University System News:
www.time.com
The 25 Best Public Colleges for Big Paychecks
http://time.com/money/4748643/public-colleges-best-return-on-investment-2017/
Kaitlin Mulhere
Economists have repeatedly shown that higher education pays off on average—that is, that most college graduates end up earning so much more than those who didn’t attend college, that they make back the cost of tuition, and typically get a six-figure “return on investment” by their mid 40s. But the size of an individual student’s payoff varies wildly depending on the student’s major, the quality of the college and the price they paid for school. That’s why a new analysis finds that it’s not just the famous (and expensive) private schools that deliver the biggest financial return for your tuition dollars … Five of the schools on the following list actually make it into the top 20 even when considering that higher cost. Most of those colleges—Colorado School of Mines, Georgia Institute of Technology, University of California-Berkeley, California Polytechnic University-San Luis Obispo, and the University of California-San Diego—are known for their successful science and technology departments … (#2) Georgia Institute of Technology.

www.metroatlantaceo.com
GFB Ag Foundation Awards 30 Scholarship Totaling $58,500
http://metroatlantaceo.com/news/2017/04/gfb-ag-foundation-awards-30-scholarship-totaling-58500/
Staff Report From Georgia CEO
Thanks to the Georgia Farm Bureau Foundation for Agriculture, 30 students across the state will receive a total of $58,500 for the 2017-2018 academic year to pursue degrees related to agriculture, forestry and natural resources or family and consumer sciences. The scholarships recognize outstanding students who have excelled academically and exhibited a committed interest to pursuing a career in agriculture, forestry and natural resources, family and consumer sciences or a closely related field. The scholarships will be awarded to graduating high school seniors headed to college or a technical college, rising college juniors and seniors and students enrolled in the University of Georgia College of Veterinary Medicine who plan to care for livestock and other farm animals. …Five students preparing to enter college as freshmen at the University of Georgia College of Agricultural & Environmental Sciences or Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College were selected for the Scholarship for Agriculture at $3,000 each

www.albanyceo.com
Albany State University Receives National Accreditation
http://albanyceo.com/news/2017/04/albany-state-university-receives-national-accreditation/
Staff Report From Albany CEO
The Albany State University forensic science program received reaffirmation of accreditation through 2022 by the Forensic Science Education Programs Accreditation Commission, making it the only FEPAC accredited program in the state of Georgia. The Commission noted that the ASU Bachelor of Science degree in forensic science meets FEPAC’s rigorous principles of excellence, according to Zachariah Oommen, professor and director of the forensic science program.

www.sgamag.com
Expanding the Pipeline: ABAC Moves Forward in Agricultural Education

Expanding the Pipeline: ABAC Moves Forward in Agricultural Education

by Thressea Boyd
Agriculture continues to grow as Georgia’s No. 1 industry, with an annual economic impact of more than $74 billion and 411,500 employees. Keeping the state supplied with future employees is a tremendous task.
Dr. David Bridges, president of ABAC, has known for many years that Georgia would need more agricultural education teachers to meet the industry’s workforce demands. In 2016, President Bridges felt it was time to add agricultural education to ABAC’s current bachelor’s degree offerings in agriculture, environmental horticulture, natural resource management, biology, business and economic development, nursing, and rural studies. With approval from the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia, ABAC has started the process to establish a Bachelor of Science in agricultural education, with plans to accept students to the program during the 2017-2018 academic year. “The State of Georgia has had a deficit of vocational agriculture teachers for 30 years,” said President Bridges. “Thanks to the positive vote from the Board of Regents, we are now in a unique position to provide a solution to that problem.”

