University System News:
www.albanyceo.com
Finalist Named for Georgia Southwestern State University Presidency
http://albanyceo.com/news/2017/06/finalist-named-georgia-southwestern-state-university-presidency/
Staff Report From Albany CEO
Board of Regents Chair C. Thomas Hopkins Jr., MD and Chancellor Steve Wrigley announced that the Board of Regents named Dr. Neal Weaver as the sole finalist for the position of president of Georgia Southwestern State University in Americus. Weaver is currently the vice president for university advancement and innovation at Nicholls State University in Thibodaux, La. “Everything I have seen and learned about Georgia Southwestern and the City of Americus has been very impressive,” said Weaver. “I am excited about the opportunity to become a part of the Georgia Southwestern community.”
www.northfulton.com
GSU-Gwinnett Tech pact has GNFCC connection
Accord eases path to four-year nursing degree
http://www.northfulton.com/revueandnews/stories/gsu-gwinnett-tech-pact-has-gnfcc-connection,106743
Hatcher Hurd
A May 31 articulation agreement between Gwinnett Technical College and Georgia State University has made it easier for nursing students to turn a two-year GTC nursing certificate almost seamlessly into a four-year GSU degree. An articulation agreement is an official pact between the two schools allowing students to apply credits earned in specific programs at one institution toward advanced standing, entry or transfer into a specific program at the other institution. This agreement eases the transition from one institution to another by minimizing duplication of coursework. Because the agreement is between the institutions, it does not require students to make individual arrangements. Coursework transfers automatically. The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services estimates that the nation will need at least 2.5 million nurses by the year 2020. And Georgia has a deficit of trained nurses as it is. …It all happened at the Greater North Fulton’s monthly breakfast held at the King’s Ridge School cafeteria in Alpharetta. There, Georgia State University President Mark Becker and Gwinnett Technical College President D. Glen Cannon historical signed the agreement spelling out how Gwinnett Tech’s two-year RN students can smoothly transfer their credits toward a Georgia State four-year nursing diploma. …GSU’s Becker has a problem, albeit a good one. He has 50,000 students enrolled in his Atlanta campus and at Perimeter (where 17,000 students toil). They go to school morning, noon and night. That balancing act has earned GSU the ranking as the No. 4 Most Innovative College in the country. GSU tracks every student monitored using 800 variables of behavior for each. “If one of our students so much as hiccups, we want to know why,” Becker said. “Every freshman is tested so that we can tell them how likely they are to be successful in the field they’ve chosen,” he said.
www.valdostadailytimes.com
Langdale Foundation commits $1 million to ABAC Ag Literacy Initiative
http://www.valdostadailytimes.com/news/ga_fl_news/langdale-foundation-commits-million-to-abac-ag-literacy-initiative/article_8669d096-a16d-55c2-8146-66f33a5b662c.html
The Harley Langdale, Jr. Foundation has committed $1 million over the next four years to continue the Destination Ag program at the Georgia Museum of Agriculture at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College. Destination Ag, in operation since September 2016, connects students and teachers to the importance of agriculture and natural resources in their daily lives. In August 2016, the Harley Langdale, Jr. Foundation announced a $250,000 gift to the ABAC Foundation to launch a major agriculture and natural resources literacy program at the Museum. Since that time, Destination Ag has touched the lives of 5,000 elementary students in Tift, Colquitt, and Cook counties.
www.ledger-enquirer.com
Columbus State hosts NSA-sponsored cybersecurity camp
http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/news/local/article157162319.html
BY SCOTT BERSON
Columbus State University kicked off a free weeklong cybersecurity summer camp Monday, with the help of a $28,000 grant from the National Security Administration. Professors Jianhua Yang and Sumanth Yenduri, both of the university’s TSYS School of Computer Science, were awarded the money to hold the camp, which is geared toward middle school students. The program is called “GenCyber,” or “Inspiring the Next Generation of Cyber Stars.” The camp’s website says that the goal of the program is to help fill in the nation’s shortage of cybersecurity professionals.
www.chronicle.com
In Improving Outcomes, Institutional Researchers Can Be an Untapped Resource
http://www.chronicle.com/article/In-Improving-Outcomes/240394/?cid=SLFEED
By Audrey Williams June
College presidents may recognize that data can improve the quality of their decision-making process, but they often appear to be disconnected from the very resource that would help them do so: their campus’s institutional-research office. A newly released survey, conducted by the American Council on Education, shows that college presidents see metrics related to student success — retention rates, graduation rates, and minority-student outcomes — as the most legitimate measures of an institution’s performance. But just 12 percent of presidents said that using data to inform decision making was a future area of importance for them. It’s a stance that the survey’s authors suggest is “a potential disconnect” with the institutional-research offices, whose data-crunching and analysis skills could help guide colleges toward their goals, including improving student success. “Perhaps more presidents need to awaken to the importance of data-informed decision making at the institutional level,” a report on the survey said. …For instance, Georgia State University has attracted widespread attention for using data to help it focus the awarding of small but targeted “completion grants” to students on the brink of dropping out. And at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, data informs the support the institution offers to its most vulnerable students.
