University System News:
www.bizjournals.com
University System looks to future with College 2025
https://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/news/2017/08/11/university-system-looks-to-future-with-college.html
Dave Williams
Staff Writer, Atlanta Business Chronicle
Recognizing Georgia’s public colleges and universities need to change with the times, the University System of Georgia is launching an initiative aimed at developing innovative ways to help students graduate on time. “We’ve been doing the same things for 100 years,” system Chancellor Steve Wrigley said. “The world has changed, students have changed. It’s time to look at how we can structure our degree programs … to better align our curriculum with the workforce without abandoning our mission to educate our students broadly.” College 2025 is the latest wrinkle to come out of Complete College Georgia, an effort Gov. Nathan Deal started during his first year in office in 2011 to boost the state’s college graduation rate. “In 2025, 60 percent to 65 percent of jobs will require some education beyond high school,” Wrigley said. “In our state, we’re at about 47 percent.” The first few years of Complete College Georgia have seen some successes. Wrigley cites a “predictive analytics” program at Georgia State University to ferret out students who are struggling with their courses and arrange tutoring for them.
www.hechingerreport.org
DEBT WITHOUT DEGREE: Gaps in financial aid, funding contribute to growing number of Georgians with college loans and no college degree
State funding to Georgia’s public college system has dropped while student costs have shot up
DEBT WITHOUT DEGREE: State cuts money to higher education while student costs skyrocket
by Sarah Butrymowicz and Meredith Kolodner
ATLANTA – Alduha Leon and Jared Sanders, roommates at Savannah State University, dined on hot dogs in their apartment on Thanksgiving Day of their sophomore year. They had decided to skip feasting with family in Atlanta to pick up extra hours at their airport jobs loading luggage onto planes. Payday wasn’t until Friday, though, and Leon only had $5 left on his food stamps card. During the three years they spent at Savannah State, Sanders and Leon struggled to pay their tuition, fees and living expenses. They accumulated more than $50,000 in loans between the two of them, despite working up to 40 hours a week. After exhausting themselves working late or overnight shifts so they wouldn’t have to miss class, and finding their grades suffering, they both dropped out in 2015, joining a growing pool of Georgians who have debt but no degree. More than 108,000 students who had taken out federal loans withdrew from Georgia’s public colleges and universities between 2013 and 2015, the most recent time period measured in federal data. The problem is particularly acute for those seeking a bachelor’s degree: Median federal loan debt for these Georgia students who withdrew has more than doubled over the last decade at most four-year schools, ranging from $5,500 at the University of North Georgia to more than $18,000 at Albany State University. Without a degree, those who leave college often can’t get decent-paying jobs to make a dent in their loans, hurting their economic futures and that of the state as a whole.
www.gwinnettdailypost.com
Georgia Gwinnett College sees wave of incoming students on move-in day
http://www.gwinnettdailypost.com/local/georgia-gwinnett-college-sees-wave-of-incoming-students-on-move/article_b9cc99da-5ee7-5345-9385-c53b1ac83360.html
By Keith Farner
Rhema West had a mix of excitement blended with nervousness and anxiousness about her move in to Georgia Gwinnett College on Thursday.
The Snellville native and Brookwood High graduate moved into the residence hall with help from her mother, Lalena, and aunt and uncle, Daniel and Valerie Crenshaw. West said she’s also excited to meet all 11 of her roommates. “At first I thought it was going to be totally fine,” she said. “Then I started to think about the fact that it’s 11 girls and there’s going to be problems. But if anything, I’m making more friends, so I’m excited.” West plans to study business or finance, and eventually work as a financial advisor. She said she’s mostly nervous about being on her own for the first time and responsible for herself, yet also excited to start the next step in her career path. West was the second child in her family to enter college after her brother enrolled at Wichita State University, but Lalena couldn’t make that move in day, so she appreciated being at GGC this time. Lalena called the move-in process “super helpful,” as they navigated through volunteers and staff members helping incoming students and their families unload cars and move through the residence hall. …The Wests were among some 770 students and accompanying family members moving into residence halls, which meant they are at capacity, said Kyle Boone, GGC’s director of residence life. Fall semester classes begin on Monday.
