University System News:
www.ajc.com
Georgia colleges exploring new ways to recruit students
Eric Stirgus
University System of Georgia officials discussed a new plan Tuesday to recruit more students who graduate from the state’s public schools. The system’s chancellor, Steve Wrigley, also announced an initiative Tuesday aimed at producing more college graduates by 2025 and degree holders who will be ready for the work force.
www.cbr.com
Artist Eleanor Davis Arrested in Georgia Immigration Policy Protest
http://www.cbr.com/eleanor-davis-georgia-arrested/
by Brandon Staley
Comic book artist Eleanor Davis was arrested today while protesting a Georgia Board of Regents meeting. The protest opposed University System of Georgia policies that keep immigrants without legal status from attending top universities in the state. Immigrants without proper documentation are also barred from receiving in-state tuition rates at other Georgia universities. The news comes from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, reporters for which attended the meeting and its protest.
www.insideradvantage.com
Ga. Illegal alien lobby loses one in federal court
http://insideradvantage.com/2017/05/16/ga-illegal-alien-lobby-loses-one-in-federal-court/
by Phil Kent
There are several pending lawsuits by illegal immigrant student plaintiffs challenging the University System of Georgia Board of Regents policies regarding tuition and school access. The defendants are the Regents and the presidents of five Georgia colleges that bar illegal immigrants. Yesterday, the plaintiffs lost a big one. One of these cases, Estrada v. Board of Regents involves DACA students (“Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals”) who filed suit in federal court to challenge Regents Policy 4.1.6, which prohibits undocumented students from attending certain covered institutions. Judge Thomas Thrash sided with the defendants and entered an order dismissing the complaint and rejecting the plaintiffs’ claims.
www.onlineathens.com
UGA to spend $13.9 million on Georgia Center upgrade
By Lee Shearer
The University of Georgia will spend nearly $14 million to renovate the older part of its Center for Continuing Education and Hotel. The building at the corner of Carlton and Lumpkin streets is one of the largest and most successful facilities of its kind in the country, according to information UGA submitted to the state Board of Regents. …UGA proposes to pay for the project with reserve funds from its auxiliary operations. …UGA expects the Regents to authorize the project this fall, with construction beginning in February and ending in the summer of 2020, he said. Two more UGA projects were in a $260-million list of bond-financed construction projects the Regents approved in the body’s monthly meeting.
www.onlineathens.com
UGA plans an increase of $4 million for fiscal year 2018 athletics budget
By Marc Weiszer
Georgia is planning an athletic budget of $127.6 million for fiscal year 2018, an increase of $4 million. The UGA Athletic Association’s finance committee Tuesday afternoon endorsed sending along the budget to next week’s full board spring meeting in St. Simons during a meeting of less than 10 minutes in the UGA Administration Building. Georgia budgets the same number for both revenue and expenses, said Ryan Nesbit, UGA’s vice president of finance and administration who serves as the athletic association’s treasurer.
www.marketplace.org
Georgia aims to make its websites accessible for all
https://www.marketplace.org/2017/05/17/tech/georgia-aims-make-its-websites-accessible-all
By Tasnim Shamma
One out of 12 people ages 18 to 64 in the United States identifies themselves as having a disability. Whether it’s a physical or learning disability, it can be difficult for those people trying to access the internet. A 1998 law known as Section 508 requires the federal government to make information technology accessible for everyone on all platforms, but states don’t have the same legal responsibility. …So developers in Georgia have been redesigning the state’s websites to make it a little easier for people with disabilities to access information. Georgia.gov is coded so a screen reader provides audio descriptions for people with visual impairments and other disabilities. The fonts are larger, there’s a strong color contrast and the links and photos are descriptive. John Rempel, a quality control and training specialist, performed audits of the state’s website at the AMAC Accessibility Solutions and Research Center at Georgia Tech.
www.getschooled.blog.myajc.com
Get Schooled with Maureen Downey
Nathan Deal received 100 times more calls, letters against campus carry than for it. Signed it anyway.
Gov. Nathan Deal encourages Georgians to contact him, and they did so by the thousands in opposition to campus carry. But Deal ignored them, signing the controversial bill opposed by the University System of Georgia and campus police into law on May 4. There were a lot of voters to ignore, according to records released this week by Deal’s office. Between Jan. 3 and May 10, 14,873 calls, emails and letters opposed to concealed carry on the state’s public campuses flooded Deal’s office. During that period, the Governor’s Office reported only 145 calls, emails and letters in favor of campus carry. Deal received 100 times more missives against House Bill 280 than he did in support of the legislation. Yet, he signed bill.
