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Immigrant students arrested protesting Georgia’s enrollment policies
Janel Davis, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Officers arrested a group of immigrant students and their supporters Tuesday after a protest of college enrollment and tuition policies that keeps some immigrant students out of Georgia’s college and university system. The protest at the state’s Board of Regents meeting included undocumented students from Freedom University and other Georgia institutions including Georgia State and Emory universities, according to an announcement about the protest on the group’s Facebook page. The protesters, many wearing signs displaying #EndSegregation and #Boycott Georgia, called for a national boycott of the state. The protesters began their demonstration around 9:15 a.m. A small group of them sat in chairs reserved for the Regents and held their own short “alternative” board meeting on the state’s policies. They called on businesses to boycott Georgia because of the policies, and after chanting “boycott Georgia,” and briefly leaving the room, the students returned and again took seats reserved for the Regents. Around 9:50 a.m., the students were ordered by state patrol officers to vacate the Regents seats. They refused and were arrested. “We respect our students’ right to protest in an appropriate manner,” the Board of Regents said in an emailed statement from a spokesman.
www.tiftongazette.com
Arriaga, Vagott receive top awards at ABAC commencement
Special to The Gazette
TIFTON—Xiomara “Cici” Arriaga of Macon and Jacob Vagott from Centerville were selected for the top awards presented by the Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College Alumni Association during the spring commencement ceremony at ABAC on Thursday. Arriaga, a rural studies–writing and communication major, was named the winner of the ABAC Alumni Association Award for the top bachelor’s degree graduate participating in the ceremony, and Vagott, an engineering major, received the George P. Donaldson Award for the top associate degree graduate participating in the ceremony.
www.gwinnettdailypost.com
GGC now three-time national champion in database design
By Keith Farner
For the third time in four years, Georgia Gwinnett College has brought home championship hardware from a national information technology competition. At this year’s Association of Information Technology Professionals National Collegiate Conference in Chicago, GGC won its third national championship in database design. The school sent 12 students., and the winning team included graduating seniors Matt Berger of Loganville and Alejandro Guzman of Sugar Hill. GGC previously won in 2013 and 2015. Other awards went to Berger and Raquel Lawrence of Lawrenceville, who won the fourth-place trophy in Java Development; Katherine Copas of Bogart won second in graphic design. The GGC students faced about 61 student AITP chapters with more than 530 student members representing colleges and universities throughout the U.S. and Canada.
www.chronicle.augusta.com
Georgia Cancer Center renovation underway
Expansion to addlabs, connections
By Tom Corwin, Staff Writer
One of the first people to feel the impact of a massive renovation of the Georgia Cancer Center at Augusta University is the director. …The office and a conference room below are among the first to be demolished as part of a 72,000-square-foot renovation that will extend out five floors of the M. Bert Storey Cancer Research Building up Laney-Walker Boulevard toward 15th Street. Another three-story piece will connect the research building over Laney-Walker to the cancer clinic. But Khleif sees it as all part of one effort “where the clinical and the research operation are together, linked and complete,” he said. The five-story addition will allow an additional 14 to 16 research labs, which will allow the center to hire that many more investigators and their teams, Khleif said. It is part of the eight-year strategic plan the center put together almost three years ago to help it achieve designation as a National Cancer Institute Cancer Center, of which there are 62 in the U.S., including one each in Georgia and South Carolina.
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Don’t let criminal record deter applicants, U.S. tells colleges
By Janel Davis – The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Colleges and universities that ask applicants about criminal histories could be keeping those potential students from pursuing higher education, federal education officials said Monday. To make college more accessible for all, the U.S. Department of Education is recommending alternatives to these questions, as part of its new “Beyond the Box” initiative announced Monday. The guidelines “talk to colleges and universities about how they recruit and attract a very diverse student body, while also not creating barriers for those who’ve been involved in the criminal justice system,” said James Cole, general counsel acting as deputy secretary with the education department.
www.chronicle.com
UNC Faces Federal Lawsuit Over Controversial Bathroom Law
by Sarah Brown
The University of North Carolina system was caught in a flurry of legal activity on Monday as the federal government continued its push against a contentious state law banning transgender people from using bathrooms that correspond with their gender identity, while the state filed its own lawsuit in return. The U.S. Department of Justice said last week that the university’s decision to comply with the law, known as HB2, was a violation of federal civil-rights statutes, and gave state and UNC officials a Monday deadline to respond. Pat McCrory, North Carolina’s governor, responded by suing the department and Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch, asking a federal judge to declare that the law isn’t discriminatory. The lawsuit did not include the university system as a plaintiff. The state’s House and Senate leaders, both Republicans, also filed a separate lawsuit against the department.Several hours later, the department countered with its own lawsuit against the state, listing the university system among the defendants. If the university system is found in violation of federal civil-rights laws, it could theoretically be stripped of student aid and other federal funding worth more than $2 billion, by some estimates.