University System News:
www.stattesboroherald.com
Lawmakers await Deal’s ‘campus carry’ decision
Governor has until May 3 to sign or veto bill
http://www.statesboroherald.com/section/1/article/73771/
By RYAN PHILLIPS, Associated Press
ATLANTA – Gov. Nathan Deal could deal another major blow to conservatives in the Republican-dominated Legislature as lawmakers await his decision on another controversial piece of legislation: a bill to allow college and university students ages 21 and up to carry a concealed handgun on campus with a permit. Rep. Buzz Brockway, a Republican from Lawrenceville, co-sponsored the bill but said he did not want to predict which way the governor would lean. Brockway also said he did not think the veto of the religious exemption bill earlier this week would weigh into Deal’s decision. “I don’t think folks like retribution, or revenge in politics, so if he chooses to disagree, we will just roll up our sleeves and work harder,” he said.

USG Institutions:
www.wsbtv.com
UGA Alumni director likely committed crimes but won’t be charged, prosecutors say
http://www.wsbtv.com/news/2-investigates/uga-alumni-director-likely-committed-crimes-but-wont-be-charged-prosecutors-say/192415042
by: Jodie Fleischer
ATLANTA — The University of Georgia’s former alumni director likely committed crimes, according to a letter from the attorney general’s office, but the school’s mishandling of the investigation will keep her from facing formal criminal charges. “In my opinion at least some of Ms. Dietzler’s activities likely constituted criminal conduct that warranted further investigation and possible prosecution,” wrote Senior Assistant Attorney General David McLaughlin in a letter to the Board of Regents this week. Deborah Dietzler  served as director of UGA’s Alumni Association from 2005 through 2014 when the university’s fraud committee decided not to renew her contract following an internal audit, which documented misspending.

www.diverseeducation.com
Initiative Aims to Eliminate Gaps Between Rich and Poor Students
http://diverseeducation.com/article/82984/?utm_campaign=Diverse%20Newsletter%203&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Eloqua&elqTrackId=9c9fcfe9b1de441abff86f5f060d4b4f&elq=9b57d245225943a38f84419fec8166fd&elqaid=88&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=771
by Jamaal Abdul-Alim
Washington — Citing disparities in graduation rates between students from rich and poor backgrounds, leaders from a group of public urban universities recently launched a new collaborative initiative to improve completion rates and eliminate the gaps. “We must find solutions,” said Mark Becker, president of Georgia State University, which is one of six urban public institutions participating in “Collaborating for Change”—an initiative launched last week by the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, or APLU, and the Coalition of Urban Serving Universities, or USU. The purpose of the initiative is to help the participating universities—as well as others—to “enact and scale a series of transformations aimed at admitting, retaining, educating, and graduating high-need, traditionally at-risk students while reducing costs, reexamining campus business models, and fostering mutually beneficial campus-community engagement.”

www.getschooled.blog.myajc.com
Get Schooled with Maureen Downey
You didn’t get into Georgia Tech? Blame Legislature for underfunding higher ed and voters for allowing it
http://getschooled.blog.myajc.com/2016/04/01/you-didnt-get-into-georgia-tech-blame-legislature-for-underfunding-higher-ed-and-voters-for-allowing-it/
In the last two weeks, I’ve received emails from parents of accomplished students — high ACT/SAT scores, eight AP classes, 4.0 GPAs — who did not get into Georgia Tech, especially in the areas of computer science and engineering. This includes households where both parents graduated Tech, and, in some cases, a grandparent also attended. A common complaint: Why does Tech turn down such outstanding Georgia kids in favor of students from other states or countries? Shouldn’t Tech give preference to in-state students since taxpayers fund the university? Here is a rejoinder to that complaint from T.J. Murphy, who says Georgians have allowed the General Assembly to essentially starve the state’s public colleges, forcing these campuses to generate their own revenue, some of which they derive from the higher tuition of out-of-state students.

Higher Education News :
www.insidehighered.com
Gaming the Formula
State performance funding formulas lead to small decline in Pell revenue per student, new study finds, suggesting public colleges may be gaming formulas by enrolling fewer low-income students.
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/04/04/public-colleges-may-be-responding-state-performance-funding-enrolling-fewer-low
By Paul Fain
Most states now have some form of performance-based funding for higher education on the books. Policy makers use performance formulas to prod public colleges to be more efficient in their spending and, in some cases, to work harder to improve student retention and graduation rates. A new academic paper, however, found an early indication of an unintended consequence of the policies: less revenue from Pell Grants on a per-student basis, which could indicate that colleges are seeking to game performance-based funding by enrolling fewer low-income students.

www.chronicle.com
Most people agree that students should learn skills like critical thinking. But courses aren’t set up that way.
http://chronicle.com/article/If-Skills-Are-the-New-Canon/235948?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en&elqTrackId=d8f0cd0a249c491b8c977538ae39728a&elq=79b3f4e9243445588cd44ce5312e1bbd&elqaid=8525&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=2819
By Dan Berrett
The essence of a university education used to fit across a five-foot shelf. That was the space required for the 51 volumes of the Harvard Classics compiled by the university’s president, Charles William Eliot, and published in 1909. Plato, Machiavelli, Milton, Darwin: Each volume, Eliot explained, was vital. The compendium presented “the stream of the world’s thought,” he wrote, such that “the observant reader’s mind shall be enriched, refined, and fertilized by it.” Spending 15 minutes a day reading the texts was tantamount, Eliot argued, to a liberal education. Many of the works made up the core curriculum at the nation’s leading universities. Over time, though, the canon unraveled, pulled apart by disparate forces. By the latter half of the 20th century, students chafed at a core curriculum and demanded more control over their education. “Buffet style” distribution requirements became the norm. …Today just about everyone — administrators, students, parents, employers, policy makers, and most professors — has accepted the notion that broad, transferrable skills are the desired product of college.

