University System News:
www.wrbl.com
Georgia’s popularity as a movie and TV location benefits economy and students
by Greg Loyd
HARRIS COUNTY, Ga – Georgia has long been known as an agriculture producer. But now it’s gaining notoriety for another kind of cash crop: Movies! The state’s increasing popularity for entertainment is good news, not only for the economy, but also for college students at Columbus State University. The film and TV industry brought in $7 billion dollars the Georgia economy during the past fiscal year. Thanks to that momentum, the future is looking bright for the state, students, and anyone who wants to break into the entertainment industry. Welcome to the set of Moon Shine Still. This bustle of activity is not on a Hollywood lot, but on Sweet Home Plantation in Harris County. “We have great shooting locations; we have fantastic infrastructure now. That means great studios, great vendors, great support systems,” says Jeff Stepakoff, Executive Director of the Georgia Film Academy. All those support systems are driving the lights, camera, and action to the Peach State and invaluable experience to students, especially those from Columbus State University. CSU just implemented a certificate program in conjunction with the Georgia Film Academy. “To hear their stories, they’re thrilled with what’s going on here. And from what I’m hearing, our students are holding their own,” says Danna Gibson, Chair of the CSU Department of Communication. “Being able to do it here and have my friends and already have a network working for me, it’s really important to me,” says Lauren Williams, a CSU graduate working on her Georgia Film Academy certificate.
See also:
www.wmbfnews.com
CSU students work alongside Hollywood actors on Harris County set
By Emilie Arroyo, Reporter
HARRIS COUNTY, GA (WTVM) – Georgia’s booming film industry has some calling the Peach State the next Hollywood. While a lot of shooting happens in the Atlanta area, Harris County is now the set of one indie film. WTVM caught up with the crew of Moon Shine Still, where film students at Columbus State University are getting in on the action. The film comes to our area as a collaborative effort, with Union-paid actors who have shows like Orange Is the New Black, and Star Trek on their resumes, working alongside CSU alumni who are just breaking into the film industry. …Students involved with Columbus State University’s sector of the Georgia Film Academy are getting hands-on experience working a movie set with this project.
USG Institutions:
www.onlineathens.com
New UGA conduct policies for overdose victims, parties in alleged sexual assaults
By LEE SHEARER
New policies give added protections to University of Georgia students who drink dangerous amounts of alcohol or are accused of sexual misconduct. Beginning in July, the university changed its student conduct policy on drugs and alcohol to be more in line with the state’s “Medical Amnesty Law,” which shields people from prosecution who overdose on alcohol or other drugs, as well as those who call for medical help when someone else has or may have overdosed. Before the change, UGA’s student conduct policies exempted students who reported a possible alcohol- or drug-related emergency — but not those who overdosed, who could still face university discipline. UGA changed its policy after University of Georgia Student Government Association president Houston Gaines approached UGA administrators earlier this year. Also on July 1, a new sexual misconduct policy went into effect, not only for UGA but for the statewide University System of Georgia, which includes 28 other public colleges and universities. The new policy details the procedures college administrators are to follow when students or workers are accused of sexual misconduct. The new sexual misconduct policy, announced in March, came against a backdrop of controversy and confusion over just how colleges should handle sexual misconduct accusations.
www.wtoc.com
New app for campus safety available for Georgia Southern students, staff
By Dal Cannady, Reporter
STATESBORO, GA (WTOC) – One new item on the campus of Georgia Southern University could help students stay safe. University Police unveiled a new phone app, called LiveSafe, which students and others on campus can download. It gives them routes to find buildings, but it also identifies every emergency call box in the parking lots around campus. It also gives them a direct line to either 911 or university police to deliver anonymous tips in a number of ways.
www.chronicle.com
AU Medical Center low rating doesn’t reflect reality, doctors say
Doctors say large hospitals hurt by scoring method
By Tom Corwin
Staff Writer
Physicians are decrying the poor rating that AU Medical Center and other academic medical centers recently received in Medicare’s Hospital Compare star rating system, saying it doesn’t take into account the complex and very sick patients they treat. AUMC received a one-star rating out of a possible five, the lowest possible. In comparison, Doctors and Trinity hospitals and Aiken Regional Medical Centers received two-star ratings, while University Hospital, University Hospital McDuffie and Jefferson Hospital received three stars. The ratings have come under fire because big hospitals that take on difficult cases are seemingly punished while small hospitals that do limited procedures are rewarded, doctors said. “They are based on a deeply flawed methodology that does not take into account important differences in the patient populations and the complexity of conditions that teaching hospitals treat,” according to a statement from Dr. Darrell G. Kirch, the CEO of the Association of American Medical Colleges and a former dean of the Medical College of Georgia. “As a result, many of the nation’s leading teaching hospitals – institutions that provide the most advanced health care in the world – have been assigned lower ratings than other hospitals that treat patients with less complex conditions or that treat only certain conditions.”
