University System News:
www.ledger-enquirer.com
Downtown braces for parking impact as Columbus State expansion opens
http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/news/local/article111889602.html
BY CHUCK WILLIAMS
Those who park in downtown Columbus are bracing for the impact certain to come when Columbus State University relocates a large portion of its College of Education and Health Professions early next year. A new $27 million complex at the former Ledger-Enquirer site at the corner of Broadway and 12th Street is scheduled to open to students on Jan. 9 when the Spring semester begins. The university hopes to begin moving faculty and staff into the building, a combination of new construction and renovation of the historic newspaper offices, in December, said John Lester, CSU associate vice president for university and government relations.
www.wtoc.com
ABAC works toward offering Ag Ed degree
http://www.wtoc.com/story/33542300/abac-works-toward-offering-ag-ed-degree
By Mike Fussell, Reporter
TIFTON, GA (WALB) – Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College in Tifton is on track to offer a new degree next year. School officials said the program in Ag Education will fill a big gap in the workforce. It might be hard to picture a classroom without a teacher, but, when it comes to ag education, instructors aren’t as easy to come by as you might think. “There’s been a shortage of Ag teachers in the state of Georgia in the Southeast for many years,” Jerry Baker, Dean of the School of Agriculture and Natural Resources, said. “Over thirty years in Georgia.” Only two universities in the state were approved to hand out ag ed degrees before October making it even hard to fill that gap. ABAC freshman Sadie Lackey said that has impacted organizations such as Future Farmers of America. “There is about fifty openings every year for ag education teachers,” Lackey said. “Those do not all get filled. So, there is a lot of programs that lack the most important resource of an ag ed program, which is an educator.” So, to help solve the problem, ABAC is on track to launch a Bachelors of Science in Agricultural Education program. Regents have already given it the green light. The school will begin to work with a state education agency next week to get a program ready by Fall 2017.
www.ledger-enquirer.com
More higher education accolades
http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/opinion/article111869402.html
BY DUSTY NIX
So it turns out that Columbus is home to not just one, but two documentably distinguished institutions of higher education. Just a day after the news that Columbus Technical College had been placed in the top tier of Georgia’s two-year schools in a national ranking of affordable online higher education opportunities, we learn that Columbus State University has been so distinguished as well. The same nonprofit rating site, AffordableCollegesOnline.org, has rated CSU at the very top — No. 1 — among Georgia four-year public and not-for-profit private colleges and universities which “offered the most notable balances of academic rigor, student support and affordability for online learning,” as described on the AC Online website. …By those metrics, CSU scored a near-perfect 99.78 to rank ahead of Brenau, Shorter, Albany State and Truett-McConnell College, all of which scored above 99 except Truett-McConnell (at 98.99, so rounding up one-one hundredth of a point isn’t unreasonable.)
www.athensceo.com
UGA Vice President for Information Technology Wins Leadership Award
Staff Report From Athens CEO
Timothy M. Chester, UGA vice president for information technology, is the 2016 recipient of the EDUCAUSE Community Leadership Award. EDUCAUSE is a nonprofit association and community of IT leaders and professionals for higher education. The Community Leadership Award, which is presented annually, recognizes community leaders and active volunteers in professional service to the higher education IT community. “This is a well-deserved honor for Dr. Chester,” said UGA President Jere W. Morehead. “Our academic community benefits in so many ways from his expertise and leadership in information technology, and we congratulate him on this national recognition.”
www.mdjonline.com
Olens starts at KSU; Silent campus protests continue
Mary Kate McGowan
KENNESAW — As Sam Olens began his first day as president of Kennesaw State University on Tuesday, about 100 students and faculty protested on the campus green. Protesters have objected that he was hired without a national search and are angry about his litigation against same-sex marriage in his role as attorney general. By contrast, a wide range of community leaders —from Cobb NAACP president Deane Bonner to Cobb Chamber of Commerce CEO David Connell — have praised the appointment of Olens as president. University officials said Olens spent his first day on the job with various members of the KSU community and plans to address the school’s graduation rate, need-based student scholarships and faculty support during his first months in the office.
www.bizjournals.com
Olens promises KSU focus on graduation rate, need-based student scholarships
Sam Olens on Tuesday took the reins of Kennesaw State University, promising a focus on improving the graduation rate, need-based student scholarships, and faculty support. Olens was named the fourth president of KSU on Oct. 12 by the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia. “Over the past few weeks, I have had the opportunity to meet with student leaders and faculty members,” Olens said. ” Based on those conversations, I believe that we share many of the same goals for Kennesaw State, and we will continue to build on those commonalities as we work together — faculty, staff and students — to further the mission and goals of the university. At the end of the day, a university is about the students. That means making sure students can afford to attend college, assisting them so that they graduate on time and providing faculty with the tools and support they need to help our students achieve their goals.”
www.insidehighered.com
‘First Step’ Toward More Digital Undergrad Experience
Georgia Tech, having enrolled thousands of students in its well-regarded online master’s degree program in computer science, expands its experiments with low-cost online education for undergraduates.
