University System News:

 

Gainesville Times

How UNG students spread Christmas cheer for foster families

Kelsey Richardson

Eight foster families in Hall County received a Christmas party Friday, Dec. 14, thanks to the efforts of the University of North Georgia’s Community Awareness Group.

 

Gwinnett Daily Post

27th annual Cops and Kids Christmas shopping event serves nearly 170 children

By Isabel Hughes

…Fanned out across Buford’s Hamilton Mill Road Walmart on Wednesday night, dozens of law enforcement officers, children and their parents repeated the Buice-Dallas scene as part of the Gravitt-Everett-Davis Lodge 66 Fraternal Order of Police’s annual Cops and Kids Christmas shopping event. Now in it’s 27th year, the event brings together families and law enforcement officers from every end of the county for one evening to benefit low-income children, said Georgia Gwinnett College’s Deputy Chief of Police and FOP trustee Carlos Llorens. “The whole goal behind it is to (give) these children the opportunity to shop with a police officer,” Llorens said.

 

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Georgia colleges hope earlier, deeper engagement boost grad rates

By Eric Stirgus

Georgia State University had a problem a decade ago. Just one-third of its students were graduating, and the percentage was even lower for African-Americans, a growing part of its enrollment. Administrators, faculty and staff worked on improving student outcomes by requiring students to take math and English courses in their first year as well as courses that align with majors they’re considering. The university’s six-year graduation rate is now 55 percent, and three percentage points higher for African-Americans, said Timothy Renick, Georgia State’s senior vice president for student success. State officials are employing a similar strategy throughout the University System of Georgia, which has had record enrollment for the fourth consecutive year. Their thinking: If students are engaged in potential majors earlier in their academic careers, they’ll do better in school, graduate sooner with less debt and find good-paying jobs. The effort is called “momentum year.” “This is fundamental change,” said Tristan Denley, the University System’s chief academic officer. “These are powerful changes.”

 

The Albany Herald

Concentra Solutions, PharmaCentra celebrate fall grads

Nine employees graduated from area colleges at same time

From Staff Reports

AMERICUS — Concentra Solutions and PharmaCentra recently had nine of their employees graduate from college while working full-time under the company’s flexible hours plan. The company recognized the fall 2018 graduates of South Georgia Technical College, Georgia Southwestern State University and Georgia Southern University, adding higher education in Sumter County is the shared goal of Concentra Solutions and her sister companies. “Empowering our employees to embrace that critical next step in their lives, both professionally and personally, strengthens all of us,” said CEO Dan Berman. “Our success can be attributed to our company’s highly skilled, experienced staff and advisors. By investing in our employees, we are investing in this business and this community.”

 

The St. Augustine Record

S is for survivor: Fruit Cove’s Riley Theis looks to help others after brain cancer

By Colleen Jones

Aside from the 5-inch-by-3-inch mark branded into her scalp, Riley Theis doesn’t bare any outward signs of the brain cancer she battled not once but twice before her 16th birthday. But just below her hairline, an S-shaped scar — the “S,” Theis said, stands for survivor — carves its way down the back of her head, a reminder of where doctors rushed to remove a tumor the size of a golf ball. The growth was found in a CT scan after Theis complained to her mother about the horrible headaches she was getting. “I went through so much Bayer,” recalled Theis, who was a sixth-grader at Fruit Cove Middle School at the time. “They said (later) that was actually good, because it thinned my blood.” Theis knows she was lucky. …Now, nine years later, 24-year-old Theis is training to become a physician’s assistant. After graduating with a remarkable 4.5 grade-point average from Creekside High School in 2013, she majored in chemistry at Georgia Southern University. As a female student in a male-dominated filed, Theis could have written her own ticket to a career in scientific research and field studies. Instead, she decided to switch gears and follow an instinct that told her she should work one-on-one with people in the medical field. …After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry, Theis returned to her family’s home in St. Johns County and began working as a certified nursing assistant at Baptist Medical Center Beaches as she awaits acceptance to pursue a physician’s assistant degree.

 

Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Georgia National Guard’s deployment to Afghanistan is a family affair

Mission includes twin brothers, fathers and sons and a married couple

By Jeremy Redmon

STATESBORO —  Fraternal twins Matthew and Ryan McBride were born just 45 seconds apart and have remained close ever since. As infants, they held hands through the slats of their neighboring cribs and appeared to understand each other’s babble. Mathew pitched for the local baseball team. Ryan was his catcher. Ryan played center on their football team. Matthew was his quarterback. Now they are heading off to war together. Both serve in the Georgia National Guard’s 48th Brigade, which will deploy to Afghanistan next month. Before they leave, they will celebrate Christmas at their parents’ home in Statesboro. …Both law enforcement officers, Matthew and Ryan grew up in Statesboro. They joined the Guard while attending Southeast Bulloch High School so they could get help paying for college. And now they are cannon crew members in separate batteries of the Savannah-based 1st Battalion of the 118th Field Artillery Regiment. They will turn 23 together next month in eastern Afghanistan. “We are super close,” said Matthew, a sergeant in the Guard and a Bulloch County sheriff’s deputy. “That is my best friend right there, for sure.” Ryan, a specialist in the Guard and a campus policeman at Georgia Southern University, feels the same way: “We are very close, ever since birth. We have done pretty much everything together all throughout our lives. Matt is definitely my best friend.”

