University System News:
www.onlineathens.com
Ryan Seacrest to headline UGA’s spring commencement ceremony, receive honorary degree
http://onlineathens.com/mobile/2015-10-14/ryan-seacrest-headline-ugas-spring-commencement-ceremony-receive-honorary-degree
By UGA NEWS SERVICE
When Ryan Seacrest takes the stage for the University of Georgia’s spring Commencement ceremony on May 13 in Sanford Stadium, he will have two tasks — inspire a new class of UGA alumni and receive an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from the university he attended as a freshman. The Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia approved Seacrest’s honorary degree during its Wednesday meeting. Other than an earned doctorate, the honorary degree is the highest recognition UGA can bestow and is given to recognize a person who has a sustained record of achievements of lasting significance.

USG Institutions:
www.americantowns.com
CSU Designated National Center for Cyber Security Education
http://www.americantowns.com/ga/columbus/news/csu-designated-national-center-for-cyber-security-education-24301100
COLUMBUS, Ga. — The National Security Agency and the Department of Homeland Security has designated Columbus State University a National Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense Education (CAE-CD) for advancements made in the defense of the nation’s information infrastructure.

www.wjcl.com
Ga. Southern receives safety grant
http://www.wjcl.com/news/local-news/ga-southern-receives-safety-grant/79290952/story
By dave williams
STATESBORO, GA. (WJCL) The renewal of a grant will help Georgia Southern University continue to educate its students on highway safety. For the 9th consecutive year, the Dean of Students Office at Georgia Southern has a received a $6500 grant from the Governor’s Office of Highway Safety. It will allow them to participate in the Georgia Young Adult Program, which educate students about the dangers of alcohol abuse, underage drinking and impaired driving.

www.northwestgeorgianews.com
Perfect match: Med students who need practice, patients who can’t pay
http://www.northwestgeorgianews.com/associated_press/news/national/perfect-match-med-students-who-need-practice-patients-who-can/article_c3e446d2-71b8-11e5-9a45-4bcbf57cc178.html
By Sydney Devine, Georgia Health News
Annie Robinson was working a Wednesday evening shift at Mercy Health Center in Athens when a familiar patient came in for a prescription refill. …The clinic provides medical, dental and mental health care to underserved and uninsured people in Athens and surrounding counties. Mercy is housed in a one-story, white-painted building at the rear of a small medical complex. It looks nothing like the ultra-modern, impressively equipped hospitals or doctors’ offices that allow medical students to come in and assist with surgery, pediatrics or psychiatry. But unpretentious surroundings don’t faze Robinson and her classmates. In fact, the medical school they attend is not a giant facility with a tradition that goes back generations. Georgia Regents University-University of Georgia Medical Partnership, an offshoot of the state’s public medical school in Augusta, has been in business for only four years, and the class has just 40 students.

www.theweek.com
What a successful university mental health program looks like
http://theweek.com/articles/580547/what-successful-university-mental-health-program-looks-like
Kimberly Alters
The National Center for Education Statistics estimates that more than 20 million students will attend American colleges or universities this fall. The National Alliance on Mental Illness says that one in four adults aged 18 to 24 — in other words, college-aged — are living with some form of mental illness. That suggests that millions of students arrived on college campuses this fall with a mental illness. And given that symptoms of mental illness tend to coalesce for the very first time during young adulthood, these students may be arriving with an as-yet-undiagnosed condition. …At the University of West Georgia, this is done through collaboration. The counseling center joins with peer mentors, creating an indirect peer-to-peer outreach arm; students work with academic advisers who often direct students to counselors; those counselors intervene in substance-related or other physical health scenarios; and so the circle goes. …In 2013, the University of West Georgia was awarded with a campus “seal” by The Jed Foundation in recognition of its comprehensive mental health programming.

