University System News:
www.statesboroherald.com
Search for next GS president launched
Committee encouraged to abandon open-forum approach
https://www.statesboroherald.com/local/search-next-gs-president-launched/
By Al Hackle
The campus committee received its charge Wednesday to begin the search for Georgia Southern University’s next president. University System of Georgia Chancellor Steve Wrigley encouraged the committee to deliver a list of three to five qualified candidates before Christmas. He and others also strongly suggested that the 18-member committee choose a “confidential search” method, abandoning Georgia Southern’s previous “open” practice of introducing several selected candidates to the public in campus forums. “I will tell you right now that I’d love to see you have candidates to us before Christmas,” Wrigley told the committee. “It’s a little over three months. Most of our presidential searches are now taking three or four months.” The timeframe is not binding. But his instructions that the campus-based Presidential Search and Screen Committee send the University System Board of Regents’ own committee an unranked list of at least three and no more than five qualified candidates conveyed a regents’ mandate. Ultimately, the Board of Regents will decide whom to hire as Georgia Southern University president, on Wrigley’s recommendation.
www.middlegeorgiaceo.com
Macon Woman Will Celebrate Her 70th Birthday by Graduating from Middle Georgia State University
Sheron Smith
As a practical matter, Margaret Wallace didn’t “need” a college degree. Better known around these parts as Margaret Snow, her name adorned many a real-estate sign during a successful, decades-long career as an agent and broker. About 10 years ago, shortly before she turned 60, she became a compliance investigator with the Georgia Real Estate Commission, a job she holds to this day. But her lack of a degree gnawed at her. It was the box she couldn’t check on a form, the bucket-list item she couldn’t cross off. That changes this fall, when the Macon native is scheduled to receive her associate’s degree in criminal justice from Middle Georgia State University. She has already accumulated about another year’s worth of course credit toward a bachelor’s degree, which she will continue to pursue after participating in MGA’s fall 2018 graduation ceremonies on December 13. Two weeks later, on New Year’s Eve, she celebrates her 70th birthday.
www.wfxl.com
ABAC reaches record enrollment
https://wfxl.com/news/local/abac-reaches-record-enrollment
by Danielle Ledbetter
Right now, more students are going to Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College (ABAC) than ever before. ABAC has about 4,300 students, the school’s highest enrollment numbers in their history. President of the college, David Bridges, says the growth is caused by a few things. They’ve added instructional sites in Donalsonville, Bainbridge and Blakely. The college offers more degree programs now too. Bridges says the growth of ABAC is good for the entire city.
www.georgia.growingamerica.com
Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College Students Thank Scholarship Donors at Milk & Cookies Event
A total of 220 students at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College spent time at the Alumni House on Tuesday afternoon to write thank-you letters to their scholarship donors at the annual Milk and Cookies Day. ABAC awarded over $600,000 in scholarships through the ABAC Foundation this year.
www.jbhe.com
University of Georgia to Honor Mary Frances Early, Its First African American Graduate
Charlayne Hunter and Hamilton Holmes were the first African American students to enroll at the University of Georgia in 1961. But Mary Frances Early was the first African American to earn a degree from the University of Georgia. She was awarded a master’s degree in music education in August 1962. Early will be honored on October 10 with the unveiling of her portrait in the Gordon Jones Gallery on campus. The portrait is the work of by Richard Wilson.
www.bizjournals.com
Georgia State study finds high teacher attrition at privately managed charter schools
By Dave Williams – Staff Writer, Atlanta Business Chronicle
Privately managed charter schools have more teacher turnover and attribution than public, tuition-free charter schools, according to study co-authored by a researcher at Georgia State University. An article published in The Social Science Journal studied charter schools managed by for-profit education management organizations (EMOs), those run by nonprofit charter management organizations (CMOs) and public charter schools. Using national data from the 2011–12 Schools and Staffing Survey, the research found the odds of teacher attrition at for-profit EMOs 38 percent higher and at nonprofit CMOs 24 percent higher than at public charter schools. They also found the odds of migration – teachers moving from one school to another – 97 percent higher for EMO teachers and 58 percent higher for CMO teachers. “Teachers generally leave the profession at high rates across all types of institutions,” said Christine Roch, an associate professor of public management and policy at Georgia State and director of the university’s Andrew Young School of Policy Studies’ joint doctoral programs in public policy. “About half a million teachers leave their schools each year, so the fact that charter school attrition rates are even higher than the norm is concerning.”
Higher Education News:
ww.chronicle.com
DeVos’s Rules on Sexual Misconduct, Long Awaited on Campuses, Reflect Her Interim Policy
By Sarah Brown
Colleges got a preview on Wednesday of what might be coming in the U.S. Department of Education’s long-awaited regulations on campus sexual misconduct. The New York Times obtained a version of the proposed rules, which would be the first regulations ever issued under Title IX, the federal gender-equity law. The Times reported that the rules would strengthen the rights of students who are accused of sexual assault or harassment, and would lessen liability for colleges. The document may not be a final draft of the rules. Here are some of its highlights, according to the Times:
www.myajc.com
Get Schooled with Maureen Downey
Would new federal rules on campus sexual assaults silence victims?
New policies on campus sexual misconduct under consideration by Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos target the criticism that the disciplinary procedures now used by colleges protect victims but ignore the rights of the accused.
That concern led state Rep. Earl Ehrhart, R-Powder Springs, to propose legislation in 2017 that would prevent Georgia campuses from investigating sexual misconduct claims unless police were also involved. When he introduced his bill, Ehrhart told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, “I want to treat these crimes with the seriousness they deserve. But I am not going to sacrifice due process to get there.” Many victims of sexual assault never report the crime to police but instead go to their colleges where the burden of proof is lower and privacy protections higher. Schools conduct their own disciplinary procedures — operating under federal Title IX guidelines — that may expel a student found responsible even if law enforcement never becomes involved. As reported in today’s print AJC, DeVos and her U.S. Department of Education are considering new policies on campus sexual misconduct “that would bolster the rights of students accused of assault, harassment or rape, lessen liability for institutions of higher education and push schools to offer more support for victims” and “narrow the definition of sexual harassment, holding schools accountable only for formal complaints filed through proper authorities and for conduct said to have occurred on their campuses. They would also establish a higher legal standard to determine whether schools improperly addressed complaints.”
www.chronicle.com
What One University Changed After a Freshman Fell Out of His Dorm Window
By Teghan Simonton
Last August a Washington State University freshman fell two stories from his dorm-room window. Matthew Gray had been on the campus just three days, according to the university’s student newspaper, The Daily Evergreen. Gray had made his bed into a loft and moved it against the window, said Phil Weiler, the vice president for marketing and communication, and during the night, Gray rolled out of bed and through the window. He was seriously injured. It was “a horrific situation,” Weiler said, and the university was criticized for failing to protect the student’s safety. So a team — made up of everyone who could possibly help craft a solution, Weiler said — was pulled together. Staff members from facilities, housing, dining, and student affairs were all asking the same question: Could the accident have been prevented? The answer was not simple. Colleges and universities nationwide have experienced similar crises over students’ falling from roofs, balconies, and windows.