University System News:
www.walb.com
ASU Fall student admissions jump by a third
http://www.walb.com/story/35873385/asu-fall-admitted-students-up-32
By Re-Essa Buckels, Reporter
Albany State University school officials were very optimistic about their fall enrollment numbers. School officials said right now, they’re seeing a 32 percent increase from last year’s fall student admissions, and have a good number of students returning as well. It’s important to note that Fall student admissions will not count as fully enrolled until students meet academic and financial obligations. Also, the enrollment numbers won’t be finalized until later in the Fall. School officials explained many students were attracted to the nursing and criminal justice programs, and career associate programs. Given last year’s significant drop in enrollment, the school is focusing on recruiting local students.

www.savannahnow.com
Armstrong-Georgia Southern committee approves 80-plus recommendations
http://savannahnow.com/news/2017-07-12/armstrong-georgia-southern-committee-approves-80-plus-recommendations
By Dash Coleman
Members of a committee working to combine Armstrong State and Georgia Southern universities moved forward with more than 80 recommendations for a consolidated institution Wednesday. “We’re making great progress,” Georgia Southern President Jaimie Hebert said after the meeting, which was one of the committee’s final three sessions. The 41-member committee agreed to implement plans to create a unified Student Government Association with representation on three campuses when the two universities unite next year. A plan to phase out Armstrong’s signage in spring 2018 was also approved. Georgia Southern’s logo, colors and mascot will replace Armstrong’s next year, though a new seal will be edited to contain three stars — one for the Georgia Southern campus in Statesboro and two for Armstrong’s campuses in Savannah and Hinesville. …Moves to combine the two schools’ diversity and inclusion initiatives were approved, including a plan to implement a climate study of all three campuses. “A climate survey would establish a benchmark for Georgia Southern’s main campus and would continue efforts already begun at Armstrong State University,” according to the recommendation. Georgia Southern has a model for such a study that can be adapted. More than 30 of the recommendations approved Wednesday came from a group studying retention, progression, graduation and Complete College Georgia practices. The new practices will involve establishing a new academic standing policy for students, promoting support programs for struggling students and developing a comprehensive attendance policy. The committee also moved to unify a course schedule for the consolidated university by next fall.

www.tiftongazette.com
Editorial: Round of Applause
http://www.tiftongazette.com/community/editorial-round-of-applause/article_ba6466fc-6728-11e7-9686-8792d5c3ef86.html
ABAC President David Bridges
Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College President David Bridges recently laid out three areas of focus for his 12th year as president: strengthening bachelor degree programs, the building of a new fine arts facility and working on the consolidation between ABAC and Bainbridge State College. Planning and preparation are necessary to any endeavor and we commend him for planning ahead for the new school year.

www.ajc.com
Body of UGA rafter found in Wyoming
http://www.ajc.com/news/local/body-uga-rafter-found-wyoming/d6inXPZTp2SdJhuXU6LSBI/
Ellen Eldridge  The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The body of a University of Georgia student who went missing during a rafting trip in Wyoming was recovered Wednesday morning, officials said. “At 10 a.m., Star Valley Search and Rescue recovered from the river in Lincoln County, Wyoming, a body that has been identified through dental records as Oliver Woodward,” Teton County sheriff’s spokeswoman Riclyn Betsinger said.

www.savannahnow.com
Georgia Southern students, employees chow on 200-plus watermelons in annual tradition
http://savannahnow.com/news/2017-07-12/georgia-southern-students-employees-chow-200-plus-watermelons-annual-tradition
Georgia Southern University President Jaimie Hebert, center, slices up watermelons Wednesday morning with, from left, Director of Culinary Operations Michael Price and Executive Chef Thomas Sweatt during the university’s 70th annual
Georgia Southern University’s students and employees beat the heat Wednesday morning with thousands of slices of watermelon. The practice is a 70-year-old tradition at the Statesboro university. Every summer, members of the school gather near the campus’ lakes. The practice began in 1948 as a way to offer a cold treat to students and employees during the height of Coastal Georgia’s notoriously hot summer months. The tradition has grown substantially in the decades since. On Wednesday, more than 200 watermelons — kept on ice at the school for a week beforehand — were carved and served to students and employees. Georgia Southern President Jaimie Hebert, who performed the ceremonial first cuts, talked about how the ceremony has been bringing folks together for years.

