UNIVERSITY SYSTEM NEWS
www.WCTV.com
Bainbridge State College Building New Facility in Donalsonville, Ga.
http://www.wctv.tv/home/headlines/Bainbridge-State-College-Building-New-Facility-in-Donalsonville-Ga-293742171.html
By: Lanetra Bennett
February 23, 2015
Seminole County High School senior, Cody Lambert is graduating in May and enrolling at Bainbridge State College in the fall. He says, “It’s close to home. It’s cheap. I don’t have to go far off at the beginning. I can get comfortable with living outside of high school.” Now, it’s going to be even closer. BSC is building a new facility in Donalsonville, Georgia. Students in Seminole County will not longer have to drive to Bainbridge to attend the college, saving them a approximate 60-mile round trip. M. Bonner, the Seminole County Schools Superintendent says, “We have a lot of students who have a difficult time financially after they leave high school going to college. So, this will afford them the opportunity to stay at home cut down on travel expenses, cut down on tuition and other expenses and give the opportunity to get an associates degree.”

www.HealthCanal.com
UGA research finds females, males use sexual assault hotlines differently
Women more likely to look for resources while men use calls as counseling
http://www.healthcanal.com/public-health-safety/60526-uga-research-finds-females-males-use-sexual-assault-hotlines-differently.html
When victims of sexual assault dial a telephone hotline for help, what they ask and how long they stay on the line might very well be related to whether they are male or female, according to new University of Georgia research. Every year, there are over a quarter of a million victims of sexual assault. Sexual assault hotlines provide services such as counseling, community resources, drug testing and law enforcement options. Despite the same available resources from the hotline, male and females sought different things. “Females were more likely to call with specific requests—to be linked to services with questions about date-rape drugs and drug testing, information on restraining orders, information on abortion services,” said Jana Pruett, a co-author of the research, graduate student and instructor in the School of Social Work. “Males were more likely to utilize the hotline solely for counseling services—particularly to ‘tell their story,’ and hung up or disconnected the call more often, without receiving any formal linkage or referral.” Unfortunately, due to the anonymous nature of sexual assault hotlines, not much is known about these callers. Compared to females, male victims of sexual assault are even less researched as a population. Without an understanding of the callers and their needs, sexual assault hotlines may be missing valuable opportunities to connect and help callers.​

Chronicle.Augusta.com
Grant fuels GRU, community fight against lung cancer
http://chronicle.augusta.com/news/health/2015-02-23/grant-fuels-gru-community-fight-against-lung-cancer
By Tom Corwin Staff Writer
Monday, Feb. 23, 2015
As rates of cancer and cancer death rise, the Georgia Regents University Cancer Center and a dozen community partners are collaborating to screen and prevent lung cancer in a program that could become a model for combating other cancers down the road, officials said Monday. Using a $1.74 million, three-year grant from the Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation, the cancer center and its partners are launching the Cancer-Community Awareness Access Research and Education, or c-CARE, initiative to target first lung cancer and then other preventable or detectable early cancers, such as cervical, breast and prostate cancers. “These are the cancers where we can make a difference” through prevention and early detection, said Dr. Samir N. Khleif, the director of the GRU Cancer Center.​ The initiative is aimed at reaching underserved minority populations via churches, clinics and the Kroc Center. While there have been tremendous advances in cancer care and diagnosis, those benefits have not been shared equally, Khleif said. “The unfortunate part is not every population is sharing in this success. And a big part of this population is actually living amongst us in Georgia,” he said.​

www.GlobalAtlanta.com
Georgia Tech Strengthens Ties to Liberia as Ebola Crisis Winds Down
http://www.globalatlanta.com/article/27456/georgia-tech-strengthens-ties-to-liberia-as-ebola-crisis-winds-down/
Phil Bolton
Liberia’s honorary consul general based in Atlanta, Cynthia Blandford, and Michael L. Best, who teaches at the Georgia Institute of Technology’s Sam Nunn School of International Affairs and the College of Computing, are to visit Washington this week to meet with President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. Ms. Blandford told Global Atlanta that they will be attending a reception at the residence of Liberia’s ambassador to the U.S, Jeremiah Sulunteh, where Ms. Sirleaf is expected to give a briefing about the current extent of the Ebola crisis in Liberia. Ms. Sirleaf’s visit to Washington is her first since she declared a state of emergency in August of last year to deal with the Ebola outbreak that gripped West Africa. She has been Liberia’s president since 2006 and is the first female elected head of state in Africa. The visit to Washington follows the signing of an agreement on Feb. 11 between Georgia Tech and the Liberian Telecommunication Corp., the national communications operator, to assist in the development of the country’s broadband information technology network.​