www.wmbfnews.com
Albany ‘Get Fit’ initiative kicks off
http://www.wmbfnews.com/story/35206009/albany-get-fit-initiative-kicks-off
By Mike Fussell, Reporter
South Georgians got active this evening as part of a new initiative in Albany. The ‘Get Fit’ campaign aims to make those in the community a little healthier by encouraging them to exercise. Those attending event nights can run, walk, ride bikes or do whatever they’d like with the group downtown. The City and Albany State University kicked off the campaign Thursday in front of the Government Center. “There was some literature that was put out where we in Southwest Georgia are not as healthy as we should be,” Cynthia Evers, the interim Vice President of Student Affairs at ASU, said. “So, the students kind of just got together and thought this would be an opportunity to not only get healthy, but also just engage ourselves into the City of Albany.”

www.wbtv.com
Military Appreciation Day at Armstrong State University
http://www.wbtv.com/story/35203697/military-appreciation-day-at-armstrong-state-university
By WTOC Staff
It’s military appreciation day at Armstrong State University! The school’s Student Veterans of America chapter welcomed active military members and veterans to campus Thursday afternoon. It’s the second year for the event, and organizers say it’s only gotten bigger. “One of the things that motivates me to continue this is that we’ve got a lot of veterans who are getting out of the military and coming to school. We still all have the ability to serve. Maybe not in uniform, and that’s kind of what this is about,” said David Woods II, the president of Student Veterans of America at Armstrong.

www.timesenterprise.com
SRTC, Mercer University sign articulation agreement for nursing program
http://www.timesenterprise.com/news/local_news/srtc-mercer-university-sign-articulation-agreement-for-nursing-program/article_fe48850d-93cf-5771-a9e2-412bdaf7cbe1.html
Articulation agreements such as this are becoming increasingly more common between TCSG and USG affiliated schools. For instance, SRTC currently has standing agreements for specified programs with Albany State University, Georgia Military College, Thomas University and Valdosta State University. Additionally, there is a statewide agreement between TCSG and USG schools for transferability of over 27 general education (core) courses. To learn more about SRTC’s articulation agreements visit http://southernregional.edu/academics/transfer-agreements.

www.bloomberg.com
How a Gift of Coke Shares Helped Make These Colleges Richer
A $7 million gift in 1953 has grown to $3 billion worth of Coca-Cola stock.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-20/how-a-gift-of-coke-shares-helped-make-these-colleges-richer
by Janet Lorin
College endowments are increasingly complex. To stretch for higher returns and take advantage of their long time horizons, university money managers bet on hedge fund strategies, venture capital, emerging markets, and commodities. Many of the largest endowments hardly bother with U.S. stocks. Yet a few Southern U.S. colleges lean on a distinctly old-school investment: a single blue chip stock that’s paid out a consistently growing dividend … Instead, they are tied to the fortunes of Atlanta-based Coca-Cola Co. through the Lettie Pate Evans Foundation, which holds the stock in trust for the schools and has provided them with hundreds of millions of dollars in dividend income over decades. The colleges count on the annual boost … Five percent goes to William & Mary. Washington and Lee gets 15 percent, and so does Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. Georgia Tech, which has almost a quarter of its $1.8 billion endowment tied to the trust, named a building after Evans. Like most recipients, the school doesn’t consider the Coke holdings when making allocation decisions in the rest of its portfolio.

www.effinghamherald.net
Georgia Southern University, Armstrong merger talks continue
http://www.effinghamherald.net/section/1/article/36847/
Staff Report Editor
University System of Georgia Chancellor Steve Wrigley has approved a new organizational chart for the top leadership of the new three-campus Georgia Southern University being formed by the merger with Armstrong State University. The chart shows that the university will have at least five vice president posts, down from eight vice presidents currently at the two universities. But a new leadership position, which may or may not carry a vice presidential title, will be created for oversight of the Armstrong campus in Savannah and the Liberty campus in Hinesville.

www.savannahceo.com
Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia Approves Mission Statement for the New Georgia Southern University
http://savannahceo.com/news/2017/04/board-regents-university-system-georgia-approves-mission-statement-new-georgia-southern-university/
Staff Report From Savannah CEO
In a vote, the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia approved the mission statement for the new Georgia Southern University. The vote was included on the agenda for the Board of Regents meeting on April 18-19 at the College of Coastal Georgia. On April 7, the Armstrong State University/Georgia Southern University Consolidation Implementation Committee supported the proposed mission statement recommended by an Operational Working Group including representatives from both universities. The approved mission statement, an essential element in the consolidation of Armstrong State University and Georgia Southern University, captures the current educational and economic development priorities and traditions of excellence of each institution to provide a foundation for building a stronger university focused on student-centered teaching and learning.

