USG Institutions:
www.valdostadailytimes.com
Brown ready to lead VSU
By Gabe Burns
VALDOSTA — Dr. Kelli Brown has only been at Valdosta State University for two weeks, but she said she’s already loving it. Brown is the recently named VSU interim president. Previously the provost and vice president for academic affairs at Georgia College and State University, she was named VSU interim president May 23 by University System of Georgia Chancellor Hank Huckaby. She moved into her office June 1 and officially starts July 1. “Kelli is an experienced and talented leader in our University System,” Huckaby said in a press release. “Kelli is ready for this important leadership role at Valdosta State University, and I thank her for stepping forward and serving Valdosta State, the University System and our state.” Brown is the 11th president in school history, but her hiring is uncharted grounds: She is the first female VSU president.
www.unionrecorder.com
GC program exposes minority males to teaching profession
Gil Pound
Almost 30 African-American high school students from central Georgia attended the second Rising MISTER Academy at Georgia College this week. The young men came in each morning to learn skills vital to becoming a good teacher like creating a lesson plan and public speaking. Afternoons were for collaborating in groups and working on lesson plans so that the would-be teachers could present their lessons on Friday to the rest of the group who acted as their students. “The goal of the program is to not only allow the students to get acclimated to college life, especially at Georgia College, but also to expose them to the education field,” said Emmanuel Little, director of GC’s Call Me MISTER program, in a press release. “National statistics show that less than 2 percent of all educators are African-American males, so they may not have interacted with a teacher that looks like them before. This program let’s them visualize something they may have never seen.”
www.moultrieobserver.com
SRTC, ASU partner to help education students
Staff Reports
THOMASVILLE, Ga. — The leadership of Southern Regional Technical College (SRTC) and Albany State University (ASU) have signed an articulation agreement that creates new education opportunities for SRTC students who graduate with an associate degree in Early Childhood Care and Education. Under the agreement, which was signed on June 8, students who complete their Associate of Applied Science degree from SRTC in Early Childhood Care and Education can transfer their college credits toward a bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education at ASU. “We’re grateful to Albany State University President Dr. Art Dunning and his faculty and staff for their desire to partner with SRTC on this articulation agreement and open new doors of opportunity for our students. It creates a seamless pathway for eligible SRTC graduates who want to continue their higher education and earn a bachelor’s degree from ASU in Elementary Education,” said SRTC President Craig R. Wentworth. The partnership between SRTC and ASU has already provided valuable opportunities that increase the accessibility of higher education throughout the area.
www.chronicle.augusta.com
Augusta University researcher looks at diabetes in pregnancy
By Tom Corwin
Staff Writer
The number of women who develop diabetes during pregnancy is on the rise, which could be fueling an increase in obesity and diabetes in children, a researcher at Augusta University said. Dr. Jennifer Thompson has received a five-year, $1 million Pathway to Independence Award from the National Institutes of Health to look at gestational diabetes and its effect on offspring. The highly competitive award is meant to help young investigators get established and put them on the path to tenure track positions. Federal research funding is increasingly difficult for young investigators to secure.
www.savannahnow.com
Adrian Peterson and his GSU brothers continue to give back
http://savannahnow.com/sports/2016-06-18/adrian-peterson-and-his-gsu-brothers-continue-give-back
By Donald Heath
Adrian Peterson knows what it’s like to reach out and receive a helping hand. He also knows how to extend one. The former Georgia Southern star was in town Saturday morning to run his third-annual football camp at Calvary Day School. “Sometimes (a camper) will say, ‘Thanks for coming. You motivated me to be better,’ ” Peterson said. “That’s what it’s all about.” It’s also a time when the fraternity of Georgia Southern football can get together. About 10 current and former Eagles football players, along with some of GSU’s past support staff assisted Peterson. “Like I tell the guys, ‘Yeah, I’m the headliner, but we’re a family now,’” Peterson said. “You have the guys from my era, the guys playing now and the older guys. It’s one family now.”
www.accessdun.com
Gainesville man named to UGA’s Board of Visitors
http://accesswdun.com/article/2016/6/412693/gainesville-man-named-to-ugas-board-of-visitors
By Ken Stanford Reporter
University of Georgia president Dr. Jere Morehead has named Sammy Smith of Gainesville to a two-year term on the university’s Board of Visitors. The board, according to the UGA website, serves as official ambassadors for the University, seeking to establish new relationships and strengthen longstanding ties between UGA and its elected officials, business leaders and community organizations.
www.ajc.com
Kendrick Johnson parents say gym mat death investigation completed
http://www.ajc.com/news/news/crime-law/kendrick-johnson-parents-say-gym-mat-death-investi/nrjgt/
Christian Boone, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The parents of Kendrick Johnson, whose body was found more than three years ago in a rolled-up gymnastics mat, are expected to find out today whether federal investigators plan to bring charges related to the mysterious death of the Valdosta teen. Family spokesman Marcus Coleman said Kenneth and Jackie Johnson are scheduled to meet with prosecutors this afternoon at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Macon. …adding the family has been informed that the federal investigation, opened in Oct. 2013, has finally concluded.