By Carl Straumsheim
The Georgia Institute of Technology is expanding its model of low-cost online computer science education to undergraduates. The institute on Tuesday said it has partnered with massive open online course provider edX and McGraw-Hill Education to offer a fully online introductory coding course. Initially, the course will be available to anyone as a MOOC with an optional $99 identity-verified certificate. After piloting the course next spring among its own students, Georgia Tech intends to offer another incentive for completion: college credit… “I still think that the on-campus program and living, learning, maturing socially and otherwise getting out of home — all these aspects — make college very important,” Galil said. “I’m not a big proponent of replacing the college. I’m a proponent of substituting some pieces that will be maybe 20-25 percent of the college degree. That is a dream, and it may take time. We are now doing the first step.”
www.ajc.com
Online courses work for Tech’s mid-career students, research says
Ty Tagami – The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It’s still the early days of online schooling, and the research is mixed about whether it will usher in a new era of affordable education, as enthusiasts hope. While it’s returned questionable results in some settings, low cost is driving demand — and it has proved effective in at least one sector: older, motivated students pursuing a technical advanced degree. A new paper, “Can Online Delivery Increase Access to Education?” by researchers at Harvard and Georgia Tech takes a look at Tech’s online master’s degree in computer science. It reports earlier findings that online students “slightly outperformed” in-person students on final exams and reaches its own conclusion that there is large demand for such flexible online programs, especially among mid-career professionals juggling work and family life. “Online education can provide mid-career training without forcing individuals to quit their jobs or move to locations with appropriate educational institutions,” the researchers wrote. They also found that online students, who are older on average, were sticking with the program instead of dropping out. “This model of online education thus has the potential to substantially increase the national stock of computer science human capital.”
www.news-medical.net
UGA researchers find new way to improve cancer-killing power of chemotherapy
University of Georgia researchers have found a way to enhance chemotherapy’s cancer-killing powers, bringing science one step closer to a more complete cancer treatment. Chemotherapy’s ultimate goal is to destroy a person’s cancer, but one common type of the treatment known as antimicrotubule chemotherapy has the tendency to let cancer cells slip through at the exact time that it’s supposed to kill them–during the cell division phase known as mitosis. These dividing cells leave through a process known as mitotic slippage. It’s here that UGA researchers have targeted their studies–in understanding how mitotic slippage occurs and how to prevent it. According to the study published Oct. 24 in the Journal of Cell Biology, they found a drug combination that caused 100 percent mitotic cell death, thereby significantly improving the killing efficiency of antimicrotubule chemotherapy drugs.
www.bizjournals.com
GSU study: male and female brains regulate social behavior differently
Ellie Hensley
Staff Writer, Atlanta Business Chronicle
Scientists from Georgia State University may have just discovered the reason men are famously poor at reading female social cues, and it has nothing to do with being from Mars or Venus. According to a team of Georgia State University researchers, the brain regulates social behavior differently for males versus females. Serotonin (5-HT) and arginine-vasopressin (AVP), which influence aggression and dominance, were found to act in opposite ways in males and females. This finding may influence the development of more effective gender-specific treatment strategies for stress-related neuropsychiatric disorders. These disorders often present differently for males versus females. Women have higher rates of depression and anxiety disorders like post-traumatic stress disorders, and men more frequently suffer from autism and attention deficit disorders. The team hypothesized that 5-HT promotes and AVP inhibits aggression and dominance in females, but in males, 5-HT inhibits and AVP promotes aggression and dominance. This means there is a possibility that stress-related disorders like PTSD may be better treated with 5-HT targeted drugs for women and AVP-targeted drugs for men.
Higher Education News:
www.chronicle.com
Spellings Says UNC Has Been ‘Murky’ on Accountability
Margaret Spellings, president, U. of North Carolina system
By Sarah Brown
Margaret Spellings took the University of North Carolina’s top job under a cloud of controversy. Her predecessor, Thomas W. Ross, was pushed out by the university system’s board last year, and the search that resulted in her hiring provoked outrage for lacking transparency. Three weeks after she started as the system’s president, the state legislature enacted House Bill 2, a widely panned law that affects transgender people and that landed UNC in the middle of a legal scuffle.
www.insidehighered.com
More Than Words
Princeton general-education proposal would require all students — even those already proficient in a foreign language — to study a language other than English. Most of the shrinking number of institutions with requirements let students test out of them.
By Colleen Flaherty
Many colleges and universities no longer require foreign language study as part of a general education. And those institutions that do require it tend to allow students with proficiency in a language other than English to test out of course work, an option that is used by many. So a new proposal from Princeton University that all undergraduates study a foreign language, regardless of existing proficiency, stands out. “Our current requirements treat foreign language as something of a skill, which sets it apart from the other requirements that emphasize the importance of different, largely disciplinary, ways of knowing,” reads a new report from Princeton’s Task Force on General Education. “Although learning another language does involve skill and proficiency, we also see language as a critical point of entry into cross-cultural understanding.” The task force is currently seeking feedback on this proposal and others related to general education. The proposals must be approved by administrators, faculty committees and, eventually, the full faculty to become policy.
www.chronicle.com
Ride-Sharing Services and Boundary-Blurring Buildings: A Vision of the Future Campus
By Goldie Blumenstyk
Once upon a time, campus buildings had clearly delineated missions that rarely overlapped. As Lauren Scranton, a campus-planning expert, puts it: “This is where you sleep. This is where you go to class.” That appears to be changing, and technology is often the catalyst. Look no further than what’s happening to college libraries: These days they’re designed to be social hubs as much as book repositories. That got Ms. Scranton, knowledge and innovation leader in the Spokane, Wash., offices of NAC Architecture, wondering: “Is the residential-education experience going to go away? If not, what will it look like in 10, 15, 20 years?