www.bizjournals.com
UGA’s incoming class of 2021 boasts 4.0 average high school GPA
https://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/news/2017/08/10/ugas-incoming-class-of-2021-boasts-4-0-average.html
David Allison Editor Atlanta Business Chronicle
The University of Georgia says its incoming class of 2021 will set an academic record, boasting an average high school GPA of 4.0 and a record average ACT score of 30. More than 5,800 first-year students will begin their studies this fall in Athens, Ga. Nearly 24,500 students applied for admission to the Class of 2021, a 20 percent increase in just four years. UGA says members of the Class of 2021 completed an average of eight College Board Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate courses in high school, an increase from six in 2013. For comparison, the average high school GPA in 2013 was 3.86, and the average ACT score was 29 on a 36-point scale. On the new SATR, which replaced the previous SAT, the Class of 2021 boasts an average score of 1344.
www.myajc.com
Have you seen the impressively silly Kennesaw State band music video?
http://www.myajc.com/news/local/have-you-seen-the-impressively-silly-kennesaw-state-band-music-video/8r6bZDdai1PF3NcvCFsiSN/
By Ben Brasch – The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Kennesaw State University students now have their pump-up song for the upcoming school year. And it comes with a music video peppered with plenty of marching band imagery. Posted to YouTube on Monday, the “#HOOTYHOO | KSU Music Video” had amassed nearly 15,000 views by Thursday. It was uploaded by Partita Studios, which describes itself as an Atlanta video production company. During the three minutes and 51 seconds of black-and-gold glorification, a trio of students take a tour around campus set to the beat and in the style of Lonely Island’s “I’m On A Boat,” an Internet-crushing song featuring T-Pain that came out in 2009. That’s eight years — or two full undergraduate educations — ago. Tammy DeMel, university spokeswoman, said the students asked the athletics department for permission before filming. The name of the music video is in reference to the sounds the school’s mascot, Sturgis the Owl, makes.
www.nytimes.com
Losing It in the Anti-Dieting Age
The agonies of being overweight — or running a diet company — in a culture that likes to pretend it only cares about health, not size.
BY TAFFY BRODESSER-AKNER
James Chambers was watching membership sign-ups on Jan. 4, 2015, like a stock ticker — it was that first Sunday of the year, the day we all decide that this is it, we’re not going to stay fat for one more day. At the time, he was Weight Watchers’ chief executive, and he sat watching, waiting for the line on the graph to begin its skyward trajectory. Chambers knew consumer sentiment had been changing — the company was in its fourth year of member-recruitment decline. But they also had a new marketing campaign to help reverse the generally dismal trend. But the weekend came and went, and the people never showed up. More than two-thirds of Americans were what public-health officials called overweight or obese, and this was the oldest and most trusted diet company in the world. Where were the people? Weight Watchers was at a loss. …A study out of Georgia Southern University’s Jiann-Ping Hsu College of Public Health, published in The Journal of the American Medical Association in March, monitored attitudes toward losing weight over three periods between 1988 and 2014. In the first period, 1988-94, 56 percent of fat adults reported that they tried to lose weight. In the last period, 2009-14, only 49 percent said so. The change had been spurred not just by dieting fatigue but also by real questions about dieting’s long-term efficacy.
