University System News:
www.ajc.com
Court ruling changed Georgia’s approach to race-based college admissions
The Trump administration’s announcement Tuesday that it is abandoning an Obama administration policy that called on universities to consider race as a factor in diversifying their campuses may have little impact on Georgia’s largest campuses, because of a nearly two-decades-old court ruling. The University of Georgia (UGA), the state’s flagship university, had used race as an admissions criteria for 10 to 15 percent of its enrollment until 2000, when it lost a court ruling over its policy. Three white women denied admission sued the university, saying the policy was discriminatory. UGA initially planned to appeal, but announced in 2001 it would not fight the decision. UGA, and other schools, such as Georgia Tech, now use strategies like guaranteeing admission to the top two graduates of every accredited Georgia high school to boost minority and rural student enrollment. …University System of Georgia officials stressed in a statement late Tuesday its colleges and universities do not consider race in its admissions process. “At all 26 USG institutions, race or ethnicity is not a determining factor in admissions,” it said.
www.myajc.com
Get Schooled with Maureen Downey
Trump doesn’t think college admissions should consider race. Do you?
The Wall Street Journal and New York Times report today the Trump White House plans to rescind Obama administration policies designed to foster greater racial diversity on America’s college campuses. The news was not a surprise as newly confirmed Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Ken Marcus is not a proponent of race-conscious college admissions. The reversal of federal admissions guidelines reflects a general retreat by the administration from policies that pressure schools to scrutinize their practices through a lens of racial bias. For example, the U.S. Department of Education said last week it would push back the imposition of an Obama-era rule mandating states review how districts identify and serve minority students with disabilities for two years. The “Equity in IDEA” rule was due to go into effect this fall and came in response to findings that minority students in special education were disproportionately disciplined and placed in more restrictive settings. …(Georgia public colleges already do not consider race in admissions. Read why here.)
www.statesboroherald.com
Engineering Center among 3 major buildings coming to Georgia Southern
Interdisciplinary Building nearing completion
AL HACKLE
In the middle of Georgia Southern University’s Statesboro campus, the Interdisciplinary Academic Building, with a $25.2 million construction budget, is nearing completion. The project has a $33.6 million total budget including design, construction and equipment. Next, the state’s capital-projects budget for the fiscal year that began Sunday includes $49.9 million to build a Center for Engineering and Research, also on the Statesboro campus. Last year, $4.9 million was budgeted for planning and design of the center, giving it total funding so far of $54.8 million. Meanwhile, the Waters College of Health Professions building is under construction on Georgia Southern’s Armstrong campus in Savannah after officials broke ground last August at what was then Armstrong State University. That building has a $22 million construction budget. So together, these represent a state investment of roughly $110 million in buildings either under construction or planned for the new, three-city Georgia Southern formed by the merger with Armstrong and also including its Liberty campus in Hinesville.
www.eurekalert.org
MCG students selected to participate in yearlong NIH research program
MEDICAL COLLEGE OF GEORGIA AT AUGUSTA UNIVERSITY
AUGUSTA, Ga. (July 5, 3018) – Two students at the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University have been selected to participate in the National Institutes of Health’s Medical Research Scholars Program. Third-year students Saadia Hasan and Deeti Pithadia are two of only 37 students in the nation chosen for the research training program that allows medical, dental and veterinary students to pause their university studies to live on the intramural campus of NIH in Bethesda, Maryland, and conduct basic, clinical or translational research. The accepted scholars begin their fellowships in July/August. “The NIH Medical Research Scholars Program attracts the brightest talent from across the country. These scholars are the future leaders in American medicine,” says Dr. Thomas R. Burklow, director of the MRSP.
www.albanyherald.com
Young Scholar/Eagle Scout adds solar panels
Panels add to efficiency of UGA-Tifton Future Farmstead
TIFTON — This year, two additional solar panels were installed at the Future Farmstead, a water- and energy-efficient research home on the University of Georgia Tifton campus, as part of a project by Eagle Scout Bailey Veeder of Athens. Veeder began working at the Future Farmstead when he was a Young Scholar during the summer of 2017. He worked with Craig Kvien, a UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences professor on the university’s Tifton campus. The Young Scholars program pairs high school students with faculty members on UGA’s Athens, Tifton and Griffin campuses for six weeks over the summer to take part in hands-on research opportunities. “He worked down here for the summer on solar panels, and he decided to take that further and turn it into an Eagle Scout project. He came down with his troop and put up two other solar panels,” Kvien said. “One is over the aquaponics area in the circle area of the driveway and the other is over by the turfgrass plots.” Kvien said the troop took aluminum frames that were already in place and added the solar panels to them. Then, with the help of Kvien’s work crew, the steel structure was set up and painted. Now the system just needs to be wired.
Higher Education News:
www.chronicle.com
The Trump Administration Just Rescinded Obama-Era Guidance on Race-Conscious Admissions Policies. So What?
Maybe the ground shook a little, but the legal pillars supporting affirmative action didn’t sway. The Trump administration on Tuesday rescinded Obama-era guidance on race-conscious admissions policies. Some education wonks and legal experts said the move was inevitable — and hardly shocking. After all, the administration has previously signaled its opposition to race-conscious programs, which are used at many top-tier institutions. Still, college leaders have reason to consider what just changed. So, let’s review a bit. The Obama administration’s guidance gave colleges leeway in determining whether considering an applicant’s race was necessary. “Institutions are not required to implement race-neutral approaches if, in their judgment, the approaches would be unworkable,” according to guidance issued in 2011. In some cases, that document said, approaches that didn’t help a college achieve a certain level of diversity, or that sacrificed its educational mission, might be “unworkable.” Now that’s out the window. Joint guidance issued by the Department of Education and the Department of Justice on Tuesday says that the Obama administration’s guidelines “advocate policy preferences and positions beyond the requirements of the Constitution.” And so the Trump administration has withdrawn the documents, which it said were “inconsistent with governing principles for agency guidance.”