University System News:
www.augustachronicle.com
Rick Franza: FinTech Academy will break new ground in education, business partnerships
By Richard M. Franza, Ph.D. / Guest Columnist
This past Tuesday, University System of Georgia Chancellor Steve Wrigley announced the formation of a statewide initiative called the FinTech Academy. It appears to be an excellent attempt to address some of the workforce “skill mismatches” I referred to in my previous column, particularly here in the state of Georgia. In addition, this initiative could be a model for partnerships and collaborations among USG institutions and integrated partnerships between business and universities to co-develop curriculum, experiential learning and career opportunities. In order to understand why fintech is so important to Georgia and the United States, we first need to understand what fintech is. No, it is not the technology used to operate “Bruce,” the animatronic shark from the movie “Jaws” (I assume my faithful readers have been wondering when the next vintage movie reference was coming!). Fintech is a shortened version of “financial-technology”; specifically, technology that creates new and better financial services for both consumers and businesses. Basically, fintech is what powers modern banking and financial services.
www.athensceo.com
UGA Helping Women in Southeast Georgia Grow as Leaders
Staff Report From Athens CEO
As a counselor in the Upper School at Bulloch Academy in Statesboro, Kinsley Baker has a great job and a good quality of life. It wasn’t always this way. In fact, when Baker began the 2017-2018 Lynda Brannen Williamson Foundation Women’s Leadership Academy she also had a “great job,” she said. “But it was a challenge to manage work-life balance.” The leadership program, developed by UGA’s J.W. Fanning Institute for Leadership Development for the Lynda Brannen Williamson Foundation in Statesboro, helped Baker realize she needed a change. “Each session really hit home for me and was so relevant to where I was in my life and in my career,” Baker said. “I learned so much about myself, how I work with others and how I manage conflict. What I learned had a lot to do with me taking that step forward.”
www.mdjonline.com
KSU hosts evacuated soccer team
Former Creekview teammates reunited by storm
Shaddi Abusaid
KENNESAW — Hurricane Florence’s assault on the Carolina coastline continued Friday afternoon, but nearly 400 miles away, the storm led to the unlikely reunion of two former high school teammates. Coastal Carolina University’s women’s soccer team was supposed to host the University of Arkansas at Little Rock this week. But the game could not be played in South Carolina as students evacuated and the campus closed ahead of the hurricane’s arrival. Instead, Coastal Carolina’s soccer team sought refuge in Cobb, where they took on the ladies of Little Rock at Kennesaw State University’s track and field facility. …Paul Hogan, Coastal Carolina’s head coach, said he received a call from his athletic director Sunday evening telling him to get his team out of dodge. He called up several schools looking for somewhere to play the match, eventually emailing Benji Walton, the head coach of KSU’s women’s soccer team, who invited the team to Kennesaw. “I’m grateful they were willing to host us,” he said of KSU. “They’ve been first-class the entire way. It’s been super easy for us to get here, get onto a great field and play our match.”
www.savannahnowcom
Savannah State professor emeritus honored with White House award
By Ann Meyer
A professor’s candid comment about the inferior marine science facilities at Savannah State University back in 1987 wasn’t appreciated by some, but it got the ball rolling for a new marine sciences building. Thirty years later, as the university celebrates a new marine sciences center, professor emeritus Matthew Gilligan reflected on the program’s expansion. “That was an exciting time,” Gilligan said. “It was hard times getting things going, and then an agonizing wait for facilities. Once the facilities were there, it was off to the races. “Students really started enrolling,” he said. The program expanded, and over the years it required a new facility. The new Marine Science Center opened at 2717 Livingston Road in October 2017. Gilligan was honored with the national Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring this summer by the White House. The award was several years late in being announced. Gilligan retired in November 2011. Gilligan, who holds a doctorate from the University of Arizona where he studied fish in the Sea of Cortez in Mexico, was among the first marine science professors hired by Savannah State.
www.statesboroherald.com
Panel gets local input for GS prez search
Confidential process means no finalist forums
https://www.statesboroherald.com/local/panel-gets-local-input-gs-prez-search/
AL HACKLE/Staff
Statesboro Herald
The campus committee has chosen to conduct a “confidential” search for Georgia Southern University’s next president, so there will be no open forums with finalists before their names are submitted confidentially to the University System of Georgia Board of Regents. But the committee held listening sessions earlier this week where students, university employees and a few alumni and other community residents talked about qualities and actions they would like to see from the new president. Anyone can comment through a survey link on the committee’s webpage: https://president.georgiasouthern.edu/presidential-search. The 18-member Presidential Search and Screen Committee, chaired by Dustin Anderson, Ph.D., is charged with delivering an unranked list of three to five qualified candidates to the regents. Anderson conducted the 3 p.m. Monday session, open to faculty, staff, students and community members, in the Russell Union building on the Statesboro campus. He had also presided at a 10 a.m. session specifically for faculty, an 11 a.m. session for staff, a 1 p.m. session for students and another opportunity for faculty at 2 p.m. The 3 p.m. session, when a reporter counted 23 people in the room, was Monday’s best attended, Anderson said.
www.myajc.com
One year after student’s tragic death, Tech touts reforms
By Eric Stirgus and Christian Boone – The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Brilliant but troubled. An outcast and a leader. Scout Schultz was also a provocateur, even in death. The police-involved shooting of the 21-year-old Georgia Tech student on Sept. 16, 2017, forced university officials to confront some difficult challenges pertaining to use of force, access to mental health counseling and the under-representation of a growing lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex and asexual (LGBTQIA) community. Schultz did not identify as either male or female and, as such, preferred the pronouns “they” or “them,” rather than “he” or “her.” “Scout’s death pulled back the curtain on a number of issues that had been simmering under the surface, not only at Tech but on campuses everywhere,” said Halle Lieberman, who teaches science journalism at Tech and has written extensively about the aftermath of Schultz’s death. But one issue remains largely unresolved. The Fulton County District Attorney’s Office continues to investigate the circumstances that led Tech police officer Tyler Beck, 23 years old at the time, to shoot Schultz once in the chest while three other officers on the scene appeared to follow standard de-escalation techniques. Meanwhile, Beck rejoined the force, in an administrative capacity, last December after being placed on paid leave pending the outcome of the investigation.
www.myajc.com
Get Schooled with Maureen Donwey
On anniversary of student’s death, what has changed at Georgia Tech?
