University System News:
www.savannahnow.com
Savannah area college campus closures
http://savannahnow.com/news/2016-10-05/savannah-area-college-campus-closures
Savannah State University, Savannah Technical College, Armstrong State University and Georgia Southern University have released closure information. Savannah State University has cancelled classes beginning at 3 p.m. Oct. 5, until 8 a.m. Oct. 10. All campus events scheduled after 3 p.m. Oct. 5 have been suspended because of the campus closure. …All classes at Armstrong State University’s main campus in Savannah and the Armstrong Liberty Center in Hinesville will be canceled as of noon Oct. 5. Both locations will close at 3 p.m. All residence halls will close at 9 a.m. Oct. 6. Classes and normal business operations will resume at 8 a.m. Oct. 10. All events on campus – including Armstrong’s Pirate Preview event and U.S. Marine Band Concert, originally planned for Oct. 8 – are also canceled. Georgia Southern University will close campus and all classes and events are cancelled for Oct. 7. We are monitoring a potential campus closure and campus event cancellations for Oct. 6 in anticipation of Interstate contra-flow lanes. Should contra-flow lanes be enacted, GSU will send an Eagle Alert to students and staff.
www.middlegeorgiaceo.com
FVSU Gap-funding Scholarship Launched in Honor of Inauguration Celebration
Staff Report From Middle Georgia CEO
A new scholarship initiative created to support Fort Valley State University students who are having their academic journey threatened by financial hardship is being launched in honor of Dr. Paul Jones’ inauguration later this week. Jones spearheaded the FVSU President’s Need-Based Gap Fund in response to the ongoing threat of losing students who are in good standing, but face the possibility of ending of their college careers due to shortfalls of only a few hundred dollars. “In these critical times when higher education is so vital, we cannot afford to lose deserving students at FVSU due to financial deficits, in some cases as small as a few hundred dollars,” Jones said. “It is so important, in fact, that I’ve asked our investiture planners to keep our inauguration-related costs at a minimum in order to save funds to support our students. Our priority should always be to provide our students a high-quality education.” Jones will be installed as the university’s 10th president during an investiture ceremony on Friday, October 7 at 11 a.m. in the C.W. Pettigrew Center.
www.forbesmiddleeast.com
50 Best U.S. Colleges For International Students 2016
By Caroline Howard
Last year some 1 million students came from foreign countries to study in the U.S., making it the global powerhouse in higher education. It’s not hard to see why. American colleges and universities have minted scores of billionaires, Nobel Prize winners, game-changing entrepreneurs and celebrated leaders in politics, the arts, science, business and more. The global brand value of institutions such as Stanford, Harvard and MIT rivals that of Apple, Google and Microsoft… Graduation success for international students (10%): We also look to IPEDS data for the average expected number of years it takes to graduate — of those who do graduate within six years. For example, Williams College (No. 26) has a 100% graduation rate for international students, while Georgia Institute of Technology (No. 37) offers a still-high-but-not-as-high 82%.
www.dailyreportonline.com
Regents Share Letter From AG on Why He Wants to Be KSU President
Katheryn Hayes Tucker, Daily Report
Attorney General Sam Olens’ closed-door job interview with the University System of Georgia Board of Regents Tuesday afternoon apparently went well. At the end of the day, Regents Chair Kessel Stelling and Chancellor Hank Huckaby announced that the Executive and Compensation Committee has recommended the full board consider and vote on Olens for the position of president of Kennesaw State University. …Huckaby also shared a deeply personal letter from Olens explaining his desire and plans for the job. “I have long been passionate about the central role education plays in our society, especially for students who lack the privileges many others enjoy,” Olens said in the letter. “I have personally experienced the life-changing nature of education.” Olens’ letter goes on to tell his story.
www.ajc.com
Olens sole candidate for Kennesaw State president
Eric Stirgus The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The state’s top public college official said Tuesday that Georgia Attorney General Sam Olens’ political background and ties to Cobb County were major factors in him being the lone candidate for president of Kennesaw State University, which the state’s Board of Regents will decide upon next week. Typically, when the state is choosing a college president, a search committee is selected, finalists are chosen, a recommendation is made and the board decides. A national search was not conducted for KSU, and there are no immediate plans to search for another candidate.
www.insidehighered.com
Controversial Pick Close to Kennesaw Presidency
https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2016/10/05/controversial-pick-close-kennesaw-presidency
By Rick Seltzer
Georgia Attorney General Sam Olens moved a step closer to the presidency at Kennesaw State University Tuesday when a Board of Regents committee recommended him for the role despite stiff student and faculty opposition. The University System of Georgia Board of Regents is now scheduled to vote on making Olens the next Kennesaw State president at an Oct. 12 meeting. The selection is controversial because of both the process and person involved.
www.albanyherald.com
Georgia Attorney General Sam Olens recommended for presidency at Kennesaw State
Olens has served as the state A.G. since 2011
From Staff Reports
ATLANTA — Board of Regents Chair Kessel Stelling and University System of Georgia Chancellor Hank Huckaby announced late Tuesday afternoon the Regents’ Executive and Compensation Committee has recommended the full board consider and vote on Sam Olens for the position of president of Kennesaw State University. Olens is currently the attorney general for the state of Georgia. First elected in 2010 and re-elected in 2014, Olens has served in his current role since he was sworn in as Georgia’s 53rd attorney general on Jan. 10, 2011.
www.washingtonpost.com
After gaining legitimacy, can online higher education replace traditional college?
By Jeffrey J. Selingo
For much of their modern existance, distance-education courses have suffered from an image problem. In the 1970s and 1980s, they were seen as cheap knockoffs of on-campus offerings, hawked on late-night television by the likes of Sally Struthers, who asked viewers, “Do you want to make more money? Sure, we all do,” in commercials for the International Correspondence School. In the late 1990s, the introduction of online learning coincided with the expansion of for-profit providers, such as the University of Phoenix and Corinthian Colleges. The two trends were often conflated in the media, and the quality concerns that frequently dogged the for-profit industry rubbed off on online programs… There is evidence elsewhere, too, that online education is increasing access to higher education, at least among master’s degrees. A study released this month from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government found that students who enrolled in Georgia Tech’s $7,000 online master’s degree in computer science would not have gone anywhere else if the program didn’t exist. By “satisfying large, previously unmet demand for mid-career training, this single program will boost annual production of American computer science master’s degrees by 8 percent,” the Harvard researchers concluded.
www.ledger-enquirer.com
Columbus State receives its first patent
http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/news/local/education/article105862712.html
BY MARK RICE
Columbus State University has received its first patent in the institution’s 58-year history. A team of CSU researchers in the TSYS School of Computer Science developed software that produced a new tool for training military and emergency personnel to make good decisions. It’s called CM-TDSS, the Cognitive Map-based Tactical Decision Support System. The official patent name is CMDST (Cognitive Map-based Decision Simulation for Training). CSU computer science professor Shamim Khan, the project’s principal investigator, laughed as he explained why his team came up with those names. “If you tried to describe what it is and what it does,” he said during an interview with the Ledger-Enquirer in his office last week, “eventually you have all the words put together.” No wonder the project team simply calls it “the system” for short.