www.41nbc.com/
FVSU admission officials see increase in applications
http://www.41nbc.com/story/d/story/fvsu-admission-officials-see-increase-in-applicati/40700/9_80nKMXsEG7eHlqc3HgtQ
Alexa Rodriguez
Fort Valley State University admission officials are seeing a huge increase in the number of applications they are receiving. Calandra Wright, the Admissions Director at FVSU, tells 41NBC this time last year they only had about 500 applicants. This year, they’ve already received more than 3,000. She adds FVSU recently tried new strategies to attract more students, including handing out paper applications. “At a college fair or at a high school, with a recruiter there, the person-to-person transaction allows them to get the process started, then they can move forward because once we have their application, we can correspond with them,” Wright said. Wright says the majority of the applications they get are paper applications because students may not have internet access outside of school.

www.ajc.com
Making the Grade: Program prepares students for growing film industry
http://www.ajc.com/news/news/local/making-the-grade-program-prepares-students-for-gro/nkHsM/
By H.M. Cauley​
From closed streets and celebrity sightings to the construction of Pinewood Studios in Fayette County, the Atlanta area abounds with signs of movie production. Georgia’s popularity as the third busiest state for film production has built a $5 billion industry with a strong demand for trained crews. Enter stage south: Clayton State University, armed with a program designed to meet that demand through the Film and Digital Media center. Clayton State coaxed Barton Bond out of retirement to do for the Morrow school what he did in New Mexico, where the television show “Breaking Bad” was based. “In 2005, New Mexico had pictures coming in fast and furious – just like Georgia is now,” said Bond. “We developed a program from scratch that put hundreds of people in the [film] union. In the last season of ‘Breaking Bad,’ 40 percent of the credits below the line were our students.” “Below the line” refers to all the jobs listed below the actors’ credits — jobs filled by crews who manage the details of a set, such as lighting, sound and camera operations. Last year, Clayton began offering a non-credit certification program to train workers for those positions, and so far, about 150 students have earned it. Bond estimates that 25 percent of them are working in the film industry, which is supported by the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, Moving Picture Technicians, Artists and Allied Crafts (more commonly called IATSE). Georgia’s IATSE Local 479 is a partner in the Clayton program.​

EDUCATION NEWS
www.Chronicle.com
State-by-State Breakdown of Graduation Rates (Interactive)
http://chronicle.com/article/State-by-State-Breakdown-of/145379/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
According to a new study by the National Student Clearinghouse, the overall six-year completion rate for first-time, degree-seeking college students who first enrolled in 2008 was 55 percent. Use the interactive chart below to explore the state-by-state six-year graduation rates for various student demographics across four-year public, four-year private nonprofit, and two-year public institutions.

www.InsideHigherEd.com
Writing Bad Code?
Yale professors object to ‘vague’ new faculty conduct policy
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/02/24/yale-professors-object-vague-new-faculty-conduct-policy
By Colleen Flaherty on February 24, 2015 – 3:00am
Is a professor sending out a late recommendation letter for a student as bad as one who commits academic misconduct or, say, sexually harasses a colleague? And shouldn’t staff and administrators be held to the same ethical standards as faculty members? Professors at Yale University are asking those questions, among others, and generally scratching their heads at what they say is a “curious” and “confusing” proposed faculty conduct code threatening undefined sanctions for a mishmash of transgressions. Faculty members who are critical of the document also say it seems like it’s being ramrodded through an appointed committee just weeks ahead of the formation of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences’ first-ever Faculty Senate.

www.InsideHigherEd.com
Corinthian ‘Debt Strike’
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/02/24/student-activists-call-%E2%80%98debt-strike%E2%80%99-against-federal-loans-they-incurred-embattled
February 24, 2015
By Michael Stratford
Since the chaotic dismantling of Corinthian Colleges first began last summer, a key issue has been whether the for-profit education company’s current and former students will have their loans forgiven. Student and consumer groups, state authorities and some Senate Democrats have all pressed the U.S. Department of Education to provide direct relief for the borrowers. And on Monday, a group of student activists took that pitch for loan forgiveness to a new level. As part of what they’ve dubbed a “debt strike,” 15 former students of Corinthian-owned colleges said they are refusing to pay back their federal student loans.

