ray C. Anderson Foundation pledged $5 million over the next 10 years to Georgia Tech’s Scheller College of Business to rename the Center for Business Strategies for Sustainability. The center will now be known as the Ray C. Anderson Center for Sustainable Business.

Related article:
www.southeastgreen.com
$5 Million Commitment to Georgia Tech from the Ray C. Anderson Foundation Names Scheller College’s Ray C. Anderson Center for Sustainable Business
http://www.southeastgreen.com/index.php/news/metro-atl/12786-5-million-commitment-to-georgia-tech-from-the-ray-c-anderson-foundation-names-scheller-college-s-ray-c-anderson-center-for-sustainable-business

www.redandblack.com
UGA not included in first phase of private housing
http://www.redandblack.com/uganews/uga-not-included-in-first-phase-of-private-housing/article_9c299350-a822-11e4-93f6-3739960de118.html
Katelyn Umholtz
The University System of Georgia has big plans that could change the student housing market for nine universities across the state. And while the University of Georgia is not a part of phase one, if all goes well in the first phase, its on-campus student housing could be partnered up with private corporation Corvias Campus Living in the future. Charles Sutlive, USG’s vice chancellor for communications, said the purpose of private housing on campus is to make the price of housing more affordable to students. “Quality, safe and affordable housing for students is our priority,” Sutlive said. “By engaging private sector expertise in operations and maintenance of facilities, the campuses are able to keep costs down and focus on their core mission of educating students.” For phase one, Sutlive said schools such as Georgia Regents University and Georgia State University were chosen because of their need for new student housing.

www.wtxl.com
Kennesaw State Offers Free Tuberculosis Testing
http://www.wtxl.com/news/georgia_news/kennesaw-state-offers-free-tuberculosis-testing/article_d7d039a0-a8bc-11e4-bc28-8b06f869a78b.html
KENNESAW, Ga. (AP) — Kennesaw State University says it has scheduled free tuberculosis testing after learning a person at the school had tested positive for the illness.
The university says in a statement on its website that it is taking every precaution recommended by the state’s tuberculosis guidelines even though the risk of exposure and infection to the general campus population is low.

www.dailyherald.com
Building a better flu vaccine than this year’s debacle
http://www.dailyherald.com/article/20150201/entlife/150209990/
By Sonja Elmquist
Bloomberg News
NEW YORK — With this season’s flu vaccine protecting only one in 4 people, scientists are working on new manufacturing techniques and virus-killing methods to update the creaky, 80-year-old process now used to inoculate the population. …Production isn’t the only way to speed up the vaccine process. Faster distribution could also help, perhaps with delivery mechanisms that would eliminate the hassle of handling a liquid vaccine that needs to be refrigerated. For example, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University have worked on a patch that delivers the vaccine through the skin.

www.seattletimes.com
Dual-boot setup can keep older software running
http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2025586554_ptechqa31xml.html
Q&A with Patrick Marshall
When a newer operating system won’t support a favorite older application, there is a solution, writes Patrick Marshall. Apple’s practice of vetting apps doesn’t make iPhones immune to malware, he advises another reader… A: Don’t feel too secure with your iPhone. Malware is afflicting iPhones, just as it is other mobile devices. The most recent piece of malware targeting iPhones is called Wirelurker, which finds its way in through downloaded apps and collects user data. And don’t feel too confident about the vetting of apps by Apple. Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology recently demonstrated how they could get apps with malware past Apple’s vetting procedures.

www.wabe.org
Roadbot Fixes Highway Cracks In Milliseconds
http://wabe.org/post/roadbot-fixes-highway-cracks-milliseconds
By TASNIM SHAMMA
Researchers at Georgia Tech and the Georgia Department of Transportation have spent more than 10 years developing a robot, called Roadbot, that can seal cracks on major roads and highways. Roadbot has lots of body parts – cameras, computers, a machine that melts asphalt and colorful LED lights. It latches onto the back of a pick-up truck. There’s a human driver of the truck, but other than that, Roadbot is fully automated. It looks complicated, but the idea is simple. It finds a crack, the camera takes a picture of it, and ─ within a fraction of a second ─ a computer generates a “crackmap.” This tells the master controller where to fire the asphalt. Jonathan Holmes is project director of Roadbot at the Georgia Tech Research Institute.