Today marks the year anniversary of the shooting death of Georgia Tech student Scout Schultz by a campus police officer. The 21-year-old student died after calling 911 to report “a suspicious person on campus” …. a white male, with long blonde hair, white T-shirt and blue jeans who is possibly intoxicated, holding a knife and possibly armed with a gun on his hip,” according to the GBI. The only weapon Schultz carried was a multipurpose tool that included a small blade, which was not extended. There was no gun. A video of the incident — which unfolded in view of Tech dorms — shows Schultz responding to police entreaties with “Shoot me!”, ignoring commands to stand in place, and moving toward the campus officers, one of whom then fired. In an AJC story today that includes an interview with Schultz’s father, AJC reporters Eric Stirgus and Christian Boone note: “It’s unclear whether the confrontation with campus police, orchestrated by Scout, was tantamount to a suicide attempt.” Here is an excerpt from the AJC story:
Higher Education News:
www.chronicle.com
How the Great Recession Reshaped American Higher Education
By Lindsay Ellis
Morgan R. Olsen was feeling excited in 2008, as he prepared for a major career move. He had accepted a top gig at Arizona State University, managing its finances as executive vice president and treasurer. But in his first semester on the job, Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy, a key moment in the nationwide economic recession that would rattle higher education and many other American sectors. “It got a lot more exciting in a hurry,” Olsen said in a recent interview. During the past 10 years, the financial meltdown and its aftermath have spurred considerable change in how academic leaders run their institutions, public research universities in particular. Immediate funding shortfalls and tightened credit from banks squeezed many colleges, leading to furloughs and cutbacks. The longer-term effects of the recession have been more profound and less obvious. They have altered campus revenue streams, influenced students’ choice of major, reshuffled the composition of the academic work force, and prodded colleges to emphasize their role as economic engines. Institutions have had to prove their worth to both prospective students and skeptical state governments, many of which have reduced appropriations. Once prized as important societal investments, campuses have had to fend for themselves.
www.insidehighered.com
Positive View of Higher Ed, With Lots of Caveats
National poll finds more appreciation of colleges than other surveys have. In some areas, including affirmative action, sexual assault and mental health, the public isn’t impressed. Public institutions earn more confidence than private ones.
By Scott Jaschik
In 2017, national surveys by Gallup and the Pew Research Center found significant public doubts — more than in previous years — about higher education and its role in American society. While the questions in the two polls were not identical, both polls pointed to doubts about how higher education is run. And the skepticism was greatest among Republicans (although there were also doubts among Democrats and Independents). Today, WGBH (Boston’s public radio station) is releasing a national survey of adults (conducted with ABT Associates) that generally finds a more positive outlook among the more than 1,000 people surveyed. But in key areas, such as the use of affirmative action, the public does not support the policies favored by most higher education leaders. And the survey found doubts on how colleges respond to sexual assault and student mental health issues. The survey found the public thinks more highly of public than private institutions, and that Ivy graduates are seen as elitist. The public is split on the idea of taxing the endowments of wealthy private colleges.
www.insidehighered.com
$100 Increase in Maximum Pell Grant
Congressional spending deal includes gains for student aid and NIH.
By Andrew Kreighbaum
An appropriations deal reached by House and Senate negotiators last week largely reflects the priorities of the upper chamber, including higher spending on student aid, career and technical education, and university-based research. The spending bill for fiscal year 2019, which begins October 1, would increase the Education Department’s total budget to $71.5 billion — a second year in a row Congress has boosted funding, despite calls for heavy cuts by the Trump administration. The maximum Pell Grant would be raised by $100 to $6,195 in the agreement. Perkins Career and Technical Education grants will get $1.26 billion — a $70 million increase from the previous year. Funding for an eligibility fix for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program was extended to the tune of $350 million. The money is targeted to borrowers whose qualifying payments were counted as ineligible because of errors by their loan servicers. And the National Institutes of Health would get $39.1 billion, a number sought by Senate appropriators and a $2 billion increase over the previous year.
www.insidehighered.com
Renewed Debate About GRE
University of Pennsylvania philosophy program drops requirement for its doctoral program, setting off broad discussion about the GRE test’s merits and drawbacks.
By Scott Jaschik
For years, a standard part of applying to most doctoral and master’s programs was submitting scores on the Graduate Record Examination. The test was frequently seen as a crucial part of the application, along with grades earned in college and various other factors. In recent years, GRE has also made inroads in professional degree programs — first in M.B.A. admissions and more recently in law school admissions. But the GRE has also been subject to criticism over its role in graduate admissions, with some of the criticism being that the test is used in ways that the Educational Testing Service doesn’t encourage (essentially with departments having unofficial minimum scores). While ETS says that the GRE should be one factor considered, critics say that many departments focus on the scores, which they see as a way to raise departmental reputations, even at the cost of diversity. This was a major theme of a 2016 book, Inside Graduate Admissions (Harvard University Press), that was based on observation of admissions reviews at leading programs in a range of disciplines. Amid this debate, an announcement from the University of Pennsylvania’s philosophy program is attracting widespread attention in the discipline and setting off a debate that may well apply to many other disciplines.