Higher Education News:
www.gbpi.org
Georgia Higher Education Budget Primer for State Fiscal Year 2018
https://gbpi.org/2017/georgia-higher-education-budget-primer-state-fiscal-year-2018/
By Jennifer Lee
Move On When Ready
Move On When Ready is a program for high school students who take college-level courses that count for both high school and college credit or, dual enrollment. The state pays colleges fixed amounts for tuition, mandatory fees and books. Colleges may not charge high school students for additional tuition and mandatory fees, though students may be responsible for course-related fees and transportation costs. The program is growing. The 2018 state budget added $21 million to meet the projected increase in demand but reduced funds for transportation grants by $500,000. These changes resulted in a budget of $78.8 million.

www.post-gazette.com
Consultant releases recommendations for struggling state universities
http://www.post-gazette.com/news/education/2017/07/11/State-System-of-Higher-Education-strategic-review-Pennsylvania-colleges-state-owned-universities-higher-education-PASSHE/stories/201707110179
BILL SCHACKNER
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
A consultant’s recommendations for fixing Pennsylvania’s struggling state university system, released Wednesday, likely will be scrutinized and debated for months and could require a state law change to fully enact. The result might be a more streamlined State System of Higher Education, whose 14 member universities are better braced for an era of fewer students and lackluster state support. But those familiar with university system reviews and reorganizations elsewhere say things also could bog down in a tug-of-war between interest groups on and off the campuses, given that the state-owned schools generate not only thousands of graduates each year but sustain thousands of jobs. As such, some of the loudest voices could be those of politicians hoping to protect communities with campuses. …Closing a public university outright is practically unheard of, Mr. Harnisch said. But there have been consolidations and mergers in states including Georgia and Maine. Since 2012, the University System of Georgia has reduced its member institutions from 35 to 28. Rather than shut campus locations, it combined administrative operations, yielding $24 million in yearly savings that also enabled better targeted resources for students, said Charles Sutlive, a system spokesman.

www.insidehighered.com
Revamp Governance but Don’t Close Universities, Pennsylvania System Told
https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2017/07/13/revamp-governance-don%E2%80%99t-close-universities-pennsylvania-system-told?utm_source=Inside%20Higher%20Ed&utm_campaign=40c04bb20c-DNU20170713&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-40c04bb20c-197515277&mc_cid=40c04bb20c&mc_eid=8f1f949a06
By Rick Seltzer
The Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education should not close, merge or spin off any of its 14 state-owned universities, according to a much-awaited set of consultants’ recommendations presented to its Board of Governors Wednesday.
But the recommendations did call for wide-ranging changes to the way the system is governed and higher education policy in Pennsylvania. The state should amend the system’s founding legislation to replace its Board of Governors with a Board of Regents and change its governance structure to revamp the relationships between university leaders and system leaders, according to recommendations.

www.diverseeducation.com
College Access Group Sees Surge in FAFSA Applications
http://diverseeducation.com/article/98965/?utm_campaign=DIV1707%20DAILY%20NEWSLETTER%20JUL13&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Eloqua
by Jamaal Abdul-Alim
The percentage of high school seniors who by June 30 had filed the Free Application for Federal Student Aid — better known as the FAFSA — reached a new high level this year after several years of decline, according to new data compiled by the National College Access Network. The number of FAFSAs filed by high school seniors increased 9 percent — or rose from 56 for the Class of 2016 to 61 percent for the Class of 2017. The number of individuals overall — not just high school seniors — who completed the FAFSA before June 30 also rose — by 6 percent — to about 14 million individuals, as opposed to about 13.2 million the year prior. The all-time record took place in the 2012-2013 school year, when 15 million students filed the FAFSA by June 30. In recent years, however, the number has dipped to nearly 13 million. Carrie Warick, director of policy and advocacy at the National College Access Network, or NCAN, called the increase “exciting.”

www.insidehighered.com
Invitation and Comment Alarm Advocates for Assault Victims
Women’s groups alarmed that Title IX summit will include “men’s rights” groups that many say minimize reality of rape; statement from key civil rights official — on which she later backtracked — casts doubt on 90 percent of campus reports of assaults.
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/07/13/involvement-groups-have-focused-false-rape-claims-department-summit-criticized?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=40c04bb20c-DNU20170713&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-40c04bb20c-197515277&mc_cid=40c04bb20c&mc_eid=8f1f949a06
By Andrew Kreighbaum
The Department of Education will host a closed-door summit on sexual assault today, giving sexual assault victims, due process advocates and campus leaders the chance to speak directly to Secretary Betsy DeVos. But the department and DeVos are coming under fire for the involvement of groups considered “men’s rights” organizations that have been accused of victim blaming and promoting harassment of sexual assault survivors who have come forward. While there has been an ongoing debate for years about proper protections for due process in the context of stronger enforcement of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, some of those groups are deemed by critics to be “men’s rights organizations,” promoting a harmful narrative about false rape claims. Adding to those concerns from advocates was a quote from the acting assistant secretary of civil rights to The New York Times Wednesday saying that 90 percent of campus assault allegations stemmed from both parties being drunk or having regrets over a consensual sexual encounter. Even as DeVos meets with a handful of sexual assault victims, dissatisfied advocates are planning a rally outside the Department of Education Thursday because they don’t believe the voices of assault survivors are getting the time or weight they deserve.

