University System News:
www.ajc.com
Pay-as-you-go tuition option expanding at Georgia public colleges
http://www.ajc.com/news/news/local-education/pay-as-you-go-tuition-option-expanding-at-georgia-/nmMTs/
Janel Davis
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Students at more of Georgia’s public colleges and universities will be able to spread out their tuition and fee payments under expanded installment plans available in the fall. The University System of Georgia began using the installment system as a pilot program at Georgia Tech three years ago. Since then, the program was expanded to Georgia State in January and about 20 other schools within the system. The University of Georgia and other state institutions will implement programs in the fall, system officials reported this week during a monthly meeting of the state Board of Regents.Under the installment plans, students pay a set amount of expenses before a semester begins, another portion a few weeks later and a final payment usually midway through the semester. The installment plan does not affect a student’s eligibility for financial aid, and any financial aid is applied to balances first. Installment plans have become a national trend in higher education as schools look to help make college more affordable and keep more students enrolled.

www.coosavalleynews.com
UnversitySystem Implement Campus Safety Initiative
http://www.coosavalleynews.com/np111702.htm
CVN News
The Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia (USG) implemented a system-wide campus safety initiative as recommended by Chancellor Hank Huckaby and the USG Campus Safety and Security Committee. Last August, Huckaby called for the University System to take a serious and thorough look at what the USG is doing across campuses regarding safety and security. The USG campus safety initiative centralizes the implementation and oversight of campus safety policies, procedures and requirements and mandates system-led training for institution faculty and staff and students. `Campus safety is a responsibility that the University System of Georgia takes very seriously,” said Board of Regents Chairman Neil Pruitt. “Our rigorous implementation of the committee’s recommendations over a clear timeline will improve and strengthen campus safety efforts across our 30 institutions.” `We are about educating students and increasing the number of Georgians who have completed college. To continue to do this, we must provide our students, faculty and staff a safe environment, and we will apply best practices at each campus,” said Huckaby. “This is a fundamental change in the way we have been operating across our system of institutions.”

www.saportareport.com
Georgia Research Alliance – 25 years of partnerships between academia, business and government

Georgia Research Alliance – 25 years of partnerships between academia, business and government

By Maria Saporta
It was June 6 (D-Day), 1990. The Georgia Research Alliance was holding its first board meeting with Larry Gellerstedt Jr. chairing the meeting in the “war room” at the former offices of Central Atlanta Progress in the Hurt Building. An “iconic” photo memorializing that historic first meeting adorned the cover of the workbooks of GRA members attending the board meeting May 21 at the Commerce Club to celebrate the organization’s 25-year anniversary. People who have been involved with GRA over the decades were invited to the anniversary lunch – giving everyone an opportunity to assess the evolution of the public-private endeavor that has brought $3 billion in research investment to Georgia. Four people who were in the room on the day of the first board meeting were present at the meeting 25 years later – Chuck Knapp, then president of the University of Georgia; Bill Todd, who was then GRA’s president; Pete McTier, who was president of the Robert W. Woodruff Foundation – which provided the seed funding for GRA; and Amy Todd, who was Bill Todd’s executive assistant (no relation). It is hard to overstate the impact GRA has had on the relationships between Georgia’s research universities (both public and private); between universities and business; and between universities and federal research institutions. “This was a blank piece of paper,” Bill Todd said. “The key strength remains the same. It is the top business leadership that has sustained the organization. GRA’s first logo was a bridge symbolizing a bridge between business, academia and government.”

USG Institutions:
www.wabe.org
Ga. Tech Project Encourages Minority Students In STEM Fields
http://wabe.org/post/ga-tech-project-encourages-minority-students-stem-fields
By WABE Staff
There’s a big push underway at Georgia Tech to get more minority students into science, technology, engineering, and mathematics – the four subjects better known as the STEM fields. The university has partnered with three Atlanta public high schools with the goal of doing just that through a program called Project ENGAGES. ENGAGES is a competitive and intense high school science education program. Students involved in the program receive 12 months of research experience – which includes working full-time in Georgia Tech labs in the summer and 15 hours a week during the school year.

www.wfxl.com
ABAC talks museum plans for Tifton Medal of Honor Recipient
http://www.wfxl.com/neighborhood/story.aspx?id=1209059#.VWSJTk3bIy8
by Tosin Fakile
TIFTON, GA. — Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College (ABAC) is making plans to house the Mementos and Medal of Honor of the only Tifton Medal of Honor recipient. The school is working along with the Durham family to open the museum to house Pinky Durham’s memorabilia and Medal of Honor. … “Pinky” Durham attended ABAC and President of the College, David Bridges said it provides a logical place to house information about Pinky Durham. “The idea was to reconnect his service and the information related to his receiving the Medal of Honor back to his home and to the college” said David Bridges, President of ABAC.

