University System News:
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Whitten presides over 1st Kennesaw State graduation as president today
By Ben Brasch – The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Pamela Whitten’s first official act as new Kennesaw State University president is to gently shove some owls out of the nest. Whitten will preside over KSU’s summer commencement ceremonies Thursday. She started her new role July 16 after a unanimous vote from Georgia’s Board of Regents. …Kennesaw State has about 35,000 students, which makes it Georgia’s third-largest school by enrollment. The Thursday festivities will be held at the Kennesaw State University Convocation Center, 1000 Chastain Road in Kennesaw. Below is the rundown for the graduation, a livestream of which you can watch here.
www.bizjournals.com
Five builders short-listed for $61 million Georgia State University project
By David Allison – Editor, Atlanta Business Chronicle
Five builders have been short-listed as candidates to be construction manager for Georgia State University’s planned Convocation Center, which will cost an estimated $61 million to build. According to a notice filed by the state, the short-listed companies are Barton Malow Co., Brasfield & Gorrie, JE Dunn Construction, McCarthy Building Companies, and The Whiting-Turner Contracting Co. Fifteen companies had recently expressed interest in the project. Georgia State’s Convocation Center will be a state-of-the-art, 200,000-square-foot facility located on the corner of Fulton Street and Capitol Avenue, near Georgia State Stadium and adjacent to property owned by real estate developer Carter. The proposed building is envisioned to be a multi-level facility with “an elegant presence” and include a large multi-purpose arena with a seating capacity of 8,000. Presentations by the shortlisted firms are scheduled for Aug. 21 and a selection announced at the Board of Regents meeting in September, according to an industry source knowledgeable with the competition.
www.bizjournals.com
Georgia Tech planning autonomous vehicle ‘living lab’
By David Allison – Editor, Atlanta Business Chronicle
Georgia Tech plans to turn part of its campus into a “living lab” to test autonomous vehicles in an urban environment. The AV lab will be built around a route located in the middle of the Georgia Tech campus that enjoys high visibility from students and general public, the school says in a July 20 request-for-proposals. It plans to collaborate with an autonomous vehicle systems company to provide a vehicle and supporting technology for the project. “Georgia Tech executive leadership has approved the establishment of a campus‐based autonomous vehicle test bed, utilizing the university campus as a living lab for the exploration of physical interactions between autonomous vehicles and pedestrians, vehicle and bicycles, as well as interactions with other vehicles, and communication such as vehicle‐to‐infrastructure(V2I), vehicle‐to‐vehicle (V2V), and supported technologies,” the school says.
Higher Education News:
www.chronicle.com
Proposed Changes in Borrower-Defense Rules Would Make It Tougher for Defrauded Students to Get Debt Relief
By Claire Hansen
It may soon get much harder for students who have been defrauded by their colleges or universities to seek and receive relief from repaying their federal student loans. The U.S. Department of Education on Wednesday released proposed regulations for student-loan forgiveness that many experts said would leave defrauded borrowers high and dry while making it easier for institutions to practice predatory behavior. The experts also said the rules would make it more difficult for students to get debt relief if their college or university closed abruptly. The regulations, which are now open for 30 days of public comment, cover what’s known as “borrower defense,” a type of student-loan forgiveness granted to borrowers who were misled by their college or whose college broke certain laws. The proposed new regulations mark a sharp departure from borrower-defense rules introduced in 2016 by the Obama administration after the collapse of the for-profit Corinthian Colleges Inc. In 2017, a month before the Obama rules were slated to take effect, the department delayed the regulations and announced plans to revise them. …The new regulations are in line with the department’s previous efforts to deregulate higher education and give colleges more power.
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A DNA test for college?
https://www.myajc.com/news/state–regional-education/dna-test-for-college/NCluZyLech2a60yoQcx8RM/
By Ty Tagami
DNA can help predict who will graduate from college, a new study says. The new research published in Nature Genetics Monday looked at 1.1 million people and found genetic correlations with educational attainment.