www.savannahceo.com
University System Launches Comprehensive Administrative Review
http://metroatlantaceo.com/news/2017/04/university-system-launches-comprehensive-administrative-review/
Staff Report From Georgia CEO
University System of Georgia Chancellor Steve Wrigley announced the launch of the Comprehensive Administrative Review. This is a system-wide initiative focused on improving administration through creating efficiencies, streamlining processes and finding ways to be more effective with USG resources. “The landscape of higher education has changed dramatically over the past decade,” said Wrigley. “Higher education has undergone fundamental changes in who enrolls and why, how instruction is delivered, and how it is paid for. We must ask ourselves: Are we positioned to meet the challenges of today, and are we preparing for those of tomorrow?” “The time is right for the University System to look in the mirror,” added Wrigley. “A comprehensive examination of how the System and the institutions are administered in light of the new realities in higher education will help ensure we are fulfilling our mission today and tomorrow.” The system-wide initiative will be led by a specially appointed committee comprised of representatives from USG institutions to take an in-depth look at all non-faculty administrative functions across the University System. Core faculty activities, such as teaching and research, will be exempt from the review. “I believe our institutions work hard to use resources wisely, but we can always do better, and that is what I am challenging us to do,” said Wrigley. “Ultimately, we need to offer academic excellence, but we must be efficient, too.”

www.times-herald.com
University of West Georgia to increase tuition
http://times-herald.com/news/2017/04/university-of-west-georgia-to-increase-tuition
By REBECCA LEFTWICH|
Students at the University of West Georgia will pay an extra $52 per semester beginning this fall. On Thursday, the University System of Georgia’s Board of Regents set tuition for the 2017-18 academic year. Full-time, in-state undergraduate students at UWG will see a slight rise, from $2,613 per semester to $2,665. Officials at the university said UWG works to keep its degree programs affordable and accessible. “We prioritize our needs to align with the impacts they will have on our students,” UWG President Kyle Marrero said. “Any increase in direct costs to students is weighed heavily with the critical imperative of funding increased costs in instruction and services to better meet those student needs.”

www.ledger-enquirer.com
University System of Georgia raising 2017-18 tuition after no 2016-17 increase
http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/news/local/education/article145794364.html
BY MARK RICE
Tuition will increase by 2 percent next school year at the University System of Georgia’s 28 institutions, following no increase for this school year, the state’s Board of Regents has announced. For students attending Columbus State University, this change means undergraduate tuition will increase by $3.47 per credit hour, from $174.20 to $177.67, CSU noted in a news release Thursday. For in-state students enrolled in 15 hours for a semester, a typical full-time course load, the total tuition will increase by $52, from $2,613 to $2,665. Including the increase for 2017-18, USG’s tuition has increased by an average of 2.2 percent annually during the past five years. Out of the 16 states in the Southern Regional Education Board, Georgia has now become the sixth-lowest in tuition and fees for four-year institutions, USG noted in its news release.

Higher Education News:
www.insidehigher.com
Free Speech, Safety and the Constitution
Officials at Auburn and Berkeley tried to stop two controversial speakers on campus but ended up reversing their decisions amid First Amendment concerns. Experts say it’s difficult for public institutions to meet legal tests and keep speakers from campus.
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/04/21/auburn-berkeley-incidents-illustrate-how-difficult-it-public-colleges-bar-speakers
By Jeremy Bauer-Wolf
Citing safety concerns, two universities this week attempted to block planned appearances at their campuses — one from white nationalist Richard Spencer at Auburn University, the other from conservative political commentator Ann Coulter at University of California, Berkeley. Both right-wing figures defied the universities, boasting they would show up regardless, and the institutions, both public, eventually said that they would allow the events, in Auburn’s case because a federal judge backed Spencer’s right to speak. Spencer addressed Auburn’s campus Tuesday. Coulter has been invited to appear May 2, not April 27 as originally scheduled. Berkeley on Thursday reversed its initial announcement that Coulter couldn’t come until the fall. Late Thursday, Coulter was tweeting that she was going to come on the original date, with or without the university’s approval. The decisions to cancel had been panned as a violation of free speech protections considered paramount on college campuses and protected, at public institutions, by the First Amendment.