www.pubmemo.com
American Association for Access, Equity and Diversity Announces…
http://pubmemo.com/i/other-tidbits/lifestyle/2015/american-association-for-access-equity-and-diversity-announces_2041674.html
Washington, DC (PRWEB) May 26, 2015
The American Association for Access, Equity and Diversity (AAAED), an organization of equal opportunity, diversity and affirmative action professionals, announced the recipients of its annual awards program. The awards will be conferred at the Association’s 41st National Conference and Annual Meeting themed “Toward a More Perfect Union: Celebrating Fifty Years of Equal Opportunity.” … Georgia State University will be the recipient of the Edward M. Kennedy Community Service Award. The Edward M. Kennedy Community Service Award is presented to an individual or organization demonstrating outstanding community service.

www.insidephilanthropy.com
What Does The Conrad N. Hilton Foundation See In Kennesaw State University’s Center for Sustainable Journalism?
http://www.insidephilanthropy.com/journalism/2015/5/23/what-does-the-conrad-n-hilton-foundation-see-in-kennesaw-sta.html
AuthorMike Scutari
A few months back, I wrote a post on the segmentation of journalism funding. The concept is relatively simple. As the Internet and social media continue to democratize and expand the journalism playing field, we’re seeing funding dollars go to outlets that focus on specific public issues. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, for example, cut a $1 million check to WNYC that will create a “health unit” at the station. The Reynolds Foundation, meanwhile, seems particularly keen on funding business journalism, doling out $1 million to support the creation of the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University. But these grants don’t emerge out of the ether. …Another entity that’s been doing a tremendous amount of legwork—in this case, in the critical field of juvenile justice—is the Center for Sustainable Journalism at Georgia’s Kennesaw State University (KSU). …The center at KSU received a $250,000 grant from the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, which will fund the center’s production of stories and videos about youth affected by substance abuse and youth transitioning out of foster care. The center will share the stories on its Juvenile Justice Information Exchange and Youth Today, their online and print publications targeted at the youth services industry.

www.bizjournals.com
Peachtree Corners taps Ga. Tech to study need for business incubation center
http://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/morning_call/2015/05/peachtree-corners-taps-ga-tech-to-study-need-for.html
Carla Caldwell
Atlanta Business Chronicle
Peachtree Corners is working with Georgia Tech’s Enterprise Innovation Institute to determine if a business incubator would work in the Gwinnett County city. Peachtree Corners officials want to determine if there is interest from potential business owners and if the community would support the program, Gwinnett Daily Post reports.

www.gpb.corg
How Do You Make The Tech Workforce More Diverse?
http://www.gpb.org/news/2015/05/20/how-do-you-make-the-tech-workforce-more-diverse
By Bradley George and Renay San Miguel
The struggle to increase diversity in the tech industry is once again in the spotlight this week. The Congressional Black Caucus invited industry representatives to Washington on Tuesday for the launch of CBC Tech 2020, a new initiative designed to get more African-Americans among the ranks of computer scientists and others working in STEM-based fields. (STEM stands for science, technology, education, and mathematics). Is the tech sector reaching a key tipping point when it comes to the need to hire more people of color, as well as women, in the industry? And what does all this say about the state of science and technology education in the U.S.?… Where does Atlanta and Georgia fit into all of this, especially when it comes to STEM education?There’s a perfect storm of opportunities brewing in the South. First there’s the strength of the overall Georgia and Atlanta economy, which has always been pretty diverse. Then there’s a tech startup sector here that is in the process of expanding and getting the rest of the country’s attention, and it needs more developers and web designers. There are existing academic institutions like Georgia Tech, known for their leadership in providing STEM talent.

www.cullmantimes.com
Flag-walking protester releases threatening ‘memorandum’ as police search continues
http://www.cullmantimes.com/cnhi_network/flag-walking-protester-releases-threatening-memorandum-as-police-search-continues/article_827aff44-b008-5b79-bd3e-e91ad10f8dbf.html
By Jim Zachary | Community News Content
VALDOSTA, Ga. – Eric Sheppard, the Valdosta State University student protester wanted by police in connection with a gun found in his backpack, says he will not turn himself in to authorities. Sheppard stated he will “annihilate” anyone who comes after him and issued what appears to be threats of violence at Saturday’s graduation ceremonies at Lowndes High School in Valdosta. The comments were made in a rambling, profanity-laced “memorandum ultimatum” sent to The Valdosta Daily Times condemning white people and local police. A brief video showing Sheppard wearing sunglasses inside what appeared to be an SUV accompanied his statement. The video referenced a protest planned in conjunction with the graduation over the disputed death of teenager Kendrick Johnson at the high school more than two years ago.

