University System News:
www.georgiatrend.com
Georgia’s 2016 Higher Education Directory
http://www.georgiatrend.com/September-2016/Georgias-2016-Higher-Education-Directory/
Compiled by Christy Simo
Here in Georgia, if you want to get a good education, there are plenty of options, from the 29 public colleges of the University System of Georgia (USG) that serve more than 300,000 students and the 22-school Technical College System of Georgia (TCSG), with more than 135,000 students, to the dozens of private and for-profit schools throughout the state. This past April, the USG announced it will not be raising tuition rates – a welcome relief to students after four years of increases. TCSG colleges, too, remain at $89 per credit hour. There were far fewer mergers this year than in the past. Georgia Perimeter College has consolidated with Georgia State University in Atlanta, and Darton State College will merge with Albany State University in Southwest Georgia. The 2016 Higher Education Directory includes degree-granting schools that have a physical presence in Georgia and are eligible for HOPE scholarship enrollments. http://mydigimag.rrd.com/publication/?i=332924&ver=html5&p=28
www.valdostatoday.com
VSU’s Online MBA Progams Named a 2016 Best Value
http://valdostatoday.com/2016/08/1vsus-online-mba-progams-named-a-2016-best-value/
Valdosta State University is home to one of the best online Master of Business Administration degree programs in the nation, according to OnlineU. To determine its rankings, OnlineU analyzed data from United States-based institutions of higher education offering at least one business degree online. The top 25 colleges and universities — chosen for their commitment to providing high quality, rigorous academics at an affordable tuition rate — made the final cut. VSU came in at No. 11 on the 2016 Best Value Online Colleges for Business Degrees list.
www.onlineathens.com
UGA fellowships aim for world’s best graduate students
http://onlineathens.com/mobile/2016-08-31/uga-fellowships-aim-worlds-best-graduate-students
By LEE SHEARER
A pair of new high-paying University of Georgia graduate school fellowships aim to attract the “world’s most promising graduate students,” the university has announced. One program, for Ph.D.-level students, will pay research assistants $27,000 per year and grant a tuition waiver to the recipients of the “Georgia Research Education Award Traineeship” fellowships. The GREAT fellowships are renewable for up to five years. Ten students per year will be named GREAT Fellows, beginning in fall, 2017. According to UGA’s announcement, the GREAT Fellows will work with UGA faculty members “to conduct high-impact research in the university’s Signature Research Themes of Inquiring and Innovating to Improve Human Health, Safeguarding and Sustaining Our World, and Changing Lives through the Land-Grant Mission.” For master’s-level students, UGA is launching another research assistantship called “Georgia Impact Now,” given the acronym GAIN. GAIN Fellows are renewable for up to two years and are worth $20,000 per year, plus a tuition waiver. Like the GREAT program, the Georgia Impact Now program will begin in fall, 2017 with its first 10 students. “These new programs will better position the University of Georgia to attract the best and brightest graduate students to our institution,” said UGA Graduate School Dean Suzanne Barbour in a press release.
www.wsbtv.com
UGA athletes welcomed home from Rio with 10 medals
http://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/uga-athletes-welcomed-home-from-rio-with-10-medals/434272707
by: Berndt Petersen
Dozens of University of Georgia Olympic Athletes returned to Athens Wednesday to a big welcome home reception. The school sent 37 athletes and coaches to Rio this year. It is the most ever in school history. All together, the athletes brought home 10 medals.
