University System News:
www.augustachronicle.com
Economic impact by local colleges large
http://www.augustachronicle.com/news/20180513/economic-impact-by-local-colleges-large
By Amanda King
Just a few blocks from The Bee’s Knees and Hive, the Augusta University Cyber Institute’s new home at the Georgia Cyber Center for Innovation and Training is nearing completion, and that’s something restaurant owner Eric Kinlaw knows will be good for business. Kinlaw said that he already sees the impact of the university’s proximity to downtown and that having more students close will help. He credits some of the buzz about his business to employees who attend the university and tell friends about the restaurant via word of mouth or social media. Cindy Rudisill has also seen the impact University of South Carolina Aiken students have on the local economy. The owner of Cyndi’s Sweet Shoppe in Aiken said she sees students in her candy store “all the time.” “A lot of them are not of the ages where they can go out to bars, but they like to come downtown,” she said. “And a lot of them don’t have a lot of spending money, but they can come into a candy store and spend 50 cents.” Both colleges have significant economic impact on businesses in their counties and surrounding areas. According to its most recent research on economic impact in August 2017, the University of South Carolina Darla Moore School of Business found there was a $281 million impact on South Carolina by USC Aiken employees, students and alumni. Most of that was in Aiken County and surrounding South Carolina counties. This includes out-of-state visitors who might come to the Aiken area for family weekend events or when students are moving in or out of the area. The total economic statewide impact of USC’s eight campuses is approximately $5.5 billion.
www.ajc.com
Kempner: Selfie sensation from Cobb takes 49 years to graduate
By Matt Kempner, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Larry Johnson is a grandfatherly looking Cobb County guy whose college graduation selfie went viral. “My goal was to graduate before I reached 100 years of age. I made it with 33 years to spare,” he tweeted just before his Georgia State University ceremony began Thursday. t took him 49 years to graduate. Johnson, 66, started taking classes at Georgia State in the fall of 1969. Over the next half-century he changed majors three times, attended classes in at least four different decades (the 1960s, 1970s, 1990s and this one) and took breaks that made it seem like he was never coming back. Yet somehow he did. Repeatedly. And Johnson didn’t finish up his degree just to say he did it and then hang it up on a wall in retirement. He’s actually hoping to use what he learned for his small business.
www.onlineathens.com
UGA students solve Rocky Branch Elementary School sound problem
By Leah Moss
The Rocky Branch Elementary School cafeteria will soon be less noisy, thanks to students from the University of Georgia. In the coming weeks, students in the College of Engineering will install sound-absorbing panels they created on the walls of the cafeteria at the Oconee County school. Third-grade students at Rocky Branch will decorate the panels with pictures of fruits and vegetables. The idea came to Ben Davis, an assistant professor of engineering with experience in sound and acoustics, after he was asked to visit the school during lunch period. “The cafeteria creates a ‘cocktail party’ effect,” said Davis. “Students talk at a normal level, the sound bounces off the walls, students raise their voices to be heard, and the sound gets even louder.” Davis decided to turn the problem into a service-learning opportunity for his graduate students. Service-learning at UGA is the application of academic skills and knowledge to address a community need and enhance student learning.
www.augustachronicle.com
AU students seek to bridge disconnect between downtown, river
By Tom Corwin
Part of the effort to revitalize downtown Augusta is creating greater access and use of the Savannah River, according to the Convention and Visitors Bureau. Four Augusta University marketing students have an idea that could help with that and attract more millennials to downtown: an annual dinner along the Fifth Street Bridge called Bridging the Gap. The Savannah River was the inspiration for a class project at Augusta University that could become an annual event for downtown Augusta. Highlighting and connecting more with the river is a big part of what the Augusta Convention and Visitors Bureau sees as the key to tourism efforts in the future, including tying together such seemingly disparate projects as a whitewater park and a new network of trails across the area. The four students in a marketing class at AU call their effort “Bridging the Gap,” and it envisions an annual fundraising dinner on the Fifth Street Bridge that would offer a spectacular view of the river. “The Savannah River is our biggest asset,” student Madison Layton said.
www.thegeorgeanne.com
Georgia Southern students receive four Emmy nominations
http://www.thegeorgeanne.com/news/article_386ecf07-aa10-5dbf-aca4-bd175af9bef4.html
By Matthew Enfinger The George-Anne staff
The Media Development Center at Georgia Southern University has received four Student Emmy Award nominations from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. The MDC student production teams received two nominations for Sports – Live Events, Fairfield vs. Georgia Southern Baseball and Georgia State vs. Georgia Southern in Women’s Basketball, MDC Director Art Berger said. Holden Galatas, senior public relations major, received a nomination in the Talent category for his anchor work of these events.
www.augustachronicle.com
Augusta University Health partners with Grady EMS for patient transport services
By Staff Reports
A new agreement between Augusta University Health and Grady Emergency Medical Services aims to improve inter-facility transport services for patients, according to a news release from AU Health. Effective May 1, the partnership designated Grady EMS as the official provider of hospital-to-hospital transports to AU Medical Center and the Children’s Hospital of Georgia. Grady EMS will operate eight AU Health ambulances, including a wheelchair-accessible van and a neonatal transport vehicle, the release stated. As part of the agreement, there will also be non-emergency patient transports between facilities and a mobile response team that can deploy to deliver care to patients instead of bringing them to a hospital, according to the release.
www.chronicle.com
This Is What Georgia Tech Thinks College Will Look Like in 2040
https://www.chronicle.com/article/This-Is-What-Georgia-Tech/243400
By Beth McMurtrie
The Georgia Institute of Technology has a fondness for bold experiments. It created the nation’s largest online master’s program in computer science, which won praise for its quality and low cost. It is home to the Center for 21st Century Universities, a “living laboratory” for educational innovation. It introduced artificially intelligent tutors in the classrooms. And it is reimagining the campus library to focus less on books and more on teaching, research, and collaboration. Three years ago, the university took this experimentation a step further when it established the Commission on Creating the Next in Education, asking it to imagine the public research university of 2040 and beyond … Rafael L. Bras, Georgia Tech’s provost and executive vice president for academic affairs … spoke with The Chronicle this week about the commission’s report and what the future may hold for public universities.
Higher Education News:
www.hechingerreport.org
Why falling demand for college hasn’t brought down sticker prices
A Planet Money podcast about the market-defying logic behind college costs
http://hechingerreport.org/why-falling-demand-for-college-hasnt-brought-down-sticker-prices/
The supply of students continues to decline, but college and university sticker prices haven’t. This market-defying logic is the subject of a Planet Money podcast with Hechinger Report higher education editor Jon Marcus. Many institutions boasted, in the admission season just ended, that they had received record numbers of applications. What most very carefully didn’t say was that record numbers of applicants are lining up to be accepted. That’s because the number of students is actually down by 2.6 million since the last peak in 2011. Economics 101 suggests that declining demand results in lower prices.