University System News:
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Savannah State University president to retire in June
By Eric Stirgus
Savannah State University President Cheryl Dozier, who has been grappling with recent enrollment and budget declines, is retiring at the end of June, officials announced Friday. Dozier has been president of the university since 2011, after working the prior 17 years as an administrator at the University of Georgia. University System of Georgia Chancellor Steve Wrigley named Kimberly Ballard-Washington, currently associate vice chancellor of legal affairs at the system, as interim president effective July 1. Ballard-Washington previously served as interim president at Fort Valley State University and Albany State University. A national search to replace Dozier will begin at a later date, officials said.
Savannah Morning News
Board of Regents expected to select Georgia Southern University president next week
By Ann Meyer
The Board of Regents for the University System of Georgia expects to select a new president of Georgia Southern University next week in Atlanta, chairman Don Waters said. The presidential search committee at GSU has delivered a narrowed list of candidates for a Board of Regents special committee’s consideration, and the special committee is scheduled to meet next week for intensive interviews with the candidates. “It will be a day of multi-hour interviews,” Waters said. “From that, we’ll be able to select a permanent leader.” The Board of Regents’ next regular board meeting is Jan. 9 in Atlanta. A new president could begin in the role at GSU in 60 to 90 days, Waters said. Waters said the new president will come from the list the Georgia Southern search committee recommends. “We will not go outside what they recommend to us,” he said. The Board of Regents committee will review a group of “not less than three and not more than five candidates,” Waters said. The search committee has been closed to the public to encourage candidates to apply without having to announce their interest to their current employers.
See also:
WSAV3
Savannah State University president to retire
WJCL
Savannah State University President Dozier announces plans to retire
SSU’S associate vice chancellor of legal affairs has been named as interim president
Savannah Morning News
New GSU building celebrates health professions
By Ann Meyer
The expansive windows of the new Health Professions Academic Building at Georgia Southern University’s Armstrong Campus are meant to pull sunshine into the classrooms and provide a view of the wooded wetlands, but they also serve as a reminder of what the University System of Georgia hopes Georgia Southern will accomplish. It wants to make the Waters College of Health Professions a destination for students pursuing health care careers and provide the basis for an expanding health care field in Savannah. At a ribbon-cutting celebrating the new building Thursday, Don Waters, chairman of the Board of Regents and an Armstrong State University alumnus who with his wife Cindy donated $2 million for the building, said the largest hospitals and health care centers in Savannah have people on staff “right out of this academic program.” The new building is more than bricks and concrete, Waters said. “What you’re really looking at is opportunity and a place where students can build their dreams.” Governor Nathan Deal said the skill sets students today need to get jobs when they graduate are different than years ago. By developing students with the skills the health care field needs, Georgia’s universities can produce great results. …Besides the Waters’ contribution, the state provided $22 million in fiscal year 2018 for construction of the building, the university said. Other donations came from St. Joseph’s/Candler health system for a nursing suite and from Don and Fara Avery who provided funds for the Meredith Avery Conference Room in memory of their daughter, who was a student at Armstrong. The new building, which opens for students when the spring semester starts Jan. 14, offers a simulation suite, where students can learn what it’s like to work as part of a team in a health care facility. It provides labs for teaching nursing skills, respiratory therapy and communication sciences and disorders.
See also:
WTOC11
GSU’s Armstrong campus gets new Health Professions Academic Building
Ed Tech Magazine
U.S. Government Taps into Nation’s Colleges for Cybersecurity Expertise
Grants and other programs help higher ed institutions working to fill the projected IT skills gap.
By Erika Gimbel
The National Science Foundation calls cybersecurity “one of the defining issues of our time.” The U.S. is particularly vulnerable, according to Juniper Research, because of the substantial amount of national and international data located within a wide range of companies, governmental entities and institutions, with little regulation. Compounding the problem is that the likelihood that, within a few years, the country will be vastly short on cybersecurity talent. It’s possible there could be 3.5 million unfilled cybersecurity positions by 2021. Government entities are taking a proactive stance against this projected skills shortfall by partnering with universities to strengthen U.S. companies and government infrastructure. For example: After the city of Atlanta and other government entities suffered cyberattacks in 2018, the University of North Georgia and the FBI created a partnership to better assess cyberthreats and prevent future attacks.