Higher Education News:
www.chronicle.augusta.com
System checks teacher-prep by graduate ability
http://chronicle.augusta.com/news/metro/2015-05-25/system-checks-teacher-prep-graduate-ability
By Walter C. Jones
Morris News Service
ATLANTA — A new evaluation system will, for the first time, measure teacher-prep programs on how well their graduates do, which is keeping state regulators and college deans busy preparing for the change. For generations, colleges could retain their permit to produce future teachers even if those they graduated were lousy once they got in the classroom, pretty much just as long as the college maintained accreditation. “Up until this new evaluation system, the focus had been on how many hours did you take in this course, what textbooks were used, how many hours you were in the field. It was based on input,” said Cindi Chance, dean of the college of education at Georgia Regents University. Under the new approach, half of the annual measure will be based on the test scores of students in the classrooms of each college’s graduates. Other factors will be grades teachers get on a video of them in class, tests they take and whether they keep their jobs. Chance headed the association of education-college deans who helped devise the evaluation mechanism and acknowledges that it won’t immediately improve public education.

www.insidehighered.com
Unfair Admissions Criteria?
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/05/26/report-questions-why-colleges-consider-high-school-disciplinary-records
By Scott Jaschik
Most colleges are considering applicants’ high school disciplinary records, even without formal policies on what role these records should play in admissions decisions, according to a survey conducted by the Center for Community Alternatives. A draft report accompanying the survey builds on the center’s work questioning whether colleges are too quick to rule out qualified applicants because of something they did in their high school years that may be irrelevant to their chances of academic success.

www.chronicle.com
College Admissions, Frozen in Time
http://chronicle.com/article/College-Admissions-Frozen-in/230363/?cid=at
By Eric Hoover
Let’s consider, just for a minute, the toad. Go on, imagine one sitting right there, all lumpy and leathery-skinned. To understand the college-admissions process, flawed and often frustrating, it helps to ponder this awkward amphibian. Don’t just take my word for it, take B. Alden Thresher’s. In his 1966 book, College Admissions and the Public Interest, the longtime director of admissions at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology argued that predicting which students will succeed is imprecise work. After all, colleges know only so much about a given applicant’s potential. Mr. Thresher summed up the profession’s limitations in a sentence: “One cannot tell by looking at a toad how far he will jump.” A half-century later, that’s still true. The way selective four-year colleges look at a student — primarily, at her high-school grades and standardized test scores — can’t tell them how far she will go, whether she will study hard, get good grades, stay enrolled, contribute this or that to her campus, earn a degree, and prosper down the road. Evaluations are educated guesswork.

www.nytimes.com
Making Computer Science More Inviting: A Look at What Works

Claire Cain Miller
When Sonja Khan started college, she’d never thought of studying computer science. But when she heard from friends that the intro class was good, she decided to give it a try — and then ended up majoring in it. Four years later, she has just graduated with a computer science degree, is pursuing a master’s degree and is headed to a summer internship at Facebook. “I didn’t even know anything about the field before; I had never considered it,” she said. “I signed up for it pretty much on a whim and really enjoyed it.” Ms. Khan’s story reads like a dream for universities and technology companies — where only about 15 percent of computer science graduates and technical workers are women. The industry has been under pressure to recruit more. The difficult question, though, is how to encourage more women on paths like Ms. Khan’s. …Behind the scenes of many of these colleges’ efforts is an organization called the National Center for Women & Information Technology. It provides consultants to college faculties on how to change their programs to recruit and retain women. On Thursday, the center is giving the University of Washington its first award, sponsored by Google, for colleges that have succeeded in this effort. The center hopes to give the award annually.

www.chronicle.com
Bullish on 2040
http://chronicle.com/article/2040-Prognosis-for-Higher/230295/?cid=at
By Gary Saul Morson and Morton Schapiro
Economists tend to be overly optimistic about growth and prosperity, while education experts tend toward unjustified pessimism. There’s no question that more and more people are arguing that, even if American higher education has had a golden age, by 2040 it will be long gone. What will the future really look like? There is a longstanding tradition of making bold, and spectacularly mistaken, predictions about American higher education. So it is with caution and modesty that we hazard a few of our own.