University System News:
www.macon.com
Study backs critics of Georgia’s benefit plan for state employees
http://www.macon.com/2015/07/06/3830934_study-backs-critics-of-georgias.html?rh=1
BY ANDY MILLER
Georgia Health News
Since January 2014, many Georgia schoolteachers and state employees have complained about their health insurance plan, saying they bear a heavier burden in costs. A recently released study supports their argument. Last week, the consulting firm Aon Hewitt reported that members of the State Health Benefit Plan pay a greater proportion of health care costs than people covered in six comparable employee plans studied — those of five other Southern states’ plans, plus University System of Georgia workers.
www.ledger-enquirer.com
Blanchard Forum close to sellout with George W. Bush and family headlining
High-powered lineup — with 1,250 seats available — featured for 10th anniversary of Jim Blanchard Leadership Forum
http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/2015/07/06/3801975_blanchard-forum-close-to-sellout.html?rh=1
BY TONY ADAMS
The 10th anniversary edition of the Jim Blanchard Leadership Forum is still seven weeks away, but the event is fast approaching a sellout of its 1,250 seats. In fact, by Tuesday afternoon, the forum that will host the 43rd president of the United States and his family likely will be putting interested attendees on a waiting list, Kim Eason Rozycki, an event organizer, said Monday. “We’re pretty close right now. We get nervous and we don’t want to oversell it,” said Rozycki, director of events and operations with the Cunningham Center at Columbus State University.
www.insidehighered.com
Mergers on the Rise?
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/07/07/colleges-struggle-some-look-partnerships-and-mergers-relief
By Kellie Woodhouse
The same day Sweet Briar College announced its controversial and since-abandoned plan to close, two private New York colleges made public an entirely different plan: a merger. … As colleges explore methods of survival, many experts say mergers, absorptions, affiliations and partnerships are on the table more now than they have been in the past. In some cases, these mergers are much closer to absorptions, even if they are called mergers. …Ken Redd, director of research and policy analysis at the National Association of College and University Business Officers, or NACUBO, said that colleges struggling is “not a new story.” Yet the reality of flat or declining enrollments, Redd says, is more pressing than it has been in a long time. Per-student funding at public colleges has seen near across-the-board decreases in the U.S. Some states, like Georgia, are mandating mergers in an effort to cut administrative costs and respond to declining enrollments.
USG Institutions:
www.coosavalleynews.com
Gretchen Caughman Named Regents U. President
http://www.coosavalleynews.com/np112258.htm
CVN News
University System of Georgia (USG) Chancellor Hank Huckaby has named Dr. Gretchen B. Caughman as interim president at Georgia Regents University. Caughman currently serves as executive vice president for academic affairs and provost at GRU. She was appointed to vice president and provost Jan. 2013. Prior to the consolidation of Augusta State University and Georgia Health Sciences University, she was appointed interim provost of the Medical College of Georgia in Sept. 2010 and became executive vice president for academic affairs and provost of Georgia Health Sciences University in June 2011. She is also a professor in the College of Dental Medicine, the Medical College of Georgia (Medicine) and the Graduate School at GRU. She will begin her new assignment on July 1, following the departure of President Ricardo Azziz.
www.businessinsavannah.com
BiS in brief: GSU’s business college featured on Newsweek.com
http://businessinsavannah.com/bis/2015-07-06/bis-brief-gsus-business-college-featured-newsweekcom
Business in Savannah
STATESBORO — The College of Business at Georgia Southern University was recently featured in Newsweek.com’s Great Business Schools 2015.
www.eurekalert.org
Georgia State, Morehouse partner to tackle diabetes, heart disease
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-07/gsu-gsm070515.php
The School of Public Health at Georgia State University has received nearly $400,000 in grant funds to support a three-year effort to reduce rates of diabetes and cardiovascular disease in African-American neighborhoods in southwest Atlanta. The work will be conducted in partnership with the Morehouse School of Medicine’s Prevention Research Center and the Satcher Health Leadership Institute as part of a REACH grant funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). REACH, which stands for Racial and Ethnic Approaches to Community Health, is one of the CDC’s key efforts to address gaps in healthcare access and outcomes for racial and ethnic minorities.
www.onlineathens.com
WGTA-TV is now broadcasting and WUGA-TV is no more
http://onlineathens.com/breaking-news/2015-07-06/wgta-tv-now-broadcasting-and-wuga-tv-no-more
By LEE SHEARER
Television station WGTA took to the air on July 1, officially ending the University of Georgia’s involvement in the TV broadcasting business. New owner Marquee Broadcasting closed on the previously announced $2.5 million sale of the former WUGA-TV and recently converted the station from noncommercial into a commercial enterprise affiliated with three networks that specialize in “classic” TV shows and movies.
Higher Education News:
www.chronicle.com
Despite Hurdles, Students Keep Switching Colleges
http://chronicle.com/article/Despite-Hurdles-Students-Keep/231397/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
By Katherine Mangan
Some 3.6 million students entered college for the first time in the fall of 2008, at the height of the Great Recession. Over the next six years, they transferred 2.4 million times, ricocheting between two- and four-year public and private colleges, often across state lines, according to a report being released Tuesday by the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. “This has huge implications for the growing number of states with performance-based funding,” Afet Dundar, associate director of the research center and one of the report’s authors, said in an interview. Such formulas reward or penalize colleges based in part on the number of students they graduate or retain from year to year.
www.insidehighered.com
New Push for Trustee Training
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/07/07/states-explore-required-training-university-board-members
By Kellie Woodhouse
Trustees have a tremendous amount of responsibility. They’re in charge of setting the agenda of an institution, approving tuition charges and green-lighting multimillion-dollar construction projects. But how do they know how to do their jobs? Legislatures in two states this year have considered bills mandating training for trustees. In both Alabama and Texas, lawmakers unhappy with the actions of state institutions’ regents and trustees argued that, given the large responsibility they have over their institutions, trustees should undertake training in things like ethics, budgeting and governance.