www.bizjournals.com
Georgia Tech’s High Performance Computing Center to have rotating “research neighborhoods”
http://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/blog/atlantech/2015/10/georgia-techs-high-performance-computing-center-to.html
Urvaksh Karkaria
Staff Writer – Atlanta Business Chronicle
Georgia Tech’s proposed $350 million High Performance Computing Center will host rotating “research neighborhoods” according to a filing with Atlanta’s economic development arm. The 25-story mixed-used development near Tech Square will target companies who work on “big data” technologies, and would benefit from the in-house 40,000-square-foot data center, the project’s developer Portman Holdings LLC noted in a filing with Invest Atlanta. The 1 million-square-foot development, which could accommodate up to 2,500 people, would be eligible for about $15 million in tax incentives from the city.

www.tedmag.com
SIEMENS EXPANDS GEORGIA TECH PARTNERSHIP
http://www.tedmag.com/News/manufacturer-news/Siemens-Expands-Georgia-Tech-Partnership.aspx
ATLANTA, Ga. — Siemens announced an expanded partnership with Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech), building upon a nearly two-decade relationship pursuing manufacturing innovation through software, conducting frontier-pushing research that supports digital product development, and preparing students to enter the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) workforce of the future. “Georgia Tech is one of the leading research institutions in this country, paving the way for new ideas and technologies to help redefine the way we manufacture goods, power our homes, travel through space and more,” said Eric Spiegel, president and CEO, Siemens USA. “Building upon our strong relationship, this comprehensive partnership will continue to produce cutting-edge research and innovative industrial automation and digitalization software, while preparing highly trained students to join the global manufacturing workforce.”

www.savannahtribune.com
SSU Partners with Savannah Tree Foundation
http://www.savannahtribune.com/news/2015-10-14/Social_%28and%29_Community_News/SSU_Partners_with_Savannah_Tree_Foundation.html
On Saturday, October 24, from 10 a.m. – noon, Savannah State University (SSU) students, faculty, staff and alumni will plant 75+ trees on the historic campus. Volunteers will meet on the Unity plot in Alexis Circle before heading to various planting locations. …The event is a collaboration between the Savannah Tree Foundation, SSU Environmental Science Club and SSU Physical Plant, and is partially funded by the CSX Corporation Restoration grant program.

www.onlineathens.com
UGA students help design corn maze depicting Mark Richt
http://onlineathens.com/mobile/2015-10-14/uga-students-help-design-corn-maze-depicting-mark-richt
By CLINT THOMPSON AND TATYANA PHELPS
In a southeast Georgia corn field, University of Georgia students helped to design a corn maze in honor of Mark Richt, UGA Bulldogs head football coach, using Global Positioning System (GPS) technology. As part of a precision agriculture class taught on the UGA Tifton Campus, students are learning the benefits of this technology while preparing for future agricultural careers. George Vellidis, a UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences crop and soil sciences professor, gave his precision agriculture students the opportunity to experience GPS technology firsthand by having them develop a corn maze at Rutland Farms in Tifton, Georgia.

www.ajc.com
UGA student accused of dorm rape banned from Athens
http://www.ajc.com/news/news/crime-law/uga-student-accused-of-dorm-rape-banned-from-athen/nn3p7/
David Markiewicz – The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A University of Georgia student accused of raping another student in a dorm room last month has been banned from Athens-Clarke County and must live with his parents at their Stone Mountain home while the case is pending. Those are some of the conditions of the $25,000 bond Bamidele O. Oluwadare was granted following his Sept. 21 arrest. According to the bond order signed by Superior Court Judge H. Patrick Haggard, Oluwadare can only come to Athens-Clarke County for court or to attend UGA disciplinary hearings. He cannot stay overnight, and Oluwadare had to surrender his Nigerian passport to his attorney.