Higher Education News:
www.jbhe.com
Study Analyzes Factors That Influence Academic Success of Athletes at HBCUs
Study Analyzes Factors That Influence Academic Success of Athletes at HBCUs
A new study authored by Ian DeVol Scott, a doctoral student in higher education leadership at Union University in Jackson, Tennessee, analyzed the academic performance of student athletes at the nation’s historically Black colleges and universities. The study found that “there was a significant relationship between academic performance and current living arrangements. Participants that lived on campus performed better academically than those that lived in other housing arrangements.” Scott believe that his study shows “the need for student-athletes to live on campus with all options of campus involvement available.” He also believes that HBCUs should “reevaluate the importance of campus living communities and access to academic success programs and offices for student-athletes.”
www.insidehighered.com
Research Institutions Urged to Plan for Disasters
https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2017/08/11/research-institutions-urged-plan-disasters?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=1508914c27-DNU20170811&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-1508914c27-197515277&mc_cid=1508914c27&mc_eid=8f1f949a06
By Scott Jaschik
Academic research institutions need to do much more to plan for disasters, which might include natural disasters such as hurricanes or malicious incidents such as cyberattacks, says a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. Among the recommendations: universities should start “mandatory disaster-resilience education for research students, staff and faculty.
www.tampabay.com
University of Florida faces a second Title IX investigation
http://www.tampabay.com/sports/college/university-of-florida-faces-a-second-title-ix-investigation/2333317
Matt BakerMatt Baker, Times Staff Writer
The federal government has opened a second Title IX investigation into the University of Florida that appears to be related to the school’s handling of the Antonio Callaway case. The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights is already looking into a complaint from the woman who accused Callaway of sexual assault. But details from a July 28 letter sent from the federal government to UF suggest this second inquiry is coming from the opposite side — Callaway and his legal counsel. Callaway’s attorney, Huntley Johnson, politely declined to comment, and parts of the letter — obtained by the Tampa Bay Times through an open-records request — are redacted because of student-privacy laws. But it echoes some of Johnson’s previous public concerns about how UF handled the case.
www.diverseeducation.com
Florida University Suspends Fraternity Amid Rape Allegations
http://diverseeducation.com/article/100181/?utm_campaign=DIV1708%20DAILY%20NEWSLETTER%20AUG11&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Eloqua
by Associated Press
ORLANDO, Fla. — A Florida university has suspended a fraternity after a woman said she was raped during a party. Officials at the University of Central Florida sent letters to Alpha Tau Omega, accusing the fraternity of lying after the woman reported the rape to police last month. It’s unclear whether she’s a student. An Aug. 23 hearing is scheduled to determine whether the suspension stands. The Orlando Sentinel reports the letters state the fraternity withheld information or provided false, misleading, incomplete or incorrect information to university workers or police. The school also accused the fraternity of violations including disruptive conduct and underage drinking. It’s the third time in five years the fraternity has been suspended.
www.insidehighered.com
‘Zero-Tolerance Mind-set’
Higher ed sees a round of faculty terminations and resignations over allegations of sexual misconduct: Could institutions be cracking down on even big-name professors?
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/08/11/harassment-cases-could-institutions-be-cracking-down-even-big-name-faculty-members?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=1508914c27-DNU20170811&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-1508914c27-197515277&mc_cid=1508914c27&mc_eid=8f1f949a06
By Colleen Flaherty
The University of Washington, for the first time ever, has fired a faculty member over findings of sexual harassment. The termination surprised some not only for the what, but also for the who: Michael Katze, a professor of microbiology. Well funded and a major player in infectious disease research, Katze appeared to some as exactly the kind of professor who might have been protected by his (or any) institution in the past. Also this month, Christian Ott, a professor of theoretical astrophysics at California Institute of Technology, resigned following a drawn-out suspension over the university’s finding that he sexually harassed two graduate students. Professors on two other campuses have left this summer over allegations of sexual misconduct: Jason Fruth, an assistant professor of education, resigned from Wright State University during an investigation into claims against him, while the University of Nebraska at Lincoln ended the visiting professorship of photojournalist Bill Frakes. The departures could be a mere coincidence of timing. But they could also be a sign that even big-name institutions are holding their big-name scholars to a higher standard of conduct.