University System News:
www.jacksonville.com
Georgia assistant provost to serve as interim president of College of Coastal Georgia
By Terry Dickson
A high-ranking University of Georgia official has been named to serve as interim president of College of Coastal Georgia come July 1 when current President Gregory Aloia retires. University System of Georgia Chancellor Steve Wrigley named Margaret A. Amstutz to the interim presidency Monday. She is the associate provost for academic programs at UGa and had previously served 10 years as assistant to the UGa president followed by six years as chief of staff. “Meg brings a great depth of experience in both academics and administration in public higher education that will serve the students, faculty and staff of the College of Coastal Georgia extremely well,” Wrigley said in a prepared statement. “We appreciate Meg’s commitment to the University System of Georgia, and we thank the Brunswick community for its generous support of the College of Coastal Georgia,” he said.
www.onlineathens.com
Loran Smith: Harry Downs was committed to education
http://onlineathens.com/features/2017-01-21/loran-smith-harry-downs-was-committed-education#
By Loran Smith
There were so many facets to Harry Downs’ altruistic life, with his becoming accomplished at any activity or interest he pursued, it was a challenge to determine what he was best at over his 91 years. A native of Conyers, he principally was an educator who was familiar with the needs and wants of small-town classrooms filled with kids from austere upbringings to dealing with multimillion-dollar budgets for the University System of Georgia. Perhaps his friend Jim Minter, former editor of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, said it best when he noted that the one negative in Harry’s life was that “he did not become president of the University of Georgia.” Harry never sought such a position, but Minter was saying that Harry running the state university would have moved Georgia faster and farther on the road to excellence with his leadership and cogent management style. Once when the three of us were having lunch, Jim brought up that omission on the regents’ part, and Harry almost choked on his salad. A modest man, Harry was embarrassed by Minter’s lament, regarding Minter’s alma mater. Minter, however, never retreated from his stance of “what might have been” if such an appointment had come Harry’s way. Harry did advance the idea that a campus should be created in Morrow, which led to what is now Clayton State. It began as a junior college and today has an enrollment of over 7,000. Harry was pleased with the rapid growth of the college, which offered convenient educational opportunities for boys and girls in the counties which were, figuratively speaking, a stone’s throw from metropolitan Atlanta. Harry reveled in the environment where the institution is located. Clayton State sits peacefully on 192 acres of wooded grounds. There are five lakes which give the campus a refreshing atmosphere any time of the year. What Harry enjoyed most was Spivey Hall which, upon opening, presented a variety of musical options including jazz and classical selections. He was an aficionado of the Big-Band era. He and his wife, Melba, took great delight in bringing friends to concerts on campus.
www.tiftongazette.com
ABAC hosts town hall addressing merger
By Eve Guevara
TIFTON — Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College will host a town hall meeting 11 a.m. Jan. 23 regarding the planned merger between ABAC and Bainbridge State College. The town hall will be held in Howard Auditorium on ABAC campus and is open to students, faculty, staff and community members. ABAC president David Bridges and BSC interim president Stuart Rayfield will be present along with representatives from the University System of Georgia. Questions can be submitted prior to the event by emailing consolidation@abac.edu. Questions will be taken at the town hall as well.
www.wtvy.com
Bainbridge State College to merge with A-BAC
http://www.wtvy.com/content/news/Bainbridge-State-College-to-merge-with-A-BAC–411599245.html
By Dillon Huffman
Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College in Tifton, or A-BAC will be consolidated with Bainbridge State College. A town hall meeting this evening gave people a chance to talk about the change. Students… Teachers… And community members came out to the town hall on Monday night at Bainbridge to hear the plans for consolidation with A-BAC “This is an exciting time in history for Bainbridge, I think its bitter sweet for many of you, but at the end of the day I think the opportunities that students will get as a result will be a tremendous benefit” The plan to combine Bainbridge and A-BAC is still in the early stages. The accrediting team gave the schools approval to begin the planning process. Leaders hope to be finished by the end of 2017.