www.Roanoke.com
Southern Virginia University to work on policy after gay student’s complaint
http://www.roanoke.com/news/virginia/southern-virginia-university-to-work-on-policy-after-gay-student/article_9bc6e37a-b22d-514b-a9ed-916e6baf9b5b.html
Posted: Sunday, February 22, 2015 12:15 am | Updated: 11:03 am, Sun Feb 22, 2015.
By Laurence Hammack laurence.hammack@roanoke.com 981-3239
An openly gay student who said he found a hostile environment at Southern Virginia University was not harassed by the school’s provost, a federal investigation has found. However, the predominantly Mormon school in Buena Vista lacked the proper procedures to deal with the student’s complaint, according to the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights. As part of a recent agreement with the federal agency, SVU will improve its method of dealing with complaints under Title IX, a law that prohibits gender-based discrimination or harassment against students at schools and universities that receive federal funding.

www.Chronicle.com
Is Obama’s ‘Pay as You Earn’ Plan Too Costly?
The question looms over talks on how to expand the most generous student-loan repayment option
http://chronicle.com/article/Is-Obamas-Pay-as-You/190307/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
By Kelly Field
​Is President Obama’s “Pay as You Earn” student-loan-repayment plan a lifeline for struggling borrowers, a costly giveaway to graduate students, or a bit of both? That question will be hanging over federal rule-making sessions this week, as negotiators begin hashing out a plan to extend the program to an estimated five million more borrowers. The negotiations, which start on Tuesday, come amid growing concerns about the costs of Pay as You Earn, the most generous of the federal income-based repayment plans. Earlier this month, the president’s budget revealed that the expansion of the plan, coupled with increased participation in Pay as You Earn and other income-based repayment plans, would cost taxpayers more than $20-billion more than the administration originally thought. That “budget re-estimate” has led to questions about the sustainability of Pay as You Earn, which caps borrowers’ monthly payments at 10 percent of their income and forgives their remaining debt after 20 years (or after 10, in the case of some public servants). Politico, the publication that first reported the revision, called it “the college-loan bombshell hidden in the budget” and an unprecedented “shortfall.”

www.Chronicle.com
Why Just Filling the Pipeline Won’t
Diversify STEM Fields
http://chronicle.com/article/Why-Just-Filling-the-Pipeline/190253/?cid=at​
By Audrey Williams June
As a chemistry major at Clark Atlanta University, Chloe N. Poston had her career path all mapped out. She planned to get a Ph.D. and become a chemistry professor at a historically black college like her alma mater. But in her third year of graduate school, at Brown University, Ms. Poston’s desire to pursue an academic career began to wane. By the time she earned her Ph.D., in 2012, she knew for sure, she says, that faculty life wasn’t for her. “I realized that a large part of my work would be tied to securing a very limited amount of funding and not mentoring students or thinking about research problems,” says Ms. Poston. She was also discouraged by how long it generally takes for scientific research to be put to use, she says. “I proactively sought out professional development opportunities that would expose me to career pathways that were outside of academic research.”​

www.HuffingtonPost.com
Employment Rates Are Improving For Everyone But Journalism Majors
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/23/unemployment-journalism-major-college-graduate_n_6737496.html
By Catherine Taibi
We’re back with your daily dose of depressing journalism news: unemployment rates are dropping for nearly all college majors, with the notable exception of journalism students. A new study from Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce looked at the unemployment rate for recent college graduates and recent graduate degree holders across all areas of study including architecture, social science, education and law. The results show that while the job market is indeed improving for most recent college graduates, communications and journalism majors was the only group to post increasingly higher unemployment rates.​

www.WTVM.com
While students required to prove vaccinations, Georgia teachers not required
http://www.wtvm.com/story/28180047/while-students-required-to-prove-vaccinations-georgia-teachers-not-required
Posted: Feb 23, 2015 4:54 PM EST
Updated: Feb 23, 2015 4:54 PM EST
By Elizabeth Rawlins
The Centers for Disease Control is now reporting 154 people in 17 states who’ve contracted the measles virus since Jan. 1. So far, Georgia has only has one confirmed case. This outbreak has sparked a lot of discussion about getting your child vaccinated. Most schools require students to provide vaccination records prior to enrolling, but did you know teachers in Georgia are not required to provide their vaccination records in order to get hired? The Savannah Federation for Teachers may be calling for change. “If there is a way that we can ensure that everyone is safe, then let’s do it,” said Savannah Federation of Teachers President Theresa Watson.