www.chronicle.augusta.com
Climate change at AU
New dormitories give university a welcome residential feel
http://chronicle.augusta.com/opinion/editorials/2016-09-01/climate-change-au?v=1472692566
By Augusta Chronicle Editorial Staff
Augusta University has had its share in recent years, too, particularly on the Health Sciences campus: four new buildings in a five-year span. But some new structures have a greater capacity than others to both reflect and build on changes in the very nature of a university. This is one of those. The new “Oak” and “Elm” dorms at Augusta University’s Health Sciences campus – whose names are inspired by the famed and bygone “Arsenal Oak” on the old Augusta College campus in Summerville – both herald and create the climate of a residential college. For most of its existence, AU has had the feel of a commuter college. That was also true of the Health Sciences campus downtown. Walking to the new dorms this week, Dale Hartenburg, associate vice president for Student Services, recalled that years ago, they “rolled up the sidewalks” there at 5:30. Today, helped along by the dorms and other growth, the downtown campus is taking on more of a feel of a residential college. This is a profound distinction with implications – all of them good – not just for the university, but for all of Augusta. …The dorms’ opening has nearly doubled the university’s dorm beds overnight, from some 700 to over 1,200. Oak Hall – for freshmen students attending classes via shuttle up at the Summerville campus – sports 412 beds, in groups of four, whereas Elm Hall features 312 beds in one-bedroom and studio arrangements more suited to the graduate students living there. Together with the new dental college building, the J. Harold Harrison, M.D. Education Commons and a renovated Student Center with cafeteria, basketball court, bookstore and fitness facility, the new dorms are helping create a greater sense of community. …In addition, once the freshmen move on, they’ll also move out of Oak – either to AU’s other housing at University Village near Forest Hills or to private dwellings downtown or in Summerville. Meanwhile, more buildings are to come to the downtown Health Sciences campus in the years ahead, as well as exceedingly welcome greenspace. The profundity of all this is not lost on Mayor Hardie Davis, who called it “a game-changing day for our city.” Likewise, AU President Brooks Keel said, “This is a very historic moment. Not only does it bring excitement to our university and community, but it marks the beginning of a new era at Augusta University. In 20 years, I hope we all look back and remember how important this day was.”
www.albanyceo.com
UGA to Rededicate Tift Building
http://albanyceo.com/news/2016/09/uga-rededicate-tift-building/
Staff Report From Albany CEO
The University of Georgia will hold a rededication ceremony for the newly renovated H.H. Tift Building on the UGA-Tifton campus on Tuesday, Sept. 27, at 10 a.m. Immediately following the ceremony, UGA President Jere W. Morehead will be available briefly for questions from the media. The Tift Building is at the front of the campus alongside Moore Highway. Renovation of the Tift Building — the campus’s first structure — was completed in May. Initially constructed in 1922, the Tift Building now is equipped to support undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in UGA’s College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.
www.wtvm.com
Campus meeting held after student stabbed at Savannah State
http://www.wtvm.com/story/32944324/campus-meeting-held-after-student-stabbed-at-savannah-state
By David Klugh, Anchor
The stabbing of a student last week at Savannah State University has prompted a reaction that may be revealing a new approach to safety on campus. The specific details of that attack are not being released now. However, word of the crime instantly pulled together campus police, student government and university administrators in a way we have not seen in the past. An exclusive look at how that early reaction may also be pulling the entire student body together like never before. An all-campus meeting at Tiger Arena on the campus of SSU. You don’t fill this place without a game, a concert or graduation, but they filled it Wednesday night to talk about crime and community following a scuffle between students that put one in the hospital. “We just want to make sure that those incidents do not happen on our campus. We’ve seen some situations here on campus that were not in the best of light for the institution. So, again we just want to make sure that students are engaged in the safety of the campus,” said SSU Dean of Students, Bonita Bradley. Wednesday’s gathering shows just how bent this administration and its students are on not seeing a repeat of the heartache and negative perceptions that followed other high-profile crimes on campus.
Higher Education News:
www.insidehighered.com
Context on Increases in Tuition and Textbook Prices
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics has released some comparative data to mark the start of a new academic year. From January 2006 to July 2016, the Consumer Price Index for college tuition and fees increased 63 percent. The compares to 21 percent for all items. During the same period, consumer prices for college textbooks increased 88 percent.
www.chronicle.com
www.chronicle.com
What Research Universities Can Learn From Teaching-Intensive Counterparts
By D. Ellen K. Tarr
The Malthusian dilemma in biomedical research has been described by Shirley Tilghman and is hardly news to academic research scientists: We have too many scientists competing for too few resources. Research-intensive universities are still using a model that began as an effort to build capacity for academic scientific research. More than 70 years ago, Vannevar Bush’s report “Science: The Endless Frontier,” recommended that the government fund basic research in universities and medical schools as well as provide scholarships and fellowships for training researchers. The model worked as long as the resources (funding, facilities, tenure-track faculty positions) exceeded the needs of the scientific community. But it wasn’t long before universities began relying on this support for faculty salaries and indirect costs as well as for research itself. This has led to the current model, in which most academic research is carried out by graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, often funded with grants. The focus has shifted from training Ph.D.-level scientists to carry out research to using Ph.D. students and postdocs as an inexpensive labor force. Now there is a need for an increase in both the amount and the stability of federal research funding; the boom-and-bust cycles have been a significant part of the problem. Although there has been some success with alternative funding sources (industry, philanthropic sources, crowdfunding), they are unlikely to be large enough to replace federal funding.