University System News:
www.myajc.com
$1 million salaries for college presidents spur debate
http://www.myajc.com/news/news/local-education/1-million-salaries-for-college-presidents-spur-deb/nmXwG/#975cd5a2.3566685.735757
By Janel Davis – The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The outcry was instant last month when two state college presidents received pay raises that pushed their total compensation over $1 million a year. Critics accused college administrators of being tone deaf in a time of rising college costs, increasing student loan debt and almost stagnant wages for faculty and staff. There were even calls for the presidents to return some, if not all, of their pay increases. Despite the outcry for financial restraint, the state’s university leaders say the payments are necessary in a higher education industry that has come to resemble corporate America. The pool of highly qualified candidates able to not only lead but help a school thrive is small, and competition is fierce.
www.chronicle.com
Executive Compensation at Public and Private Colleges
http://chronicle.com/factfile/ec-2015/#id=table_public_2014
As of June 8, 2015, The Chronicle’s executive-compensation package has been updated with 2014 fiscal-year data on public-college presidents. This update provides data on 238 chief executives at 220 public universities and systems in the United States. The median salary for presidents who served a full year is $428,250. Two presidents earned more than $1 million.
www.chronicle.com
Rising Pay for Presidents Draws Public Scrutiny
http://chronicle.com/article/Rising-Pay-for-Presidents/230703/
By Sandhya Kambhampati
The typical public-college leader who served for the entire 2014 fiscal year earned just over $428,000, almost 7 percent more than the median from the year before, according to a Chronicle analysis. Two presidents earned more than a $1 million in 2014, one fewer than the year before. Public-college presidents receive pay and benefits well beyond what most others on their campuses receive. In addition to common perks, such as free housing, cars, and meals, they are often rewarded with special forms of compensation available to only a small number of executives within the institutions they lead.
www.chronicle.com
Benefits Grow for Public University Presidents, Survey Finds
By TAMAR LEWIN
Even with college costs and student debt in the national spotlight, the pay packages — and especially the benefits — of public university presidents continue to grow. The median salary for public university presidents was $428,250 in the 2014 fiscal year, up about 7 percent from the previous year, according to an annual survey by The Chronicle of Higher Education. The survey included data on 238 chief executives at 220 public universities and systems in the United States.
USG Institutions:
www.myajc.com
There’s a new effort to get more Atlanta kids through college
http://www.myajc.com/news/news/local-education/theres-a-new-effort-to-get-more-atlanta-kids-throu/nmW8s/
By Molly Bloom – The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A $20 million effort to increase the number of Atlanta students completing college or other higher education will start work in Atlanta Public Schools this fall. Achieve Atlanta will provide advisers to help students and parents navigate the college application and financial aid process. It will also award scholarships and give students academic and social support once they’re in college, new executive director Tina Fernandez said. “It’s about getting more of our students into college and post-secondary education and then providing the supports they need to complete their education,” she said. Fernandez, who has worked as a Teacher for America teacher and executive, is currently a partner at consulting firm Bellwether Education Partners. She previously served as a clinical professor at University of Texas School of Law in Austin. Achieve Atlanta is funded by a grant from the Joseph B. Whitehead Foundation and overseen by a volunteer board including: • Georgia State University President Mark Becker;
www.coosavalleynews.com
GHC`s Brother 2 Brother Awarded National Award
http://www.coosavalleynews.com/np111081.htm
CVN News
Georgia Highlands College started its Brother 2 Brother chapter in fall 2009 on the Floyd campus with only 7 students. Today, the membership has grown to around 120 students on all five campuses. At the end of March, GHC`s B2B won the Outstanding Chapter of the Year Award for the third time in four years. The annual award is presented to any one of the nearly 300 chapters across the country by the national organization called the Student African American Brotherhood (SAAB) and is determined by the strength of the enrollment, retention and graduation rates of its members, as well as by the activities and dedication of the chapter during the year.