Higher Education:
www.ajc.com
Georgia college official guilty of looting technical-school foundation
http://www.ajc.com/news/news/state-regional-govt-politics/georgia-college-official-guilty-of-looting-technic/njz4w/
Steve Visser
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A former college foundation head has pleaded guilty to embezzling more than $25,000. Dawn Cook, former head of the West Georgia Technical College Foundation, admitted to four counts of theft Thursday in Carroll County Superior Court, according to the state Attorney General’s Office. Cook funneled money from both the foundation and the college to herself through several local girls’ softball teams by claiming the foundation was buying advertising, the AG’s office said. She also pocketed money from a fundraiser.

www.washingtonpost.com
Going to a public college isn’t as affordable as it used to be
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/going-to-a-public-college-isnt-as-affordable-as-it-used-to-be/2015/01/30/813b3eda-9b7b-11e4-96cc-e858eba91ced_story.html
By Danielle Douglas-Gabriel January 30
Michael Bayne has done everything you’re supposed to do to avoid taking on too much debt for college. He lives off-campus to save money on housing. He’s always working at least one job — sometimes two. And he enrolled at an in-state public school, Arizona State University. But it’s not nearly enough. The $2,500 in grants Bayne received this semester covered less than half of his tuition at ASU. A decade ago, the same amount of aid would have been enough to pay his entire bill. …It used to be that students such as Bayne could attend a public university and graduate with little to no debt. Then came the recession, when state governments slashed funding of higher education and families began paying higher tuition bills.
Now, even as the economy recovers and taxpayer revenue is pouring back in, states have not restored their funding, and tuition keeps rising, leaving parents and students scrambling to cover costs.

www.diverseeducation.com
Half of High-risk Students Coming Up Empty
http://diverseeducation.com/article/69205/?utm_campaign=Diverse%20Newsletter%203&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Eloqua&elq=4c8fcd25c91745f49c5b40be71b6d43d&elqCampaignId=415
by Jamaal Abdul-Alim
Roughly half of high-risk students are starting college but have nothing to show for it in terms of earnings because they leave without a credential that could command a higher salary.
Such is one of the key findings of “The New Forgotten Half and Research Directions to Support Them,” a new report by James Rosenbaum, education professor and chair of the program on poverty, race, and inequality at the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University.

www.chronicle.com
Foreign Students Aren’t Edging Out Locals, Numbers Show
http://chronicle.com/article/Foreign-Students-Arent-Edging/151547/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
By Karin Fischer
International enrollments in American colleges may have soared in recent years, but despite public concern, there’s little to indicate that students from Beijing and Shanghai are displacing those from Buffalo or Santa Fe. A Chronicle analysis of enrollment data reported to the U.S. Department of Education by 69 state flagship universities and top public research institutions found no evidence of widespread crowding out of in-state undergraduates by students from abroad.

www.chronicle.com
How Do You Solve the Toughest Problems in Higher Ed? Offer Big Prizes
http://chronicle.com/article/How-Do-You-Solve-the-Toughest/151583/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
By Goldie Blumenstyk
New York City
The idea of dangling big prize money for an innovative achievement was popularized in aviation­—think Charles Lindbergh chasing the $25,000 Orteig Prize with his Spirit of St. Louis’s nonstop flight from New York to Paris, and space enthusiasts aiming for the $10-million X Prize for achieving a suborbital flight of rockets in 2004. Today higher education is increasingly trying the prize approach to achieve policy goals that seem as challenging as that trans-Atlantic flight did back in 1927, like helping academically unprepared students make it through community college within three years. On Monday the most lucrative prize to date in higher education will have the spotlight. That’s when the Robin Hood Foundation, in New York City, announces which of 18 semifinalists will get the go-ahead to compete for its prize worth up to $5-million for raising persistence and graduation rates among community-college students.

