USG Institutions:
www.13wmaz.com
MGSU Dublin to offer 4-year degrees
http://www.13wmaz.com/news/local/mgsu-dublin-to-offer-4-year-degrees/277201613
Next year, students at Middle Georgia State University’s Dublin campus can graduate with a four-year degree. Currently, 400 to 500 students take classes at the Dublin campus every semester earning associate’s degrees. Beginning fall 2017, they will offer bachelor’s degrees in health services administration and interdisciplinary studies that will be a degree focused on the labor needs of Laurens County. Middle Georgia State will conduct a survey in the Dublin area to determine which degrees to offer. They want to focus on study areas that could lead to local careers.
www.insidehighered.com
Donations Exceed $180,000 for Student Living in Tent
A second-semester student at Gordon State College in Georgia has received more than $180,000 in donations after campus police officers discovered him living in a tent near a college parking lot. Two officers responded to a call about the tent on July 9, the Barnesville Herald-Gazette reported, and asked the man inside to come out with his hands up. The occupant, 19-year-old Fredrick Barley, emerged and presented police with his Gordon State student ID. He explained that he’d ridden six hours from his hometown on his brother’s 20-inch bicycle ahead of classes resuming to register for courses and find a job. He carried with him only a duffel bag, a tent, a box of cereal and two gallons of water, according to the Herald-Gazette. …Police shared Barley’s story on Facebook, and local residents soon delivered gift cards, food, clothes and new mountain bike. An online donations page exceeded its original goal of $150,000, and Barley found a job at a local restaurant washing dishes.
www.ajc.com
KSU dean receives leadership award
http://www.ajc.com/news/news/local-education/ksu-dean-receives-leadership-award/nr2Nb/
Staff
The Council for Accelerated Programs has named Barbara Calhoun the recipient of its Excellence in Leadership Award. Calhoun is the dean of the College of Continuing and Professional Education at Kennesaw State University, where she has worked for more than 20 years.
Higher Education News:
www.myajc.com
Georgia Lottery hits the jackpot: A record $1B profit for education
By Kristina Torres – The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Georgia’s Lottery has surpassed one milestone after another since its inception in 1993, and now it’s topped one more: $1 billion raised for education in a single year. Gov. Nathan Deal broke the news Wednesday as the Georgia Lottery closed the books on fiscal 2016, which ended June 30. In all, the lottery raised about $1.1 billion for the state’s pre-kindergarten program and HOPE scholarships for college students, with 2016 profits exceeding those of 2015 by more than $117 million. Overall ticket sales hit $4.55 billion, officials said, a more than 8 percent increase. “This is a great day for Georgia,” Deal said. “We are looked upon by many other states with envy, quite honestly. We’ve had many other states try to replicate the Georgia Lottery. I don’t think any of them have, quite frankly, been as successful as we have.”
See also:
www.bizjournals.com
Georgia Lottery’s educational funding hits record high in ‘16
www.chronicle.com
HBCU Presidents to Hold Symposium on Gun Violence
by Gabriel Sandoval
The presidents of 34 historically black colleges and universities pledged on Wednesday to organize what they called a first-of-its-kind symposium on gun violence, after the “debilitating impact” of a series of incidents that they said had “shaken our nation to its core and caused many people to question our country’s direction.” In a letter announcing plans for an “HBCU National Symposium on Gun Violence,” the presidents invited all Americans to join them in helping the United States to become a “more perfect union” following the recent turmoil in Dallas, St. Paul, and Baton Rouge, La. They said they hoped to foster an environment in which all human lives are valued equally.
www.insidehighered.com
Do Colleges Need to Be Need Blind?
Some maintain that they can drop the policy and preserve access, but those who have gone need blind have seen gains in student diversity.
By Rick Seltzer
Ceasing need-blind admissions is a politically tenuous move for colleges and universities — need-blind policies, associated with meritocracy and equal opportunity, cut to the heart of institutional values that many students, staff and faculty hold dear. But sometimes those values have run up against cold, hard finances. Admitting students without considering their need for financial aid can make it difficult to control budgets from year to year. That’s particularly true when the policy is paired with promises to meet the full demonstrated financial need of applicants. And it is that combination of policies that truly makes it possible to tell a student without money that he or she is on equal footing with a trust-fund teen during admissions decisions.