University System News:
www.gwinnettdailypost.com
Gov. Nathan Deal sets meeting with Blue Cross, Piedmont as contract obstacles remain
By Andy Miller
State health officials said Thursday that they believe Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Georgia and Piedmont Healthcare — which are deadlocked without a new contract — have moved closer to agreement on reimbursement rates. But Department of Community Health leaders say other issues have emerged as important obstacles to striking a deal. The health officials did not identify the remaining issues to resolve. The state has a big interest in the negotiations. More than 570,000 state and University System of Georgia employees and family members have Blue Cross as their insurer, and many of them go to Piedmont physicians and facilities. Blue Cross and Piedmont officials told GHN on Thursday they’re making progress toward a deal. Neither side specified what problems are preventing an agreement.
www.ajc.com
Georgia State University orders budget reallocation
Eric Stirgus The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Georgia State University administrators are restructuring a small percentage of its budget to spend additional money on efforts, such as recruiting more faculty, officials said Thursday. Each college and unit that reports to a vice president has been asked to reallocate about two percent of its budget for various campus-wide priorities, according to spokeswoman Andrea Jones. The initiatives include recruiting 21 faculty members, an ongoing $300 million fundraising campaign, the creation of a free-standing College of the Arts and to grow its School of Public Health undergraduate studies program.
www.timesfreepress.com
Dalton State College is first Hispanic Serving Institution in Georgia
by Tyler Jett
Dalton State College is now the first Hispanic Serving Institution in Georgia. The U.S. Department of Education confirmed the school was eligible for federal grants under the special designation Feb. 21, said Quincy Jenkins, director of Dalton State’s Hispanic/Latino outreach. The school will hold a celebration of the designation at 3:30 p.m. April 26. To qualify as a Hispanic Serving Institution, at least 25 percent of a college’s full-time equivalent undergraduate students must be Latino. The designation, administered by the Department of Education, opens a college up for certain grant programs. These can run from $500,000 to a couple million.
www.albanyherald.com
ASU walks for mental health
Albany State University hosts a walk for mental health awareness, suicide prevention
By Gypsy Crow
ALBANY — Students at Albany State University gathered on Thursday to walk for mental health and to listen to testimonials from speakers during a mental health awareness event tabbed “Walk Away From the Stigma.” We Are One ASU and Project STOP sponsored the event. All of the students and attendees shared the need to raise awareness for the illnesses sometimes people are too afraid to speak about, illnesses of the mind. The overall message of the event was “You are not alone.” …“The goal of these walks is to raise mental health awareness and suicide prevention.” George said before the walk began. “Suicide is such a large problem for this age group, 18-25.”
www.thebrunswicknews.com
Glynn Academy Class of 1967 endows scholarship for CCGA students
By LAUREN MCDONALD
What began as a class project is now a fully-endowed scholarship that will benefit Glynn Academy alumni for years to come. Glynn Academy’s Class of 1967 recently endowed a scholarship to benefit one alumnus or alumna of the high school who plans to attend College of Coastal Georgia. The class honored the first recipient of the scholarship, Pryce May, at a ceremony Thursday. May graduated from Glynn Academy in 2017 and is now studying business administration at CCGA. Jack Kilgore, the immediate past chairman of the College of Coastal Georgia Foundation and a member of Glynn Academy’s Class of 1967, said his class has stayed connected through the years. Before their 50-year reunion in 2017, the class set a goal to raise $50,000 to endow the scholarship.
www.chronicle.com
How A.I. Is Infiltrating Every Corner of the Campus
In enrollment, advising, and campus facilities, the revolution is spreading fast
By Lee Gardner
…Machines are unlikely to replace most humans in college operations, but they are making those operations more efficient — potentially freeing up people for other activities. The new technologies, corralled under terms such as “artificial intelligence,” “machine learning,” and “the internet of things,” involve ways in which machines are able to perform tasks hitherto associated with human intelligence. …Georgia State University faced a problem of scale: It enrolls about 52,000 students, almost 60 percent of whom are eligible for Pell Grants. Leaders at the university knew that students from low-income backgrounds, many of them first-generation college attendees, benefit from individualized attention and support as well as financial aid. But Timothy M. Renick, vice president for enrollment management and student success, notes that the financial-aid office receives as many as 2,000 calls a day from students in the weeks before start of each semester. “We’re not American Express,” he says. “We don’t have a call center with 200 people in it.” Georgia State became the first university to work with AdmitHub, a company that has developed chatbots to communicate with college students through texting. AdmitHub’s technology relies on a branch of artificial intelligence known as natural-language understanding, which takes a statistical approach to interpreting an incoming message and locating an appropriate response from a database of possible answers.