www.chronicle.com
Ed. Dept. Official Apologizes for ‘90%’ Remark on Campus Rape. What’s the Research?
http://www.chronicle.com/article/Ed-Dept-Official-Apologizes/240634?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en&elqTrackId=2b7450f25ab14d259b69bf520bfafb0a&elq=dd7d35c927894cbfa55a5496795276ca&elqaid=14693&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=6215
By Sarah Brown
Candice E. Jackson, acting assistant secretary for civil rights in the Department of Education, made a bombshell comment to The New York Times stating that 90 percent of campus sexual-assault complaints “fall into the category of ‘we were both drunk’” and involve a regretful female student. Campus investigations have not been fair to students who are accused of sexual misconduct, Ms. Jackson told the Times. She added that, in most cases, there’s “not even an accusation that these accused students overrode the will of a young woman.” “Rather,” she continued, “the accusations — 90 percent of them — fall into the category of ‘we were both drunk,’ ‘we broke up, and six months later I found myself under a Title IX investigation because she just decided that our last sleeping together was not quite right.’” It’s unclear whether her 90-percent figure was supposed to refer to all campus rape cases, or to open federal Title IX investigations against colleges for possibly mishandling sexual-violence cases. (There are 339 of those, by the way.) In any case, Ms. Jackson’s remarks quickly provoked outrage on social media.

www.chronicle.com
Scholars Cry Foul at Their Inclusion on List of Academics Paid by Google
http://www.chronicle.com/article/Scholars-Cry-Foul-at-Their/240635?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en&elqTrackId=ee4aa447d00e4d62a00a475a7fc0395b&elq=dd7d35c927894cbfa55a5496795276ca&elqaid=14693&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=6215
By Chris Quintana
This week an advocacy group published what it called a list of scholars who have received money from Google and who have written papers that supported its interests, sometimes without disclosing that apparent conflict of interest. …Ms. Roberts is one of a handful of scholars who told The Chronicle on Wednesday that they felt the Campaign for Accountability, the group that issued the report, had included them unfairly in its list of academics who had received money from Google in connection to research that could be used to defend the company’s business practices. The same data were partly used in a report by The Wall Street Journal that covered similar ground. The academics who spoke to The Chronicle said they felt their past or current connections to Google had been exaggerated or, in some cases, erroneously reported.

www.insidehighered.com
(Largely) Shunning White House on Higher Ed Spending
In draft bill, House Republicans reject administration plan to slash research reimbursements, propose increased spending on NIH and college prep programs, and sustain AmeriCorps. Panel would take $3.3 billion from Pell surplus.
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/07/13/house-bill-would-shield-indirect-research-costs-increase-nih-and-college-prep?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=40c04bb20c-DNU20170713&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-40c04bb20c-197515277&mc_cid=40c04bb20c&mc_eid=8f1f949a06
By Doug Lederman
The Trump administration’s first budget proposal was greeted coolly by Republican lawmakers (amid deep consternation from advocates for higher education) when it was released in May. Many members of Congress avoided direct criticism but suggested they would not go along with major cuts in popular programs, including a plan to slash the rates at which the government reimburses universities for their own spending on research overhead. Wednesday President Trump’s party offered a more direct rebuke, as the appropriations panel in the House of Representatives released a 2018 spending bill that rejects most of the administration’s proposed changes. Although the legislation is just the first step in what is likely to be a long (and potentially contentious) process of setting federal spending for the fiscal year that begins in October, the mark laid down by the Republicans who control the House clearly suggests that the draconian cuts the administration envisioned will not come to pass.

www.insidehighered.com
Science’s Communication Problem
Research university leaders see wake-up call in data on sharp partisan divide on higher education and deep cuts proposed by Trump.
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/07/13/university-leaders-say-they-need-improve-communication-science-public?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=40c04bb20c-DNU20170713&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-40c04bb20c-197515277&mc_cid=40c04bb20c&mc_eid=8f1f949a06
By Nick Roll
WASHINGTON — Views on higher education are becoming increasingly hostile among certain Americans, and scientists say some of the blame rests with them. They aren’t apologizing for their work, but for their failure to promote public understanding of it. Discussion about community outreach and proving research’s positive impact on society dominated much of the discussion at the State of American Science forum held in Washington Wednesday, organized by the Science Coalition and the Association of American Universities. The concerns were raised by the 12 provosts and vice presidents of research from universities across the country, especially in light of a recent Pew study finding that 58 percent of Republicans see colleges as having a negative impact on the country’s direction, a dramatic uptick among members of a party that controls the presidency, both chambers of Congress, the majority of statehouses and the majority of governors’ mansions.