www.law.com
Judge Retroactively Seals Public Filings in Georgia Tech Rape Allegations Case
By R. Robin McDonald
A federal judge in Atlanta has retroactively sealed all filings in an ongoing lawsuit against officials at the Georgia Institute of Technology brought by a student who was expelled after he was accused of rape. Eight months of court pleadings that had been publicly available—including the transcript of a public hearing held in December, as well as the entire case docket—were sealed this week, after a lawyer with the Office of the State Attorney General defending Georgia Tech officials and the state board of regents asked U.S. District Judge Steve Jones to seal the case in a motion that was also filed under seal. The normally public docket contains a list of every court filing, including pleadings and orders and brief summaries of each document and action taken during the course of the litigation. The attorney general’s office is defending Tech president G.P. “Bud” Peterson; Georgia Tech’s Dean of Students and Vice President of Student Life, John Stein; Assistant Dean of Students Peter Paquette; and the state board of regents—which oversees the state’s public universities, including Georgia Tech. On Friday, after a reporter began making inquiries about the newly sealed case and missing docket, Jones issued a public order modifying his June 14 order that had the case sealed in its entirety. The June 14 order remains under seal.
www.clatl.com
Former Georgia State professor found guilty of sexual misconduct with student, charged with sexual battery
Posted By Sean Keenan
A former Georgia State University English professor can never again set foot on campus after a school investigation found on June 9 that the teacher “engaged in inappropriate conduct of a sexual nature” with a student. Terry Bozeman, who taught at Georgia State’s Perimeter College in Dunwoody, came under scrutiny after being arrested and charged with sexual battery on April 19. The mother of one of his students told campus police that her daughter was “sexually assaulted” by the 43-year-old professor, according to a GSUPD report. The victim claimed “Bozeman told her to lift up her shirt and…touched her in the buttocks area,” the arrest report says.
www.11alive.com
Ga Tech researches developing emergency guidance robot
http://www.11alive.com/news/ga-tech-researches-devloping-emergency-guidence-robot/249938466
Jennifer Bellamy, WXIA
In an emergency, would you trust a robot to help save your life? Researchers at Georgia Tech are working on a device that could someday do just that, but the goes beyond creating a robot. The group is also looking into how much humans trust robots, even when they should not. It’s all part of making sure a future device is ready to meet the public’s life saving expectations. “This robot will be able to autonomously drive through a building and find people who might need help getting out of the building and then lead them to a safe exit,” explained PhD student Paul Robinette. He says “Emergie 1,” as it’s called, is the result of numerous tests and feedback from everyday people on design and how to apply the technology to everyday life … Don’t expect to see the robots used any time soon. Wagner says it could take at least five years before the emergency guidance robot would be ready to be deployed.
Higher Education News:
www.chronicle.com
2 High-Profile Cases Offer Glimpse of Future Trends in Campus Sex Assaults
http://chronicle.com/article/2-High-Profile-Cases-Offer/236860
By Katherine Mangan
One had just finished his first semester of college; the other was beginning his last. Both were accomplished athletes at prestigious universities who ended up making national headlines for the wrong reasons, when they were expelled for sexual assault. The cases of Brock Allen Turner, a former Stanford University swimmer, and Jack Montague, a former Yale University basketball player, have other common elements. Each student was catapulted into the national news largely because he was able to afford top lawyers who vigorously defended him. Mr. Turner’s lawyer helped him avoid a lengthy prison sentence despite being convicted of three felony counts of sexual assault for attacking an unconscious woman behind a garbage bin outside a fraternity party. The judge’s decision to sentence him instead to six months in jail and three years’ probation outraged many people. It also led Michele Landis Dauber, a professor at Stanford Law School, to start a campaign to recall the judge, Aaron Persky … The two cases illustrate different ways sexual-assault cases can play out on campuses. Stanford quickly notified law-enforcement officials and conducted its own investigation within two weeks. In January 2015, Mr. Turner withdrew from the university under pressure and was banned from its campus. Yale handled the Montague case internally, expelling the team captain in February as the Bulldogs prepared to compete in their first NCAA tournament in more than five decades.
www.huffingtonpost.com
There Are Far More Title IX Investigations Of Colleges Than Most People Know
How universities are able to keep these federal probes hidden.
Tyler Kingkade
Senior Editor/Reporter, The Huffington Post
The growing backlog of federal Title IX investigations into colleges and universities has now topped 300, but many people, including students at the schools under scrutiny, aren’t aware of those reviews. As of Wednesday, there were 246 ongoing investigations by the U.S. Department of Education into how 195 colleges and universities handle sexual assault reports under the gender equity law. A Freedom of Information Act request by The Huffington Post revealed another 68 Title IX investigations into how 61 colleges handle sexual harassment cases. This puts the total number of Title IX investigations officially dealing with sexual harassment at 315. (Under civil rights statutes, sexual assault is defined as an extreme form of sexual harassment.) But dozens of those Title IX reviews receive no publicity because they don’t specifically deal with sexual assault. Major educational institutions — including New York University, the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, Georgia State University, Florida A&M University, Rutgers University, Howard University, the University of Oklahoma, Kent State University and the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse — have escaped public scrutiny because Title IX investigations into their actions haven’t been highlighted by the government or the schools themselves.
www.insidehighered.com
Safeguarding Free Speech
City University of New York is considering a new policy that it says will protect academic freedom, but some fear it could be used to squelch dissent.
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/06/20/cuny-considers-free-speech-policy
Maxine Joselow
The City University of New York is considering a new policy on freedom of expression. Administrators say the policy affirms the university’s commitment to safeguarding free speech at a time of protests and politically contentious debates. But critics argue that the policy actually inhibits free speech by imposing new restrictions on some expressive activities. “The policy was in response to a lot of events that were occurring across university campuses that were raising issues about the primacy of freedom of expression and what limitations might apply,” said Frederick Schaffer, general counsel and senior vice chancellor for legal affairs at CUNY. “Some of the issues arose in the context of Black Lives Matter and debate over Israel-Palestine. We looked and we didn’t have a specific policy on this, and we thought this would be an appropriate time.”