www.thegeorgeanne.com
Lunsford family to donate $200,000 to Matching Gift Challenge
http://www.thegeorgeanne.com/news/article_91baaab8-3144-5191-8a92-1a2ee812bccd.html
By Tori Collins and Brendan Ward The George-Anne staff
Georgia Southern Head Football Coach Chad Lunsford and his wife, Tippy, have pledged a $200,000 contribution, over the next four years, to the Matching Gift Challenge. The Matching Gift Fund is a fund raising event that challenges Eagle Nation to donate to GS athletics. An anonymous donor will match all donations up to $750,000 that go to the Coaches Continuity Fund or to the student-athlete scholarship endowments. The Lunsfords donated to the Coaches Contunity Fund, which works to support coaches coninuity. “I wanted to donate to the Coaches Contunity Fund because I think …Georgia Southern needs stablity,” Lunsford said. In addition to recruitment of new leadership and staff, donations can also increase the salary as well as reward pre existing leadership and staff for what their team does on the field and in the classroom.
www.northwestgeorgianews.com
CONFLUENCE: UGA expanding technology influenced research efforts
Doug Walker
Collaboration has led to innovation, which in turn has led to the growth of the University of Georgia’s research and development of emerging technologies — especially in engineering and health care. UGA Vice President for Research David Lee told participants at the Rome Floyd Chamber Confluence Conference on Thursday the university’s human health partnership with the Medical College of Georgia is one example. Because of collaboration with other institutions across the University System of Georgia their ability to develop any given topic has grown.
www.health.usnews.com
The Traits That Hike High School Dropout Risk
By Robert Preidt, HealthDay Reporter
The reasons students quit high school are complex, but aggression and weak study skills are two key factors, a new study finds. Researchers followed 620 students in Georgia from grades 6 to 12. Teachers completed annual assessments of each student during that time. For students with high levels of aggression and low study skills, the dropout rate was 50 percent. That compared to less than 2 percent among students with the lowest levels of aggression and the strongest study skills, the researchers said. “What we find in our study is that the students who are dropping out have complex behavioral and academic problems,” said study lead author Pamela Orpinas. She’s a professor of health promotion and behavior at the University of Georgia’s College of Public Health. While the U.S. dropout rate has declined, many school systems still have large numbers of students who don’t finish high school, the study authors noted. It’s important to identify and correct all behaviors that put students at risk of dropping out, Orpinas said in a university news release. “Simple and single solutions do not work,” she explained.
www.wgxa.tv
Facebook isn’t ‘free’: Experts call users ‘social capital’
http://wgxa.tv/news/local/facebook-isnt-free-experts-call-users-social-capital
by Evan Watson
MACON, Ga. — Midstate experts say that Facebook users should be worried about the access that the popular social platform has to personal information. As Mark Zuckerberg and US Senators take part in hearings this week, Middle Georgia college professors warn that Facebook could be compromising users’ privacy. Middle Georgia State University professor Johnathan Yerby said that no one should think of Facebook as “free.” “When we choose to use their platform there’s a cost. So we’re not paying for it financially but we’re paying for it with information, the more information we’re willing to share the more they’re willing to use it,” he said. Georgia College and State University professor John Karlis added, “Nothing in this life is free, except for hugs from your mom.”
www.gwinnettdailypost.com
Gwinnett receives GGC’s Preservation Award for work with historical sites
By Curt Yeomans
Georgia Gwinnett College recognized Gwinnett County as its 2018 GGC Preservation Award winner for the county’s efforts to preserve historical sites on Wednesday. The award was handed out during the college’s eighth annual Button Gwinnett Day, which recognizes the county’s namesake who was also a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Gwinnett County Board of Commissioners Chairwoman Charlotte Nash received the award on the county’s behalf. “The county was selected as the award recipient in appreciation of county officials, the Gwinnett Historical Society and the Historic Restoration and Preservation Board working together throughout the years to protect landmarks of historical significance to Gwinnett County,” college officials said in a statement.
Higher Education News:
www.bloomberg.com
Econ Majors Graduate With a Huge Knowledge Gap
What’s needed is a mandatory course on ethics and the limits of knowledge.
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-04-13/econ-majors-graduate-with-a-huge-knowledge-gap
By Noah Smith
Economics remains one of the most popular majors for college students. Most econ students, of course, don’t go on to become professional economists; instead, they fill the ranks of the U.S.’s vast upper-middle-class of business managers and professionals. The models they learn in their college classes inform the way they think about the world, even if they don’t end up using them for quantitative purposes after final exams are over. But there’s at least one gaping hole in the education most econ majors receive. They learn plenty of models, but they aren’t often taught to think critically about what they learn. At best, they absorb a few ideas from offhand comments by their professors, or from the tone of their textbooks. As a result, many of them leave class with deep reservations over whether economics theories represent real science, or whether economists approach the world in a moral, socially responsible manner.
www.thehill.com
Bridging the growing college divide among young Americans
BY DIANA CAREW, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR
The polarization of the labor market — or decline in medium-skill jobs — is one of the more pressing concerns in today’s economy. News stories abound of a shrinking middle class and a deficit of opportunity for those without a college degree. There is a corresponding divide in educational attainment, particularly among young Americans, who are earning four-year college and graduate degrees in record numbers. As the return from higher education becomes more nuanced, it has implications for education and workforce policy.