www.ajc.com
Driver killed in fiery crash on Georgia Tech campus
http://www.ajc.com/news/news/crime-law/driver-killed-in-fiery-crash-on-georgia-tech-campu/nn3pC/
Mike Morris – The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A motorist died early Thursday when a car being pursued by the Georgia State Patrol crashed and burned on the campus of Georgia Tech. GSP Capt. Mark Perry said a trooper first attempted to stop the silver Honda Accord just after 4:30 a.m. for speeding and failure to maintain lane on the Downtown Connector at Williams Street. He said the driver exited the interstate, made a right turn onto Ivan Allen Jr. Boulevard, made another right on Centennial Olympic Park Drive and stopped. “As the trooper exited his patrol vehicle, the suspect vehicle accelerated at a high rate of speed north on Centennial Olympic,” Perry said. …About 40 minutes later, the Honda was found wrecked in the area of 6th Street and Techwood Drive, between Georgia Tech’s Naval ROTC building and the Language Institute. Perry said the vehicle had crashed into a brick wall and caught fire.

Higher Education News:
www.insidehighered.com
Community College Groups Seek Higher K-12 Standards
https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2015/10/15/community-college-groups-seek-higher-k-12-standards?utm_source=Inside%20Higher%20Ed&utm_campaign=150da6b00c-DNU201510015&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-150da6b00c-197515277
The American Association of Community Colleges and the Association of Community College Trustees today announced that they will partner with the group Higher Ed for Higher Standards to commit to a push for more challenging academic standards in K-12. The two primary trade groups for the two-year college sector said in a joint statement that their goal is to better help prepare students for success in college and careers.

www.11alive.com
Police: Student accused of Emory shooting threat says it was a joke
http://www.11alive.com/story/news/local/emory/2015/10/12/sophomore-arrested-threatening-emory-massacre/73812478/
Julie Wolfe and Blayne Alexander, WXIA
ATLANTA — Police say that an Emory student, arrested for threatening to carry out a mass shooting at Emory’s Oxford College, told the arresting officer she meant it as a joke. Other Emory University students told 11Alive’s Blayne Alexander the threat was posted to Yik Yak, an anonymous messaging service. Students screen-captured the threat – later attributed to Emily Hikari Sakamoto – and called 911. The message said, “I’m shooting up the school. Tomorrow. Stay in your rooms. The ones on the quad are the ones who will go first.” The threat was specific to Emory’s Oxford College in Newton County, where she is a sophomore, authorities said. Police say Sakamoto confessed to posting the message, and, according to the arrest warrant, “The defendant stated she thought it was a joke and not against the law.”

www.chronicle.com
A University Debates How to Carry Out a Divisive Guns-on-Campus Law
http://chronicle.com/article/A-University-Debates-How-to/233770?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en&elq=c0a2763fec7b48849e9750a0c7b4f1df&elqCampaignId=1613&elqaid=6572&elqat=1&elqTrackId=30864cecc8454a5b9b9d2f69b94341f4
By Katherine Mangan
On August 1, 2016 — exactly 50 years after a student named Charles Whitman climbed into the University of Texas tower and shot 46 people, killing 14 of them — a new law on concealed firearms will take effect here. Already, emotions are exploding. The law, known as SB 11 or “campus carry,” will allow people who hold concealed-handgun licenses to bring their weapons into public-university buildings, including classrooms and dormitories, across the state. The legislation applies to private four-year colleges as well, but they can opt out. Starting in 2017, it will apply to community colleges too. The fact that the rollout coincides with the anniversary of one of the most infamous mass shootings in history isn’t lost on either supporters or opponents of the law.

www.jbhe.com
New Online Fundraising Site Aims to Raise $105 Million for HBCUs

New Online Fundraising Site Aims to Raise $105 Million for HBCUs

Former basketball superstar Tracy McGrady has announced a new online fundraising program in conjunction with HBCU Direct LLC. The HBCU Give 105 fundraising initiative received $105,000 in seed money from McGrady that supported the development of the software and a website where visitors can support all 105 HBCUs or earmark their donations to a particular Black college or universities. The website provides HBCUs with the ability to immediately accept real-time donations and pledges from 150 million smartphone users in the United States, anywhere at any time. The program has set a goal of raising $105 million, or $1 million for each historically Black college or university.