www.chronicle.com
In Renting Out Space, Do Colleges Invite Trouble?
http://www.chronicle.com/article/In-Renting-Out-Space-Do/239842?cid=wsinglestory_hp_1
By Peter Schmidt
No one officially connected with Auburn University invited Richard Spencer to speak there. On Tuesday night, however, the university ended up hosting the prominent white supremacist anyway, thanks to a policy that let a resident of the distant Atlanta area rent an auditorium there. Auburn’s administration had attempted to cancel the speech, citing safety concerns. But Cameron Padgett, the auditorium renter, had challenged that decision in U.S. District Court as a violation of his First Amendment rights, and Judge W. Keith Watkins on Tuesday ordered the public university to let the event proceed. Texas A&M University found itself in a similar position last fall, as a result of a policy that let an outsider rent a room in its student center so Mr. Spencer could speak there. Rather than trying to cancel the speech, which they held to be protected under the U.S. Constitution, administrators there beefed up security and simultaneously staged an “Aggies United” event in the football stadium to help defuse tensions.

www.ajc.com
Alt-right targeting colleges, experts say. Is Georgia prepared?
http://www.ajc.com/news/state–regional/alt-right-targeting-colleges-experts-say-georgia-prepared/BOh5TLWRww8570CNFNNmiP/
Chris Joyner
In March the Georgia Board of Regents adopted a system-wide “freedom of expression” policy limiting outside speakers and large demonstrations to specifically designated campus areas as a way of handling protests. But it’s unclear if that policy would provide any protection against the type of speech that roiled the Auburn University campus Tuesday when white supremacist Richard Spencer spoke in a rented campus auditorium.

www.myajc.com
Are Georgia colleges ready for alt-right rallies?
http://www.myajc.com/news/state–regional/are-georgia-colleges-ready-for-alt-right-rallies/o6weRkk39dTFCLqxnq9UMJ/
By Chris Joyner
… Georgia take note: This show is on tour and could be coming our way. The Anti-Defamation League claims white supremacists, “emboldened by the 2016 elections and current political climate,” are targeting college campuses around the nation. The ADL has cataloged more than 100 instances of such groups “fliering” campuses since last September, with the bulk of them coming since January. It’s already happened to a limited extent in Georgia. White nationalist leaflets have been found at the University of Georgia and there is an ongoing paper war of racist and counter-racist fliers around the Georgia State University campus in downtown Atlanta … It is difficult to determine if Georgia will be more or less successful. In March, the Board of Regents adopted a new “freedom of expression” policy that shepherds demonstrations into “public forum areas” if the speaker is not enrolled or employed by the university system or if the demonstration involves a large group. The policy explicitly states “content or viewpoint” cannot be a consideration when determining how to handle a speaker. It’s unclear if this rule would apply to a person like Spencer, who rented a space on campus and would hardly consider his presentation a demonstration.

www.diverseducation.com
Report: Colleges’ Reliance on Tuition Revenue Growing
http://diverseeducation.com/article/95594/?utm_campaign=DIV1704%20DAILY%20NEWSLETTER%20APR21&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Eloqua
by Jamaal Abdul-Alim
Colleges and universities experienced a 1.8 percent decrease in funding at the state and local level in 2016 — part of a downward trend that has led students and families to shoulder a larger portion of the cost of higher education, a new report released Thursday shows. The report — produced by the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association and titled “State Higher Education Finance” — states total state and local appropriations topped $90 billion, down slightly from the previous year, although more money went to student financial aid. The report suggests things would not have been so bad and that state and local support would have actually increased by 3.2 percent were it not for Illinois, which the report notes cut its support by a “staggering 80 percent.”