www.politics.blog.ajc.com
Nathan Deal’s office deluged with calls from ‘campus carry’ opponents
Greg Bluestein
As Gov. Nathan Deal debated whether to sign Georgia’s “campus carry” gun measure, his office was deluged with a crush of phone calls opposing the measure. The lopsided totals, revealed in an open records request filed by a citizen activist, showed Deal’s staff received nearly 15,000 calls urging him to veto the measure – and less than 150 in support of it. The majority of the calls were logged in April and May, as lawmakers worked toward a compromise that would allow college students to carry concealed weapons on campus while carving out exceptions that Deal insisted upon. That deal was struck in the final hours of the legislative session. Deal signed the bill into law on May 4, infuriating opponents of the legislation who had praised him for vetoing similar legislation last year. …Already, there are daunting questions facing college administrators trying to implement the law by July 1. Among them: Does it apply to college football tailgates? Meanwhile, opponents of the measure were passing around that was first created by a student group at the University of Texas, which has a similar campus gun law. The ad is for a (non-existent) bullet-proof “Student Body Armor” and it’s been updated to reflect Georgia’s new law.
www.nytimes.com
Campus Life: Locked, Loaded and Loopy
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/15/opinion/campus-carry-state-laws.html?_r=0
By THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Two more states — Arkansas and Georgia — have passed “campus carry” laws permitting licensed gun owners to pack concealed firearms at public universities, on the bizarre premise that students will be more secure from the nation’s epidemic of gun violence if there are more guns. The issue is being fought in statehouses as the gun lobby presses to arm far more citizens in far more places regardless of the risks. Gun safety groups are pushing back, blocking liberalized gun measures in Montana and Florida this year even as the number of states legalizing guns on campuses, among the safest places in the nation, rose to 10. …In Georgia, which passed campus carry this month, opponents hoped that Gov. Nathan Deal, a Republican, would veto the bill as he did a year ago with a forceful rejection that cited Thomas Jefferson and James Madison on the need to keep universities inviolable. But after a five-year push by the gun lobby, the governor signed it this time. He claimed the legislature, the General Assembly, had satisfactorily modified the law to ban guns in such “sensitive places” as faculty and administrative offices and preschool children’s centers — as if they are more threatened than college classes. Police and university officials, who had strongly opposed the law as dangerous, now are burdened with making it work in the face of all manner of unanswered questions.
Higher Education News:
www.chronicle.com
As Students Turn Their Backs, HBCU Leaders Still Want to Work With Trump
By Adam Harris
When Donald J. Trump won the presidency, many leaders of historically black colleges were wary of what the next four years would hold. But in this uncertainty, some saw an opportunity. On the campaign trail, Mr. Trump spoke sparingly about higher education and his policy goals — and aside from a speech in October, his aims were undefined. Black-college leaders argued that the blank slate could allow their sector to gain more prominence in the higher-education agenda of the Trump administration. “The election of Donald Trump is a tremendous opportunity to launch a renaissance of black colleges,” Walter Kimbrough, president of Dillard University, wrote in The Chronicle shortly after the election. That renaissance, he added, would require black-college leaders to support advocacy organizations like the United Negro College Fund and the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, as well as work with members of the U.S. Congress. Those efforts gained traction early on as the Trump administration spotlighted the sector as an area ripe for the president’s attention. But over the last several months, a number of fumbles by the administration, followed by public criticism, has left many wondering what the future may hold for the relationship. On a whole, HBCUs receive roughly a quarter of their funding from the federal government, so leaders view a good working relationship with the party in power as fundamental to their well-being. And as some students and HBCU advocates may be ready to wash their hands of the Trump administration, the colleges’ leaders are not.
www.insidehighered.com
Colleges Dodge Massive Cyberattack
Colleges in the U.S. — at least for now — are reporting few incidents related to WannaCry, the attack that knocked out services and systems worldwide. Brazosport was hit.
By Carl Straumsheim
College information security officers returned to work on Monday with their fingers crossed. Universities in the U.S. dodged the initial wave of a massive cyberattack that, among other disruptions, paralyzed hospitals in Britain, shut down telecommunications services in Spain and brought a temporary halt to Renault’s production line in France. But as Monday dawned across Asia, new incidents sprang up across the continent — including at prestigious universities in China — leading some in the U.S. to fear what awaited them in the coming workweek. However, by the close of business Monday, some cybersecurity experts breathed at least a temporary sigh of relief.
www.chronicle.com
A State’s Effort to Head Off Campus-Speech Fights Gets Mixed Reviews
http://www.chronicle.com/article/A-State-s-Effort-to-Head-Off/240088?cid=wsinglestory_hp_1
By Peter Schmidt
A new Tennessee law dealing with speech at public colleges stands apart in its broad scope and the wide support it received from legislators and college officials. Some faculty leaders, however, say that they were blindsided by the measure’s passage, and see it as threatening their academic freedom. The law, signed last week by Gov. Bill Haslam, bars public colleges from seeking to keep away controversial speakers, unnecessarily limiting where students can protest, or using broad definitions of harassment to stifle debate. In addition, it makes Tennessee the first state to legally define what rights public-college instructors have to speak out in the classroom, saying their speech is protected so long as they do not stray too far and too often from their class’s subject matter. At a time when other states are considering model campus speech-legislation proposed by national organizations such as the Goldwater Institute, the Tennessee law stands apart for its lack of boilerplate from advocacy groups.