www.news.wabe.org
UGA Opens $48 Million Center Dedicated To STEM
By TASNIM SHAMMA
The University of Georgia is holding a dedication ceremony Wednesday on a new $48 million science learning center. The science learning center will have 33 labs, and it’s purposely designed to get students talking and working together. It includes flexible chairs in the auditorium and tables with computers strategically placed throughout the lecture rooms. “The big auditorium on campus have fixed seating, because that’s the way we thought learning occurred best 50 years ago,” said UGA associate vice president for instruction Ronald Cervero. “But now we have quite a bit of evidence that student engagement and active learning are central to effective teaching and learning.” …Cervero said UGA’s science learning center has classrooms modeled after labs at schools like Georgia Tech, Clemson University and the University of Minnesota. The center will include a cafe, informal study spaces and be used primarily to teach freshman and sophomores introductory chemistry, biology, ecology and physics.
www.forsythnews.com
System approves application for Alliance Academy funding
http://www.forsythnews.com/section/3/article/30741/
By Kayla Robins
What will be Forsyth County’s seventh public high school took another step forward Thursday. The Forsyth County Board of Education approved a fiscal year 2018 capital outlay application for state funding for the Alliance Academy for Innovation of Cumming-Forysth County, a workforce development college and career academy. …The academy is projected to open in fall 2018 — at the same time as Denmark High School — off Lanier 400 Parkway in Cumming. It may eventually enroll up to 1,200 students in grades 9-12 who will focus their class schedule on high-wage, high-demand, high-growth jobs and can earn industry certification and training. The school system is partnering with the Technical College System of Georgia and local campuses of Lanier Technical College and the University of North Georgia as well as area businesses and community members.
Higher Education News:
www.chronicle.com
Where Does Your Freshman Class Come From?
By Joshua Hatch and Brian O’Leary
On the subject of the migration of college freshmen, two things are clear: Most stay within their home state’s borders, and the rest tend to go to private colleges in neighboring states. It’s already known that more than a third of freshmen stay within 50 miles of home, but what the interactive map clearly shows is that even those who stray beyond tend to stay in the region.
www.npr.org
Helping College-Bound Native Americans Beat The Odds
Claudio Sanchez
Native American students make up only 1.1 percent of the nation’s high school population. And in college, the number is even smaller. More than any other ethnic or racial group, they’re the least likely to have access to college prep or advanced placement courses. Many get little or no college counseling at all. In 1998, College Horizons, a small nonprofit based in New Mexico, set out to change that through five-day summer workshops on admissions, financial aid and the unique challenges they’ll face on campus. Its director, Carmen Lopez, sat down with NPR to talk about the obstacles that bright, talented Native students face.
www.chronicle.com
How Colleges Prepare (or Don’t Prepare) Their Leaders Is Holding Back Innovation
By Jeffrey J. Selingo
The resignation of Temple University’s president, Neil D. Theobald, last month is a story that is becoming all too common in higher education: A new leader takes over with much fanfare, only to be ousted within a few years (in Theobald’s case, just three years). At a time when higher education is under tremendous pressure to reinvent its financial model and remake its curriculum for a digital age and a diverse student body, who will — and perhaps more important, who can — run colleges and universities for this new era is a question increasingly being asked by trustees, faculty members, and policy makers. Sure, new ideas to transform teaching, financial aid, and student services often bubble up from experiments in the trenches. But presidents encourage innovation by setting the tone, crafting the narrative for internal and external constituencies, and finding the money to expand boutique projects. The average tenure of a college president has dropped slightly in the last decade — from 8.5 years to seven years, according to the American Council on Education. Unfortunately, turnover at the top often stunts the growth of innovation across a campus. Presidential searches sometimes take six months or longer; once new presidents finally arrive, they go on “listening tours” for their first year; and then they embark on an extensive strategic-planning process in which previous priorities are shelved in favor of new ones. By then, it’s two years after the predecessor left, and probably much of the senior leadership has also changed.
www.insiderhighered.com
When Lawmakers Set Up a Policy Research Center
North Carolina legislators raised concerns when they funded the creation of a new entity at Chapel Hill to explore environmental policy and research.
By Rick Seltzer
A new environmental public policy laboratory being set up at the behest of state lawmakers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is drawing protests from some faculty members worried about academic freedom and institutional autonomy. Campus administrators say the laboratory, called the North Carolina Policy Collaboratory, can help address complex environmental questions cutting across science and public policy. And some faculty members are cautiously optimistic that it could fill a research void. But others say the way the collaboratory was established — through a piece of legislation — makes it a potential political pawn and an example of overreach by lawmakers who have proven too willing to overstep their authority by meddling with the state’s public universities.