www.diverseeducation.com
Only Half of U.S. Students Taking ‘College-Ready’ Courses
http://diverseeducation.com/article/83037/?utm_campaign=Diverse%20Newsletter%203&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Eloqua&elqTrackId=bfd4f2c20e0c4ce9b4f9e49505a8d9e7&elq=d9a9f2e091fb4bc6a4a50e93d43da4d3&elqaid=88&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=771
by Jamaal Abdul-Alim
Despite all the emphasis being placed on “college and career readiness,” only about half of all U.S. high school students actually take the sequence of courses they need to be considered ready for college and careers, according to a new report being released today by the Education Trust. “Rather than ensuring students have access to a cohesive curriculum that aligns high school coursework and students’ future goals, high schools are prioritizing credit accrual, which treats graduation as the end goal,” states the report, titled “Meandering toward graduation: transcript outcomes of high school graduates.” “Instead of being prepared for college and career, many of our students end up being prepared for neither,” it continues.

www.insidehighered.com
Evidence of Remediation Success
Two studies show successful pass rates from Tennessee’s first full semester of putting all developmental students in college-level courses.
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/04/05/tennessee-sees-significant-improvements-after-first-semester-statewide-co-requisite?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=88bba1a6f5-DNU20160405&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-88bba1a6f5-197515277
By Ashley A.Smith
When it comes to finding the right approach to helping remedial students in college, pilot programs abound across the country. But this past fall, Tennessee scaled co-requisite remediation in math, writing and reading at all of the state’s 13 public community colleges. Co-requisite remediation is an approach to developmental education that places students in entry-level college courses while they simultaneously receive remedial academic support. A new study from the Tennessee Board of Regents, which oversees the state’s two-year institutions, found that while scaling up this type of remediation resulted in some small decreases in pass rates from a similar pilot program, there was overall success in students completing the credit-bearing courses compared to those who took traditional prerequisite remedial courses four years ago.

www.insidehighered.com
A Larger Role for Libraries
Study explores faculty members’ views on scholarly communication, the use of information and the state of academic libraries and their concerns about students’ research skills.
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/04/04/study-explores-faculty-views-scholarly-communication-and-information-use?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=259a60d6fc-DNU20160404&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-259a60d6fc-197515277
By Carl Straumsheim
Faculty members are showing increasing interest in supporting students and improving their learning outcomes, and say the library can play an important role in that work, a new study found.
Ithaka S+R’s latest national faculty survey, released this morning, shows two storylines in higher education intersecting. The results suggest the pressure on colleges to improve retention and completion rates and prepare students for life after college appears to be influencing faculty members, who are more concerned than ever that undergraduates don’t know how to locate and evaluate scholarly information.
At the same time, many faculty members view university libraries — which are engaged in a process of reinventing themselves and rethinking their services — as an increasingly important source not only of undergraduate support but also as an archive, a buyer, a gateway to research and more.

www.insidehighered.com
Revamped Loan Payment System
After years of criticism from companies it hires to collect student loan payments, the Education Department plans to create a single standardized portal for borrowers to make payments.
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/04/05/obama-administration-plans-revamp-how-education-department-collects-student-loans?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=88bba1a6f5-DNU20160405&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-88bba1a6f5-197515277
By Michael Stratford
The U.S. Department of Education plans to revamp how it collects monthly payments from millions of Americans who have federal student loans, the department will announce on Monday afternoon. Department officials will announce their plans to change how the loan servicing companies they hire go about collecting payments from federal student loan borrowers. Federal student loan borrowers currently make payments to one of several loan servicing firms that contract with the Education Department. The four major loan servicers are Navient, Great Lakes Educational Loan Services Inc., Nelnet and the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency, which operates under the brand FedLoan Servicing. Under the department’s new system, borrowers will log on to a single Education Department web portal to make loan payments instead of navigating various loan servicers’ websites.

www.college.usatoday.com
Missouri campus gun bill moves forward with concessions
http://college.usatoday.com/2016/04/03/missouri-campus-gun-bill-moves-forward-with-concessions/
By Jon Sweden, The News Leader
Dorm rooms would be off limits for firearms under the latest version of a proposed law aimed at allowing concealed weapons on the campuses of Missouri’s public universities. Seeking to address concerns raised by university officials — including Missouri State President Clif Smart — Rep. Jered Taylor, R-Nixa, added the exemption to a bill he is sponsoring that would allow concealed weapons to be carried in many areas on college campuses … The House Committee on Emerging Issues approved the new version of the bill on an 8-3 vote. A similar bill, filed by Sen. Bob Dixon, R-Springfield, mirrored the original version of Taylor’s proposal. Dixon’s bill was heard by a Senate panel in January but has not been taken up by the full body … He said students who want to carry guns on campus would likely live off campus, because they would not be allowed to store their weapons in a dormitory. The law would require universities to allow students who want to carry concealed weapons to live off campus regardless of their age or progress (many universities require first-year students to live on campus). Students who prefer to live in the dorms could store their guns in their vehicles, Taylor said.