University System News:
www.myajc.com
Flammable cladding used on buildings in Georgia, other states
Material is the same that burned I-85 bridge in Atlanta, Grenfell Tower in London
http://www.myajc.com/news/public-affairs/flammable-cladding-used-buildings-georgia-other-states/I7GnXPAL0VbCpCB1Y87rnJ/
By Johnny Edwards – The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
For decades, architects and developers have put cheap, highly flammable wall panels on the exteriors of multi-story buildings. A four-story drug and alcohol treatment center in Atlanta has them. So does a six-story building at California State University. The panels might be on a 15-floor federal courthouse in Florida and a 33-story Marriott hotel in Baltimore. They apparently cover a front wall and line the dining hall at Clayton State University’s main building. The glimmering panels can give an aging edifice a space age luster. They help with insulation. And they save money. But sandwiched inside them, between two thin sheets of aluminum, is a layer of polyethylene, the same common plastic that burned hot enough in March to destroy a section of Atlanta’s I-85.
www.buzz.blog.ajc.com
Coming soon to a high school near you: The Georgia Film Academy
http://buzz.blog.ajc.com/2017/07/27/coming-soon-to-a-high-school-near-you-the-georgia-film-academy/
Jennifer Brett
Film-friendly tax policies enacted in 2008 were key in luring hundreds of television and movie projects to our state every year since. Forward-thinking infrastructure like the Georgia Film Academy is meant to help Georgians prepare for jobs in the industry. In January 2016, the film academy started certificate programs through partnerships with Clayton State University, Columbus State University and Gwinnett Technical College. That April, state and business leaders were on hand for the ceremonial ribbon cutting that officially christened the academy and its new teaching soundstage on the Pinewood Studios Atlanta campus in Fayette County. A year later, executive director Jeff Stepakoff told us, more than 1,000 people had taken a course through the academy and more than 400 had completed an internship. Next up: reaching out to high schools. “Interest in film is rampant throughout the state,” he said. “We are addressing that at the college level but starting to get our heads around the high school level. We have 2 million high school students in our state. They’re making movies; they’re making them on their iPhones. Why are we not bringing them into the fold?” That process has begun with a pilot program this summer, when nearly 30 high school film teachers from across the state spent 10 days at the Georgia Film Academy.
Higher Education News:
www.huffingtonpost.com
Empty Enthusiasm? American University Leaders Assess Their Institutions
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/empty-enthusiasm-american-university-leaders-assess_us_597a5c80e4b06b305561cf25
Good news! American universities are the best, or among the best, universities in the world – according to American university leaders. Such are the findings of a recent survey conducted by Georgetown University Academy for Innovative Higher Education Leadership. Specifically, a quarter of the 119 college and university deans surveyed believe that the U.S. higher education system is still the “best in the world” and another 58% believe it is one of the best. In addition, a great majority of survey respondents indicated that a college education remains a high-value investment and a ticket to economic and social advancement… What’s going on here? The deans point to too few new dollars for investments, resource constraints on faculty and staff, and resistance or aversion to change within institutions. Although these are real restraints, another problem – lack of intellectual leadership – is make these problems crippling. In related research by Deloitte and Georgia Tech, university presidents accentuated strategy, fund-raising, and effective story-telling as the most important responsibilities of their job.. They place academic and intellectual leadership at the end of the list.
www.theatlantic.com
This Is the Way the College ‘Bubble’ Ends
Not with a pop, but a hiss
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/07/college-bubble-ends/534915/
Derek Thompson
For the past few decades, the unstoppable increase in college tuition has been a fact of life, like death and taxes. The sticker price of American college increased nearly 400 percent in the last 30 years, while median household income growth was relatively flat. Student debt soared to more than $1 trillion, the result of loans to cover the difference. Several people—with varying degrees of expertise in higher-ed economics—have predicted that it’s all a bubble, destined to burst. Now after decades of expansion, just about every meaningful statistic—including the number of college students, the growth of tuition costs, and even the total number of colleges—is going down, or at least growing more slowly.
www.npr.org
After Assault, Some Campuses Focus On Healing Over Punishment
http://www.npr.org/2017/07/25/539334346/restorative-justice-an-alternative-to-the-process-campuses-use-for-sexual-assaul
Tovia Smith
On-campus disciplinary processes for assaults that are reported have drawn criticism from both survivors and those accused of assault. According to federal statistics, only about one in six survivors of sexual assault on college campuses report the incident to school authorities. So some campuses are considering a new approach. The process, called “restorative justice,” looks more like a therapeutic intervention aimed at healing than a trial focused on guilt and punishment. Campus administrators are increasingly open to it, despite concern from some activists that it’s too soft on perpetrators of sexual assault.
www.diverseeducation.com
Is Federal Graduation Rate Data Unfair to HBCUs?
Many reports have documented the low graduation rates at many of the nation’s historically Black colleges and universities. (See, for example, this JBHE post.) A new report from the American Council on Education shows that the methodology used by the U.S. Department of Education to compute the graduation rate at HBCUs paints an unfair picture of the performance of these educational institutions in graduating their students. The official federal graduation for all state-operated HBCUs is 34 percent. This means that just over a third of all entering students at HBCUs earn their degree from the same institution within six years. But the new report notes that using data from the National Student Clearinghouse, the actual graduation rate for students at public HBCUs is 43 percent. And furthermore, if we look only at full-time students, the graduation rate rises to 62 percent.