The Augusta Chronicle
Davidson theater students portray patients at MCG
By Sarah LeBlanc
Five students acted out illnesses for students at the Medical College of Georgia as part of the school’s standardized patient program. Madison Bold baffled medical students Thursday when she walked into the Medical College of Georgia on Thursday complaining of stomach pains and diarrhea. Then she walked out just fine. Bold was one of five students with the John S. Davidson Fine Arts Magnet School who acted as standardized patients for first-year students at the medical college at Augusta University. The standardized patient program provides medical students with a chance to interact with pretend patients before they enter clinics. The Davidson students each spent about 15 minutes with the medical students, answering their questions based on a script they received in mid-December. The younger students also received training on how to answer questions and when to give clues on their illness. Each Davidson student received the same patient information, based on a real case at the medical college.
Statesboro Herald
Statesboro Council to meet on GS campus
City to consider contract with local-issues lobbyists
AL HACKLE
The next regular meeting of Statesboro City Council, Jan. 15 at 5:30 p.m., will be held in an unusual location, the Nessmith-Lane Conference Center on the Georgia Southern University campus. At the conclusion of Wednesday’s meeting, Mayor Jonathan McCollar announced that he and council members want to hold a few meetings in venues other than City Hall this year. “I know it’s my hope and the hope of other individuals that I’ve talked to up here that we’re able to take our council meeting to different points within the city to give opportunity for everyone throughout the community to engage and interact with those that represent them,” he said.
Forbes
Four Ways Government Shutdown Hampers U.S. Science Students Now
Marshall Shepherd, Contributor Science
The sophomoric government shutdown offers the American public an illusion. Sadly, many people are tweeting or uttering statements like “there is no impact of the shutdown” or “so what?” This is because many federal workers are working without pay so that you don’t notice anything. They are still helping land planes, provide weather forecasts, service certain payouts, monitor the oceans for tsunamis, or protect the homeland. Students across the United States are starting to feel in the impacts of the shutdown right now. From my lens as an atmospheric sciences professor at a major university and as a former president of the American Meteorological Society, here four ways (at least) that students are being affected. …Taxpayer dollars have enabled valuable scientific datasets that citizens no longer have access to. Such inaccessibility halts valuable scientific research and delays possible graduation for students targeting Spring semester for completion. For many undergraduate students, it limits the type of research projects they are able to conduct. For example, I use numerous NOAA and NASA websites as a part of my instructional mix. I have already altered a couple of my lessons for my Honors Introductory Weather and Climate class this semester at the University of Georgia.
Higher Education News:
The Chronicle of Higher Education
For American Colleges, China Could Be the New Travel Ban — but Worse
By Karin Fischer
Anxiety has been rampant about the “Trump effect,” the idea that the president’s travel ban and anti-foreigner rhetoric could discourage — or prevent — top students and scholars from coming to the United States and damage the standing of American higher education globally. But perhaps American colleges should be bracing for something even more ominous on the horizon — call it the “China effect.” Consider this: The Trump administration in recent months has tightened rules for Chinese visa-holders in some STEM fields and reportedly has considered barring all Chinese students. Public officials, including the director of FBI, have warned of universities’ vulnerability to Chinese espionage, and Congress has threatened to withhold certain federal grants from colleges with Confucius Institutes, the Chinese-funded language centers. Amid heightening geopolitical tensions, some institutions are reconsidering their research ties in China.
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Opinion: Use lottery surplus to help more students afford college
Get Schooled with Maureen Downey
When voters approved the Georgia Lottery, they did so not just to create a lottery, but to create a fund that would help students go to college. Twenty-five years later, we have a lottery producing more money than ever before, yet not all the funds are being used for their intended purpose and Georgia students—and businesses—lose as a result.It is no secret that Georgians are struggling with the cost of college. Every year, students don’t enter the doors of higher education because they can’t afford it. And every semester, colleges are forced to drop promising students who can’t afford to pay all of their tuition—oftentimes being only a few hundred dollars short. Those students often never make it into the skilled workforce, and all the while businesses struggle to find trained workers. There is a solution. The state is sitting on $600 million of unused lottery money intended for education.