www.politico.com
Sessions: ‘We can’t promise’ DREAMers won’t be deported
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/04/jeff-sessions-dreams-deported-237369
By TED HESSON
Attorney General Jeff Sessions could not promise that so-called DREAMers, or participants in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, will not be deported, when he was interviewed Wednesday morning on Fox News. Sessions fielded questions from host Jenna Lee about an undocumented immigrant who claims he was deported to Mexico despite his enrollment in the program, which was created through administrative action during the Obama administration. The program allows undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. at a young age to apply for deportation relief and work permits. In a federal lawsuit filed Tuesday, Juan Manuel Montes, a 23-year-old enrollee in the program, claimed he was sent to Mexico in February despite active DACA status. “DACA enrollees are not being targeted,” Sessions said on Fox. “I don’t know why this individual was picked up.” But when pressed, Sessions said, “The policy is that if people are here unlawfully, they’re subject to being deported.” “We can’t promise people who are here unlawfully that they’re not going to be deported,” Sessions added.

www.diverseducation.com
FosterClub Working to Keep Foster Youth on College Success Path
http://diverseeducation.com/article/95599/?utm_campaign=DIV1704%20DAILY%20NEWSLETTER%20APR21&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Eloqua
by Catherine Morris
Of all demographic groups attending college, perhaps none are as vulnerable as students who have experienced foster care. According to recent studies, only 3 percent of youth who have lived in foster care ever complete a degree. It is important to note that comprehensive data on college outcomes among students who have experienced foster care is notoriously hard to come by. …FosterClub is a national support network for current and former foster youth with a membership of approximately 32,000. Most members are between the ages of 14 to 24, meaning that education is a high-priority topic for many, according to Bodner. “In our years of working with young people, we have realized that there’s a great disparity when it comes to young people from foster care who plan or dream of going to college, and those who actually do,” Bodner said. While FosterClub has not polled its membership on their college-going aspirations, Bodner pointed to a survey that found that 70 percent of 17-year-old youth in foster care wanted to go to college. “Seventeen is about the age when you should be planning to go to college, so to have that many young people under the impression that they will go to college, and so few of them actually being successful at it, clearly there’s a need for support,” Bodner said. FosterClub already is working to provide resources to its members regarding programs that will help them achieve their college-going goals, and just last week announced a pilot program with InsideTrack, a college coaching service based in Portland, Oregon. InsideTrack will offer pro-bono coaching services for 12 college-bound foster youth who are members of FosterClub’s leadership track.

www.insidehighered.com
Is Change Ahead for Title IX?
Michael T. Raupp explores whether a recent court of appeals decision on sexual orientation discrimination will result in new interpretations.
https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2017/04/20/will-title-ix-be-reinterpreted-following-ruling-sexual-orientation-discrimination
By Michael T. Raupp
A federal court of appeals’ recent decision to extend Title VII’s protection to sexual-orientation employment discrimination undoubtedly changes the legal landscape in which employers, including institutions of higher education, operate within the Seventh Circuit (Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin). Given the tendency of courts to look to interpretations of Title VII when making legal rulings under Title IX, this new decision also opens the question of whether courts will begin interpreting Title IX to also prohibit sexual-orientation discrimination. For example, several federal courts have rejected claims by students alleging that they were subjected to harassment by other students in the form of epithets about their sexual orientation and that the educational institutions failed to adequately respond. Courts, by and large, rejected these claims outright, finding that Title IX does not protect against sexual-orientation discrimination … The Seventh Circuit’s break with its own prior interpretation of Title VII — and the interpretation of all other courts of appeals to have evaluated the issue — likely sets up a question ultimately bound for resolution by the Supreme Court.