www.savannahnow.com
Georgia Southern students attend Statesboro town hall meeting on university merger
By Will Peebles
Representatives from the University System of Georgia and the presidents of Armstrong State University and Georgia Southern University met at GSU on Thursday to field questions about the upcoming merger of the two schools. A crowd of about 150 piled into GSU’s Performing Arts Center to watch four panelists answer questions previously submitted online about the merger. The panel was composed of Linda M. Bleicken, ASU president; Jaimie Hebert, GSU president; Shelley Nickel, USG executive vice chancellor for Strategy and Fiscal Affairs; and John Fuchko, USG vice chancellor for Organizational Effectiveness. Nickel was the first to address the audience. The GSU-Armstrong merger is the eighth merger she has been involved with, and she told the crowd how hard the process was. “It takes its toll on you. Consolidations are very difficult,” she said. “They take help from every one of you that are sitting in this room and those of you who are not here as well. They are something you will be asked to do on top of your day-to-day job, so get ready for a whirlwind.” Nickel said the first step in the consolidation would be forming a Consolidation Implementation Committee, a group made up of 20 people from each campus, as well as both university presidents. This will start “in a few days or weeks,” Nickel said. The CIC will meet with USG Chancellor Steve Wrigley in Atlanta to discuss expectations. The CIC will then return to their respective campuses and form working groups, which would focus on the more specific changes to the new GSU — admissions, financial aid, tuition, curriculum, the location of degree programs and more. “All of you are welcome to be a part of that because it does take a whole village to make that work,” Nickel said. Bleicken and Hebert spoke to the crowd about the amount of respect they had for each other and their respective universities and expressed hope for the future of the new GSU.
www.savannahnow.com
‘A long way to go’: Packed house at Armstrong for consolidation meeting
By Dash Coleman
A packed meeting at Armstrong State University began with tensions Thursday evening when a University System of Georgia official’s suggestion that the attendees were “very interested in the future of and the creation of a new university in this region” was met with boos and jeers. It was a moment that prompted the meeting’s moderator and Armstrong President Linda Bleicken to ask the audience to try to keep emotions in check. “Thank you for understandably showing your passion for Armstrong,” Bleicken said. “Thank you also for showing your very best Armstrong faces. This is a hospitable place … and part of our hospitality, of course, is always going to be extended to guests.” At issue was the USG’s push to combine Armstrong and Georgia Southern University, which is more than 50 miles away in Statesboro. Under the process, which the USG refers to as consolidation, Armstrong will inherit both Georgia Southern’s name and president. The combined institution would be the state’s fourth largest public university, with about 27,000 students. It’s a move the USG claims will have a positive impact on the economy and ultimately expand opportunities for college students in southeast Georgia. It’s also a move that’s been met with small protests on Armstrong’s campus and vocal objection by many of its students and alumni. Since the decision was made last week in a unanimous vote by the USG’s Board of Regents, details about the extent of coming changes in academic, employment and athletic programs have been scant. On Thursday, officials tried to ease some of those concerns, but it was clear many aspects of the process are still in the air. “We do not have every answer,” Bleicken said. “For some of you, that’s probably very disturbing. For some of you, that’s probably pretty good because it does give us an opportunity to work this out over the coming months, and that’s what we need to do. “What we know is that neither Armstrong nor Georgia Southern will stay the same.”
www.thegeorgeanne.com
GS Basketball player nominated for Allstate Good Works Team
http://www.thegeorgeanne.com/news/article_d7f01254-e1bb-11e6-b6cc-abf21d8036fa.html
Brendan Ward The George-Anne staff
Georgia Southern University basketball forward, Shawn O’Connell is a nominee for the Allstate Good Works Team. The Allstate Good Works Team honors college athletes at all levels for their community service and leadership both on and off the playing field. O’Connell’s charitable work includes:
www.saportareport.com
Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter to receive Georgia Tech’s 2017 Ivan Allen Prize
http://saportareport.com/jimmy-rosalynn-carter-receive-georgia-techs-2017-ivan-allen-prize/
By Maria Saporta
The prestigious Ivan Allen Jr. Prize for Social Courage will be awarded to Georgia’s own – Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter. The prize was announced Friday by Georgia Tech President Bud Peterson. It is the first time that the Ivan Allen Jr. Prize is being awarded to a couple rather than an individual. They are being recognized for their partnership, courage and collaboration to improve human rights and alleviate suffering around the world. Over the span of more than four decades their work has focused on improving health, preventing and resolving conflicts and enhancing freedom and democracy.