www.insidehighered.com
Responding to Measles Outbreak
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/02/02/measles-outbreak-raises-issues-colleges
By Scott Jaschik
A measles outbreak in the United States — largely tied to exposure at Disneyland — is causing alarm across the United States, and at least four colleges have students with the disease.
Measles can be a very serious disease, and has been thought to be largely eradicated in the United States. But the recent outbreak points to the potential for such a disease to spread, especially since the growing antivaccination movement means that some people lack protection against the disease. Contagious diseases always cause worry on college campuses, where students are in very close physical proximity in classes and, for residential campuses, in dormitories.

www.chronicle.com
Should Colleges Be Forced to Swiftly Report Rapes to the Police?
http://m.chronicle.com/article/Should-Colleges-Be-Forced-to/151581/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
Proposals in some states trouble victims’ advocates and raise questions for colleges
By Katherine Mangan
Two former football players are convicted of raping an unconscious student at Vanderbilt University while their friends record the assaults on their cellphones. A star swimmer at Stanford University is charged with raping another intoxicated, passed-out woman and is banned from the campus. The headlines, coming one day apart last week, were striking not only because of the boost they gave sexual-assault victims who contend their complaints go nowhere. They were also notable because both campuses had worked closely with local law-enforcement officials rather than simply settling the matters in house. Given the explosiveness of the two cases, that’s not surprising, but it’s unclear whether the police would have joined in so quickly if cellphone videos, in the Vanderbilt case, and witness accounts, at Stanford, hadn’t been available.

www.diverseeducation.com
Howard University Hospital Doctors Unionizing
http://diverseeducation.com/article/69208/?utm_campaign=Diverse%20Newsletter%203&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Eloqua&elq=4c8fcd25c91745f49c5b40be71b6d43d&elqCampaignId=415
by Catherine Morris
The debate about unionization in higher education is no longer limited to adjuncts. Now university hospital doctors are getting in the mix. This October, Howard University Hospital (HUH) partnered with Paladin Healthcare with an eye to streamline its finances after operating at a deficit for years. Howard doctors are countering with a move of their own to ensure their interests are protected. The Committee of Interns and Residents (CIR/SIEU Healthcare) announced that HUH resident physicians and fellows will join the organization, on Friday.

www.insidehighered.com
Fibbing for Rankings
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/02/02/audit-finds-u-missouri-kansas-city-business-school-gave-false-information-princeton
By Scott Jaschik
The University of Missouri at Kansas City gave the Princeton Review false information designed to inflate the rankings of its business school, which was under pressure from its major donor to keep the ratings up, according to an outside audit released Friday.

www.insidehighered.com
Change in Ohio
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/02/02/ohios-two-year-colleges-may-soon-offer-bachelors-degrees-and-access-state-aid
By Paul Fain
Ohio soon may join 20 states that allow community colleges to offer at least a limited number of four-year degrees. Gov. John Kasich’s administration on Friday announced the proposal as part of a preview of several higher-education initiatives. His office also called for the partial restoration of state-aid eligibility for community college students, which Ohio’s two-year colleges have pushed for since their students were excluded from the program in 2009. In addition, Kasich wants to encourage the creation of competency-based credentials.

www.insidehighered.com
Ethics of Engagement
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/02/02/should-western-colleges-do-business-saudi-arabia
By Elizabeth Redden
After Algonquin College, a community college in Ontario, announced that it would be opening an all-male campus in Jazan, Saudi Arabia, the faculty union’s newsletter published an alarming image: that of the beheaded bodies of five Yemeni nationals convicted of murder and robbery. Their bodies dangled in public display from a pole between two cranes parked in front of Jazan University, where students were reportedly taking exams. “Just a few kilometers away, Algonquin College was preparing to open up its Jazan campus,” Jack Wilson, the first vice president for the union, wrote in the accompanying newsletter article titled, “Why Are We in Saudi Arabia?” “Given the state-sanctioned barbarity of the regime in which the new campus is opening, one might fairly ask how appropriate it is for a publicly funded, taxpayer-supported Ontario institution such as Algonquin to be doing business abroad with distasteful regimes, especially if the regime’s values run contrary to the values we hold as Ontarians?”