University System News:
www.metroatlantaceo.com
Georgia Tech Leadership Search Committees Announced
http://metroatlantaceo.com/news/2018/10/georgia-tech-leadership-search-committees-announced/
Staff Report From Metro Atlanta CEO
The Office of the President has announced the formation of several search committees that are charged with identifying candidates for key leadership roles within the Institute. “Solidifying our administrative structure is of critical importance, and I’m grateful for the individuals on these committees who have agreed to spend the time and energy necessary to find the right leaders for Georgia Tech,” said President G.P. “Bud” Peterson.
www.albanyherald.com
ASU gala, street party, parade victims of Michael
Restoration takes precedence over celebration at Albany State
From Staff Reports
ALBANY — In an open letter sent to alumni and supporters, Albany State University President Marion Fedrick announced plans for a scaled-back homecoming celebration this week. Fedrick said that a planned fundraiser gala and street festival, as well as the annual homecoming parade, are among the casualties of Hurricane Michael. She apologized to alumni who had made plans — and hotel reservations — to attend events during homecoming but stressed the importance of restoration over celebration. The ASU president encouraged supporters to take part in Saturday’s day of service, block party and homecoming football game.
www.insidehighered.com
Digital Learning News in ‘Inside Higher Ed’ This Week
Among the topics: six more universities offer degrees through edX; billion-dollar OER savings; imposing rigor on federal aid experiments; MIT bets big on AI.
By Doug Lederman
The following news developments relevant to “Inside Digital Learning” readers received coverage in our parent publication Inside Higher Ed this week: The online learning provider edX announced last week that six universities would join Georgia Institute of Technology in introducing low-cost, fully online master’s degree programs using its course platform. In addition to Georgia Tech, the institutions are the University of Texas at Austin; Indiana University; the University of California, San Diego; Arizona State University and two Australian universities — the University of Queensland and Curtin University. EdX joins Coursera, another platform that initially specialized in massive open online courses, in increasingly moving into the graduate degree space with selective universities.
www.thebrunswicknews.com
College to host “Walk a Mile in Her Shoes” event
By LAUREN MCDONALD
The College of Coastal Georgia will hosts its first “Walk a Mile in Her Shoes” event at 10 a.m. on Thursday to bring awareness to domestic violence and sexual assault. The walk will be hosted by the college’s Student Health Center. Community members, along with students, faculty and staff at the college, are invited to attend and participate. “Walk a Mile in Her Shoes” is an international men’s march to stop rape, sexual assault and gender violence. The event aims to involve men in the effort to spread awareness about violence against women.
www.thebrunswicknews.com
College, health system create scholarship to honor Emiko Diaz
By LAUREN MCDONALD
Emiko Diaz was driven and dedicated, always working hard toward the goals she’d set for herself. Diaz graduated from the College of Coastal Georgia with a degree in health informatics, and she earned her degree in four years while also caring for her daughter at home. Her dreams for which she worked hard were halted too early. Shortly after graduating from the college, Diaz was shot and killed by her husband, who then turned the gun on himself. Their daughter, who was six at the time, was wounded but survived. …Diaz’s memory, though, will live on through a new scholarship fund announced Tuesday at a ceremony at the college. Coastal Georgia has partnered with the local hospital to establish the new Southeast Georgia Health System Emiko Diaz Scholarship Fund.
www.daily-tribune.com
Excitement abounds as GHC officially opens new academic building
BY DONNA HARRIS
It may have been raining Tuesday, but Georgia Highlands College was in the mood to celebrate as officials cut the ribbon on a project that was six years in the making. GHC administrators, faculty, staff, students, retirees and alumni were joined by state legislators, school system officials, business leaders and other members of the community for the ribbon-cutting ceremony and open house for the new academic building on the Cartersville campus. The three-story, 52,000-square-foot building will house science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics areas of study and includes laboratories, classrooms, a lecture hall and study rooms. “This increases GHC’s ability to directly impact and support the community’s workforce through STEAM-based degrees, and it allows GHC to better serve as the University System of Georgia’s primary access institution in the region,” President Dr. Don Green told the crowd gathered inside the gym. He also said the college sees itself as an “economic driver in northwest Georgia” that provides a financial impact of almost $150 million a year.