www.americantowns.com
VSU Earns National Recognition for Supporting Healthy Living
http://www.americantowns.com/ga/valdosta/news/vsu-earns-national-recognition-for-supporting-healthy-living-28665536
Valdosta State University recently earned national gold level recognition from the Exercise is Medicine On Campus program for an ongoing commitment to health and wellness on campus.
www.myajc.com
Kennesaw State to hold ‘campus carry’ info sessions before law’s start
http://www.myajc.com/news/local/kennesaw-state-hold-campus-carry-info-sessions-before-law-start/Fz9ysXnfDFEmlo0tPQIpqK/
By Ben Brasch – The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Kennesaw State University legal affairs staff and police officers will answer questions of faculty, students and staff Thursday and outline the statewide “campus carry” gun measure set to begin July 1. The school will hold information sessions on both KSU campuses about how the law, which allows people with permits to carry concealed weapons on the grounds of public institutions, will work. …The information sessions will be held Thursday. One meeting is set for 10 a.m. in the auditorium (room 1000) of Prillaman Hall on the Kennesaw campus. The other session will be at 1 p.m. in room 202 of the Engineering Technology Center (Q Building) on the Marietta campus. The sessions will review the University System of Georgia’s guidelines for implementing the measure.
www.onlineathens.com
Ploussard: Close tailgate party loophole in ‘campus carry’ gun law
http://onlineathens.com/opinion/2017-06-20/ploussard-close-tailgate-party-loophole-campus-carry-gun-law
By Jeff Ploussard
On May 24, the University System of Georgia issued guidelines for implementing House Bill 280, the so-called “campus carry” bill that was signed into law on May 4 by Gov. Nathan Deal. Under the new gun law, for the first time ever, Georgia weapons license holders will be allowed to carry concealed handguns into classrooms and other places on Georgia’s public college and university campuses. …Unfortunately, according to the USG guidelines and in an apparent oversight by lawmakers, this prohibition doesn’t extend to on-campus “tailgating” areas outside these athletic facilities. College tailgate parties typically revolve around the consumption of alcoholic beverages. Given the clear and well-documented linkage between alcohol and gun violence, lawmakers will want to quickly amend the new law by keeping these tailgating areas gun-free in order to maximize public safety on Georgia college campuses on game days. …Now is the time to contact the powers that be to express your opinion and urge them to work together to close the tailgate party loophole as soon as possible.
Higher Education News:
www.nytimes.com
At Colleges, Demographic Changes Everywhere but the Top
By DAVID W. CHEN
Although diversifying the makeup of student bodies has been a major effort on college campuses in recent years, when it comes to the president’s office, there has been little change: The typical college president continues to be a white man in his early 60s, a new national survey has found. College presidents are also increasingly preoccupied by (and worried about) budgeting and fund-raising. At public institutions, well over half of those surveyed predicted that state government funding would decrease in the next five years, and more than three-quarters believe that tuition and fees will go up. These are among the key findings in the latest edition of the American College President Study, released Tuesday by the American Council on Education, an association of degree-granting institutions including two-year and four-year public and private colleges and universities. Conducted every four or five years, the wide-ranging survey has traditionally been viewed as an important census in higher education.
www.insidehighered.com
New Head of Federal Student Aid Announced
https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2017/06/21/new-head-federal-student-aid-announced
By Andrew Kreighbaum
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos announced Tuesday that she will appoint A. Wayne Johnson, a financial services executive, to oversee the government’s $1.4 trillion student loan portfolio as the next chief of federal student aid. …Although he comes from the private sector, Johnson is familiar with student financial aid issues. He holds a doctorate in academic leadership from Mercer University, where he authored a dissertation on private student loan indebtedness. In 2012, he founded a company specializing in private student loan refinance, where he is still listed as CEO. “Wayne is the right person to modernize FSA for the 21st century,” DeVos said in a statement. “He actually wrote the book on student loan debt and will bring a unique combination of CEO-level operating skills and an in-depth understanding of the needs and issues associated with student loan borrowers and their families. He will be a tremendous asset to the department as we move forward with a focus on how best to serve students and protect taxpayers.”