www.ajc.com
Kennesaw State apologizes for adviser’s behavior caught on tape
http://www.ajc.com/news/news/local-education/kennesaw-state-apologizes-for-advisers-behavior-ca/nmXCn/
Janel Davis
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Kennesaw State University apologized Friday for the behavior of one of the school’s academic advisers who was caught on a video that led to a social media outcry. The apology comes after a two-week investigation of an interaction between KSU student Kevin Bruce and academic adviser Abby Dawson. …Dawson was placed on administrative leave after a complaint was filed and prompted the investigation. Following the review, she received a formal written warning and was temporarily reassigned. She won’t be allowed to advise students until she completes required training. …The advising process in KSU’s WellStar College of Health and Human Services, where Dawson worked, will undergo a complete reorganization, according to the statement. All advisers will also be required to undergo training in student service and diversity.
www.politics.blog.ajc.com
Jumping into the debate over sexual assaults on Georgia campuses
http://politics.blog.ajc.com/2015/06/06/jumping-into-the-debate-over-sexual-assaults-on-georgia-campuses/
Jim Galloway
It isn’t always necessary to open a can of worms. Sometimes, the dish is simply placed in front of you, warm and wriggling. The only decision is whether to dig in. And Earl Ehrhart has picked up his fork. The Cobb County state lawmaker is about to take on new policies for dealing with rape and sexual assault that Georgia’s universities are now in the process of adopting, at the insistence of the federal government. “I’m not comfortable at all with universities being in the crime-and-punishment business,” said Ehrhart, a 13-term House veteran. The lawmaker said his inspiration is a series of articles written by the Journal-Constitution’s Janel Davis and Shannon McCaffrey. The two found that, over a five-year period, Georgia’s five largest public universities recorded 90 reports of rape and sodomy.
Higher Education News:
www.insidehighered.com
2 + 2 Shouldn’t = 5
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/06/08/two-year-transfers-are-finding-not-all-their-credits-go-them
By Ashley A. Smith
One of the largest barriers to completing a bachelor’s degree is losing credits when transferring from a community college. Even with articulation agreements between two-year and four-year institutions, a significant number of credits may end up lost in the shuffle. These missing credits are driving colleges from one side of the country to the other to try to fix a problem educators have been trying to fix for years and in the process boost completion rates across the board. Now, with more political and education leaders convinced that smooth transfer is essential to more people earning more degrees, the issue is attracting more attention.
www.insidehighered.com
Overseeing the Outsourced
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/06/08/education-department-steps-oversight-companies-hired-colleges
By Michael Stratford
Colleges in recent years have increasingly turned to outside companies to manage parts of the financial aid process and provide other services to students. And the boom in outsourcing now has federal regulators racing to keep up.The Education Department is beefing up its oversight over the hundreds of different companies that colleges hire for a wide range of services that it says are somehow related to federal student aid dollars and therefore subject to regulation. That includes things as mundane as document processing as well as innovative platforms that colleges use to track student financial aid and provide loan counseling to students.
www.wsj.com
How Title IX Became a Political Weapon
Now that the law is used to suppress free speech, even liberals are alarmed. Where have they been?
http://www.wsj.com/articles/how-title-ix-became-a-political-weapon-1433715320
By Jessica Gavora
Since its passage 43 years ago, Title IX has proved to be a remarkably elastic law. It has been stretched and warped from its original intent to end discrimination on the basis of sex in schools that receive federal funding. As long as Title IX’s victims were wrestlers or swimmers from low-revenue men’s sports that were jettisoned to achieve participation-parity with women’s sports, nobody much cared. But now that the law is being turned into a tool to suppress free speech on college campuses, even liberals are starting to cry foul. A tipping point was reached earlier this year when a Northwestern University film professor and feminist, Laura Kipnis, dared to criticize new Title IX regulations governing campus sex. The regulations, promulgated in the name of preventing a “hostile environment” for women, broadly defined sexual harassment as “any unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature.” An unwelcome touch or comment was grounds for a Title IX investigation, with college administers forced to be police, judge and jury in allegations of sexual harassment from offensive speech to rape.