www.fox5atlanta.com
New technology being used at university can detect, pinpoint sound of gunfire
By: Denise Dillon, Travis Maurer
CARROLL COUNTY, Ga. – New technology that can pick up the location of gunshots and pinpoint the location. The University of West Georgia just installed the technology called ShotSpotter and police say it’s already proven it’s accurate. “There are sensors, or mini-microphones, about 40 or 50 of them on the buildings across campus. When a gunshot is detected the sensors will go off, it will be sent to a monitor center in California and will be pushed out to our street officers,” said University Police Chief Tom Saccenti. Chief Saccenti says it can pinpoint the location within 3 to 5 feet. …Chief Saccenti says it typically takes 8 minutes for a call of a gunshot to be reported to an officer on the street. He says with this technology an officer knows how many shots were fired and wherein less than a minute.
www.albanyherald.com
UGA students, faculty take part in GMO discussion
Panelists: Social impact must be part of discussion of genetic modification of crops
By Sadie Lackey
ATHENS — To help spark a more substantive conversation about genetically modified crops, the Sustainable Food Systems Initiative hosted a panel discussion recently after the public film screening of “Food Evolution,” a 2016 documentary on the issues surrounding GMOs and their promise for building a more food-secure world. The Sustainable Food Systems Initiative is a faculty group from across the University of Georgia campus that focuses on inter-disciplinary solutions to food system problems. Faculty from the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences (CAES) led this initiative. The panel included UGA agricultural communications professor Abigail Borron; Wayne Parrott of the UGA Institute of Plant Breeding, Genetics and Genomics; Pablo Lapegna, UGA sociology professor and author of “Soybeans and Power: Genetically Modified Crops, Environmental Politics and Social Movements in Argentina,” and UGA CAES sustainable agriculture coordinator Julia Gaskin.
www.wgauradio.com
SUNBELT AG EXPO GETS VISIT FROM VP
By: Tim Bryant
The University of Georgia and its College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences are major players in the annual Sunbelt Ag Expo, which kicked off Tuesday and continues today at Spence Field in Colquitt County. The Sunbelt Ag Expo, one of the largest showcases of new and emerging farm technology, wraps up tomorrow at Spence Field in Moultrie. Vice President Mike Pence paid a Tuesday visit to the Ag Expo as part of his swing around south Georgia, where he got a first hand look at damage from last week’s Hurricane Michael. “We will rebuild these crops and these communities,” Vice President Pence said, “We will restore Southwest Georgia. We will restore the Sunbelt region.” University of Georgia President Jere W. Morehead in attendance. Morehead spoke at length with attendees about the effects of the storm and what could be done to ease the burden on the state’s farmers, some of whom have lost everything.
www.chicagobusiness.com
With new fund, Mesirow exec to spend $1.6 billion on apartments
The jump in apartment values over the past several years has made it much harder to find attractively priced deals, but Alasdair Cripps thinks there are still reasons to be bullish on the sector. Here’s why.
ALBY GALLUN
Mesirow executive Alasdair Cripps is on the hunt for more properties to buy after raising the firm’s third and largest apartment investment fund … It sounds like you’re going to invest in some student housing as well. Why do you like student housing? We’re doing a little student housing in the markets that we know and understand. So, we are not going to Ann Arbor, Michigan, or Lincoln, Nebraska, or Madison, Wisconsin. We’re really just investing in assets that have some student influence. An example would be in midtown Atlanta, where you’ve got Georgia Tech that is very much affecting a lot of properties. Our strategy is more of a market-specific knowledge strategy, where you might have some students involved.
Higher Education News:
www.ajc.com
Latest ACT scores show Georgia holding onto lead over nation
By Ty Tagami
For the third year in a row, Georgia students who took the ACT test outperformed their peers nationally. The state’s average composite 2017-18 score of 21.4 was flat from the prior year, according to data released by ACT Wednesday, while the national average dropped slightly to 20.8. That’s where Georgia was in 2013-14, before small but steady annual increases. The national average, by comparison, has been bobbing between 21.0 and 20.8 each year since then. Georgia achieved this steady increase during that time while test participation rose by nearly 6,000, with 56,481 students in the state’s 2018 graduating class taking the exam. National participation rose, too, but at a slower pace.
www.ajc.com
Fulton schools outscore state and nation on college entrance exam
By Staff report
Fulton County Schools outperformed the state and nation on the ACT test. The composite score for Fulton students was 23.7, which is down slightly from last year’s 23.8. The ACT is an multiple-choice entrance exam across multiple subjects used by most colleges and universities to make admissions decisions. Fulton’s 2018 score of 23. 7 is higher than the Georgia state composite score of 21.4. The U.S. score for this year was 20.8.
www.insidehighered.com
ACT Scores Drop
All racial and ethnic groups — except for Asian Americans — see declines.