www.cnbc.com
Law schools with the highest return on investment
Tom Anderson
The average law school graduate has more than $140,000 in student loan debt by the time they earn their degree. So picking a program that offers a high salary and a good return on investment is critical. Online lender SoFi, a CNBC Disruptor, rated law schools based on verified salary and debt from more than 60,000 people who applied to refinance their student loans with the company from 2014 to 2016. While elite schools still dominate SoFi’s rankings with high average salaries, lesser-known programs, such as Brigham Young University, offered graduates a better value when you consider salary-to-debt ratios. …Harvard and Yale were top contenders on the list, but so were less prestigious law schools such as the University of Houston and the University of Georgia. (See list below.)
www.savannahnow.com
Automated microscopes aid crucial ocean work at Skidaway
http://savannahnow.com/news/2017-01-20/automated-microscopes-aid-crucial-ocean-work-skidaway
By Mary Landers
Large charismatic animals get all the attention, but UGA Skidaway Institute researcher Liz Harvey says it’s time to throw a little love toward tiny, inconspicuous plankton. “They’re responsible for every other breath you take,” she said. “Half of the oxygen in the world comes from phytoplankton. Beyond all other things, if you like to breathe, you should be concerned with their well-being.” Harvey is. Phytoplankton are her main research subject. And that research is getting a boost with state-of-the-art imaging equipment that will allow researchers to more easily investigate microorganisms from the tiniest viruses to larger zooplankton. The equipment automates many viewing methods. “Anyone who uses a microscope will tell you that it is both tedious and time-consuming,” Harvey said. “This equipment will allow us to enumerate and analyze microbes and other planktonic organisms much faster, and will allow us to do more large-scale projects than we could in the past.” That’s important when you realize there can be thousands of phytoplankton in a single drop of sea water. With a normal microscope, researchers have to look at and count each particle. …Harvey heads up a team of researchers from the University of Georgia Skidaway Institute of Oceanography that’s received a $226,557 grant from the National Science Foundation to acquire the computer-assisted microscopes, which will be housed in UGA Skidaway Institute’s new Laboratory for Imaging Microbial Ecology, or LIME. Harvey leads the research team that also includes UGA Skidaway Institute scientists Julia Diaz, Marc Frischer, James Nelson and James Sanders.
www.news.wabe.org
Augusta Cybersecurity Center Could Boost Metro Atlanta
http://news.wabe.org/post/augusta-cybersecurity-center-could-boost-metro-atlanta
By DAVE WILLIAMS & URVAKSH KARKARIA
A proposed $50 million state-owned cybersecurity innovation center would be built in Augusta, nearly 150 miles from Atlanta’s rapidly growing cyber hub. Despite that distance, enthusiastic Atlanta-based cybersecurity industry executives say the halo effect of a state-backed research and training hub will pay dividends for Atlanta’s cybersecurity sector by driving private investment to the sector, attracting cyber companies and nurturing home-grown startups. The new cyber center will focus on several missions, including education, training and research and development. It also will be an incubator hub for cybersecurity startups … The center will train Georgia teachers in cyber instruction aimed at elementary and secondary school students, said Calvin Rhodes, executive director of the Georgia Technology Authority (GTA), the state agency coordinating the initiative. At the college level, the center will supplement cyber courses taught on campuses across the state including Georgia Tech and Kennesaw State University, he said. The new center will also provide cybersecurity training to state employees, a need at agencies increasingly susceptible to cyber crime.
www.globalatlanta.com
UGA App Helps Attract Grant to Help African Poultry Farmers
FeedMix helps African farmers and is partially responsible for $21.4 million allocated for Tanzania and Nigeria
Phil Bolton
An app developed at the University of Georgia is partially responsible for the Jan 23 announcement that the World Poultry Foundation has been awarded a four-year $21.4 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to enhance poultry production in Africa. Justin Fowler, an assistant professor in the UGA Poultry Science Department, released the FeedMix app last year to help farmers mix the right ratio of feed ingredients needed to maintain a healthy flock. Randall Ennis, CEO of the World Poultry Foundation, told Global Atlanta that Dr. Fowler developed the app after working with the Ghana Association of Poultry Farmers in 2016. He said that the World Poultry Foundation had been working for several years on developing appropriate feeding programs for poultry raised in rural Africa and counted the new app, which it helped fund, among the results of its efforts. “We’re thrilled about the grant, of course,” he added, “but really we’re most excited about the program.”
