University System News:
www.onlineathens.com
Athens immigrant rights group awarded $20,000 to provide more college scholarships to undocumented students
http://onlineathens.com/local-news/2015-09-23/local-immigrant-rights-group-awarded-20000-provide-more-college-scholarships
By STAFF REPORTS
U-Lead Athens, a local organization helping Athens-Clarke County students with varying immigration statuses prepare for, apply to and pay for college, was awarded a $20,000 grant from Educators for Fair Consideration this week. U-Lead Athens is a group of un(der)documented high school students and recent graduates who have lived in the U.S. most of their lives who gather at Oconee Street United Methodist Church to work with volunteer mentors from University of Georgia’s Undocumented Student Alliance, faculty from CCSD and UGA, and community members to identify, prepare for and apply to college and for scholarships. This volunteer-based group also fundraises to give its own scholarships. … Betina Kaplan, a UGA associate professor and co-founder of U-Lead Athens, with Cedar Shoals teacher Matt Hicks and retired UGA professor JoBeth Allen, applied for the grant and said they are “extremely excited to be one of the 10 national recipients of E4FC matching funds grant. …“Students from all over the world can be considered for admissions for any University System of Georgia institution, except for immigrant students with or without DACA [Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals] or TPS [Temporary Protected Status] who have grown up in Georgia and graduated from Georgia high schools.
USG Institutions:
www.wfxl.com
Darton 2015 State of the College highlights future plans
http://www.wfxl.com/news/story.aspx?id=1247502#.VgQG3ctVhBc
by Tosin Fakile
ALBANY, GA. — Darton State College’s 2015 State of the College address highlighted the progress of the college in the health field, a look ahead into the future for enrollment and budgets, compensation study findings and future initiatives. During his speech, Dr. Paul Jones, Interim President of the college talked about the schools recent passing rates and employment rates in the health sciences. He said during the past academic year, six of their programs in the School of Health Professions achieved 100% passing rates by their students on their licensure examination.
www.ajc.com
Top U.S. Army commander part of North Georgia leadership summit
http://www.ajc.com/news/news/local-education/us-chief-of-isis-response-part-of-north-georgia-le/nnmZC/
Janel Davis, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Lt. Gen. James Terry, Commanding General of United States Army Central, will be one of the leadership experts featured during a leadership symposium on Sept. 25 at the University of North Georgia’s Dahlonega campus. The “Honor2Lead: Military Values in Business” half-day event will include speakers educating business and community leaders on ways to promote ethics within their organizations with values and principles from the U.S. Armed Forces. Honor2Lead will be simulcast to participating colleges, military bases and businesses around the world. Terry, who is a UNG graduate, has most recently served as the senior military officer and commander of the fight against ISIS in Iraq and Syria.
Higher Education News:
www.chronicle.com
Talking About Talent: Jamie Merisotis on the Role of Higher Education
http://chronicle.com/article/Talking-About-Talent-Jamie/233279/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
Jamie P. Merisotis, president and chief executive of the Lumina Foundation and a longtime advocate of helping low-income and first-generation students into higher education, says it’s time to take a broader view of what he sees as the nation’s “talent” deficit. In his new book, America Needs Talent: Attracting, Educating, and Deploying the 21st-Century Workforce (Rosetta Books), Mr. Merisotis argues that the United States must not only modernize higher education but also open up more paths for immigration. Last week he visited The Chronicle’s offices, where he described some of his ideas for accomplishing those goals. He also talked about whether competency-based education undervalues teaching, and, in terms of improving educational equality, about how to move from lip service to action.
www.insidehighered.com
Gaps in Success for Pell Grant Students
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/09/24/pell-grant-recipients-lag-behind-peers-same-college-and-nationally-report-finds?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=ed1bf11b0b-DNU20150924&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-ed1bf11b0b-197515277
By Michael Stratford
Andrew Howard Nichols, the group’s director of higher education research and data analytics, compiled and analyzed information on how well Pell Grant recipients perform at 1,500 public and private nonprofit colleges; no for-profit colleges were included in the study. Still, it is among the most comprehensive looks at how Pell Grant recipients fare at specific colleges and universities. Policy makers and the public have long been in the dark on such information because a 2008 law required colleges to disclose their own Pell Grant graduation rate to prospective students but not report it to the government.
www.insidehighered.com
‘Privacy Has to Begin at Home’
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/09/24/privacy-experts-praise-uc-berkeley-transparency-report?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=ed1bf11b0b-DNU20150924&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-ed1bf11b0b-197515277
By Carl Straumsheim
The University of California at Berkeley is drawing praise for its decision to share how often it has granted access to email and other forms of electronic communication created by students, faculty members and staff at the institution. The university earlier this year released its first transparency report, showing how many times since January 2014 the institution has received what are known as “nonconsensual access requests.” UC-Berkeley says it is the first university to release such a report, according to The Daily Californian.
www.insidehighered.com
Killing a Tenure-Like System
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/09/24/state-college-florida-eliminates-continuous-contracts-puts-all-faculty-members-one?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=ed1bf11b0b-DNU20150924&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-ed1bf11b0b-197515277
By Colleen Flaherty
Faculty members at the State College of Florida don’t have tenure, but many longtime professors were satisfied with the due process guarantees included in their rolling contracts. But that all changed this week when, seemingly out of the blue, the college’s Board of Trustees — over opposition from faculty members and administrators alike — voted to end the continuous contract system and initiate one-year contracts for all newly hired faculty members.
www.chronicle.com
Why a Professor in Texas Hangs a ‘No Guns’ Sign in His Classroom
http://chronicle.com/article/Why-a-Professor-in-Texas-Hangs/233337/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
By Mary Ellen McIntire
By next September, people will be legally allowed to carry concealed weapons on public-college campuses in Texas. But David Smith-Soto, a senior lecturer in multimedia journalism at the University of Texas at El Paso, thinks the law is a bad idea. He hopes it will be challenged in court and never go into effect. Mr. Smith-Soto has written blog posts about why he’s against the law, and he’s hung a sign in his classroom that symbolically declares the space a gun-free zone. The El Paso professor’s protest got wider exposure after a Fox News television station interviewed him, and now it’s drawing support from professors on other campuses, too.