By Scott Jaschik
The average composite score on the ACT for high school seniors who graduated in 2018 was 20.8, down from 21.0 the prior year. All four of the subject tests showed declines. More than 1.9 million students in this cohort took the ACT, down a bit from the previous year, and back to the level of two years prior. The decrease is notable because testing groups generally say that surges in test takers are likely to result in declines in average scores, as a wider cross-section of students is tested. That was not the case this year.
www.wsj.com
The Real Cost of College Is Flattening as Schools Give More Scholarships
While tuition costs keep rising, schools offer more aid to attract shrinking pool of students
https://www.wsj.com/articles/net-college-costs-flat-to-down-after-years-of-growth-1539682200
By Douglas Belkin
After increasing for decades, the real cost of attending both public and private college is flat and in some cases even declined this year, as colleges compete for fewer students by giving away more scholarships. If that sounds counterintuitive, it’s because the sticker price for higher education continues to inch up even though fewer students actually pay it, according an annual pricing-trends report by the College Board, a New York nonprofit that administers the SAT and tracks university costs.
www.bloomberg.com
The Student Loan Debt Crisis Is About to Get Worse
The next generation of graduates will include more borrowers who may never be able to repay.
By Riley Griffin , Suborna Panja , and Kristina D’Alessio
While Wall Street and U.S. President Donald Trump tout news of a booming stock market and low unemployment, college students may be quick to roll their eyes. The improved economy has yet to mean higher wages for graduates already struggling to pay down massive debt, let alone ease the minds of students staring down the barrel of six-digit loan obligations yet to come. Federal student loans are the only consumer debt segment with continuous cumulative growth since the Great Recession. As the cost of tuition and borrowing continue to rise, the result is a widening default crisis that even Fed Chairman Jerome Powell labeled as a cause for concern.
www.diverseeducation.com
Study: Bachelor’s Degree Not Sole Path to ‘Good-Paying’ Job
by LaMont Jones
People who consider a bachelor’s degree the only route to a good-paying job should think again, because the economy is providing similarly gainful employment to workers with just a high school education and those with so-called middle skills, according to a new study by the Center on Education and the Workforce (CEW) at Georgetown University. While there are about 36 million good jobs for individuals with a bachelor’s degree, there also are about 16 million good jobs for workers with middle-skills preparation and 13 million good jobs for workers with a high school diploma or less, according to the study report, “Three Educational Pathways to Good Jobs: High School, Middle Skills, and Bachelor’s Degree.” Released Tuesday, the report is based on research conducted by the nonprofit CEW in partnership with global financial services giant JPMorgan Chase & Co. But how is a “good job” defined? According to the study, it’s one that pays an average $65,000 for workers with a bachelor’s degree or higher, $56,000 for workers with less than a bachelor’s degree or an occupation that pays at least $35,000 a year. Researchers chose these figures in consultation with economists because they are above the 30th percentile in the economy – the “bad” jobs, the report’s lead author and CEW director Dr. Anthony P. Carnevale told Diverse.
www.educationdive.com
With affirmative action under fire, what’s the future of racial diversity on campus?
A conservative court, an opposed administration and several lawsuits in progress suggest colleges relying on race-conscious admissions should be ready to change their approach.
Author Hallie Busta
It’s no secret that affirmative action in higher education is under threat. Since it was instituted in 1961, the policy has been challenged several times in the Supreme Court. Its constitutionality was upheld at each turn, though only narrowly. But the pressure is building. Two lawsuits brought by the same anti-affirmative action group are working through the lower federal courts. The Trump administration has rolled back Obama-era guidance encouraging race-conscious admissions and is actively investigating colleges and universities that use the policy. And the newest appointee to the Supreme Court gives the bench a conservative majority.
www.hechingerreport.org
As more Latinos go to college, schools vie to become Hispanic-Serving Institutions
But Hispanic advocates say the federal label doesn’t always mean colleges prioritize Latinos
by DELECE SMITH-BARROW
… Like hundreds of universities around the country, the University of Central Florida’s Hispanic population has been growing, rising from 21.6 percent in fall 2014 to 26 percent today. Nationally, Hispanic college enrollment grew from 8 to 19 percent of all students between 1996 and 2016, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Cyndia Muñiz, UCF’s assistant director for Hispanic-serving initiatives, said her institution has embraced the growth. “We want to be an example of what it means to be a Hispanic-serving institution, if not the example,” she said. There are incentives to do so. Any school with at least 25 percent Hispanic enrollment can apply to be federally recognized as a Hispanic-Serving Institution, a label that can qualify them for federal grants.