www.bizjournals.com
Georgia Senate bill aimed at maximizing lottery funds to HOPE
Dave Williams
Staff Writer, Atlanta Business Chronicle
Georgia Senate Republican leaders introduced legislation Monday aimed at ensuring the Georgia Lottery sends as much money to support education as possible without jeopardizing ticket sales. Senate Bill 5, sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Bill Cowsert, R-Athens, would require the lottery to return 26 percent of gross sales to the state in fiscal year 2018. As is the case now, the state’s portion of lottery revenues would go to the HOPE Scholarships and pre-kindergarten programs.
www.onlineathens.com
Bill filed in Georgia House would limit role universities could play in investigating crimes
By Jim Thompson
University System of Georgia officials are monitoring a state legislative proposal that would limit the role universities and colleges can play in investigating alleged campus rapes and disciplining alleged rapists. House Bill 51, sponsored by Rep. Earl Ehrhart, R-Powder Springs and three other Republican lawmakers, including Rep. Regina Quick, R-Athens, would require any official or employee of a postsecondary institution who receives information that a felony has occurred on campus, or was perpetrated by or against a student, to report the alleged incident to the appropriate local law enforcement agency, including campus police, or to the local district attorney. As written, the law would apply to the state’s public colleges and universities and also to a number of private institutions eligible to receive state tuition equalization grants.
Higher Education News:
www.chronicle.com
The Idea That Launched a Thousand Strategic Plans
By Dan Berrett
A single idea has come to shape colleges’ plans for the future and assumptions about their role and purpose. It’s called the skills gap. Simply put, the skills gap is when industries have jobs to fill but can’t find workers with the skills needed to fill them. For colleges, the implication is that this gap is their fault, that they aren’t teaching the right things, and that they aren’t being responsive to businesses’ needs. The term is invoked so often that its victims have become familiar types: the out-of-work welder trying to skill up, the English major working as a barista, the graduate of a music program paying thousands of dollars to attend a boot camp to learn how to code. The skills gap, which has been tallied at as many as five million jobs, is also thought to bedevil employers who would step up their hiring if only they could find people with the right skills. Though the idea may hold intuitive appeal, its very existence has been questioned, and it has been plagued by fuzzy definitions. It’s not always clear which skills, specifically, are lacking.
www.hechingerreport.org
What’s happening beyond the public eye in the Dept. of Education?
How a key process works
http://hechingerreport.org/whats-happening-beyond-public-eye-dept-education/
by REBECCA NATOW
Here’s the question everyone’s asking: Will the new administration’s education department spur states toward voucher programs and relax regulation of for-profit higher ed? Maybe the question should not be if these changes would be made, but how. And that’s why more attention should be paid to one of the most important and direct mechanisms the department may use to change policy: the rulemaking process. “Rulemaking” refers to the process through which a government agency creates regulations that administer programs and implement legislation. When statutory provisions are vague or key terms in legislation are undefined, this gives departments an opportunity to step in and define those terms or provide specific directions as to how legislation should be implemented. Although the rulemaking process is rarely front-and-center in the eye of the general public, it is a process that gives the executive branch substantial power. For this reason, the process has been quite controversial, and the so-called “iron triangle” of legislators, interest groups, and agency personnel stay well-versed in the process so they can exert their influence when it touches their interests.
www.insidehighered.com
Student Government Leaders Call on Trump to Continue DACA
By Elizabeth Redden
More than 50 student government presidents have signed a letter to President Trump asking him to continue the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, under which more than 700,000 young people who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children, many of them now college students, have obtained the right to work and temporary protection from deportation. Trump has said he would end the program, created under President Obama’s executive authority, although the White House chief of staff told Fox News Sunday this weekend that the president wants to work with legislators “to get a long-term solution on that issue.” The letter also urges Trump to continue visas for international students as well as H-1B visas, which for some international students provide a route to staying and working in the U.S. after graduation but which Trump has criticized as a “cheap labor program” ripe for abuse. During the campaign Trump at one point proposed banning all Muslims from entering the country and subsequently said he would temporarily suspend visa processing for certain countries “that have a history of exporting terrorism” in order to put in place new screening procedures — what he called “extreme vetting.”