 

The Albany Herald

ASU a ‘calling’ for President Marion Fedrick

Background helped prepare new ASU president for duties of her office

By Carlton Fletcher

ALBANY — Doubters might scoff at the thought that 12-year-old Sarah Fedrick has one-on-one conversations with God from time-to-time. These are, after all, cynical times. But cynics won’t convince Sarah’s mom, Albany State University President Marion Fedrick, that her daughter hasn’t been blessed with some kind of prescience. After all, Marion Fedrick’s got first-hand experience. “When I was serving as interim president early during my tenure at Albany State, I went into Sarah’s room and she had a box that sat underneath a sign she’d made that said, ‘Going to Albany,’” Fedrick said, smiling broadly at the memory. “These were some of her favorite things and I asked her why she was setting aside things for the (usually weekend) visits she and her dad would make to Albany while I was there. She said, ‘No, mama, we’re moving to Albany.’ “I couldn’t convince her otherwise.” Sarah Fedrick had surprised her mom a few weeks previously when, while sitting in the back seat of the family car and apparently paying no attention to her mother’s phone conversation with then ASU President Art Dunning about the qualities of the next president of the university, Marion Fedrick felt her seat vibrate. She looked back at her daughter to see what was going on. “She’s pointing her finger at me, saying, ‘You, you, he’s talking about you, mama,’” Marion Fedrick says. …There were family issues to attend to, so dad Horace stayed on at his position as chief investigator with the Atlanta District Attorney’s Office, while Marion remained at her post as vice chancellor with the University System of Georgia. And the stage was set for the Philadelphia-born, seventh child of 10 who’d one time dreamed of being a judge to become, of all things, a university president. …As the pieces gradually fell into place, clearing Fedrick’s path to the Albany State presidency, it quickly became clear that she was the right person at the right time for the job.

 

The Augusta Chronicle

Regent pushes to combine University Hospital with AU Health

By Tom Corwin

Regent Jim Hull of Augusta wants to merge AU Health System with University Hospital but University officials aren’t convinced it is necessary or best for them.

Augusta Regent Jim Hull sees a marriage of AU Health System and University Hospital as the key to the future of both, saying state laws and the Legislature could get around any antitrust concerns. But University officials don’t see the need to merge with anyone and aren’t convinced AU Health is a good fit. Hull, however, said University might not have a choice in a few years, an idea University also disputes. Hull, the chairman of the University System of Georgia Board of Regents, incoming Regents Chairman Don Waters of Savannah, and Augusta University President Brooks Keel strongly pitched the idea of a merger to University’s board this fall. Hull said hospitals are having to consolidate all over the country to get bigger to negotiate better rates and survive ever-tightening reimbursements and that the model of the independent county hospital like University is a “burning platform” that will not survive.

 

Athens Banner-Herald

Smith: Former governor and family exemplify the best about Georgia

By Loran Smith

Former governors, as it is with many retired politicians, often revert to an uneventful lifestyle where there are no headlines, no perks or police escorts. Some have difficulty in adjusting, but Joe Frank Harris has something in common with our 33rd president, Harry Truman — happy to have served, but compatible with becoming a private citizen which the former president highlighted in one of his autobiographies, “Mr. Citizen.” Harris served on the Board of Regents after his second term as governor expired in 1991 and spent 14 years in education as a distinguished executive fellow and lecturer at Georgia State. He was far from inactive, yet very much a private citizen. …There have been some Georgia governors with classic first names — Button, Eurith, Hoke, Lamartine, Sonny and Zell — but only one with a double name, best I can tell: Joe Frank Harris of Cartersville. ​As his name reflects, Joe Frank was a regular guy who was motivated to serve the people of his native state. He was imbued with “service above self” inclinations. He was referred to as “education governor.” He gave teachers raises. He created and implemented the Quality Basic Education Act. He built more libraries in the state than any Georgia governor in history. The building of the Georgia Dome and the Centennial Olympics bid came about on his watch. … When you consider that the University of Georgia has turned out some accomplished leaders and the best example of those who served and returned to their roots bent on giving back through service and legacy of children and grandchildren, you tip your hat to the family of Joe Frank Harris.

 

Politically Georgia/AJC

Opinion: Georgia denies migrants equal access to higher education

By Maureen Downey

In a guest column today, two activists urge the state of Georgia to reconsider the educational limits it places on undocumented students. In 2010, the Georgia Board of Regents responded to concerns that taxpayers were subsidizing the college education of students in the country illegally and that some of these students were taking college seats from academically qualified Georgians with legal status. The Regents adopted policies that bar students lacking legal status from attending any public colleges that did not admit all academically qualified applicants for the two most recent academic years and also required campuses to verify the “lawful presence” of students seeking in-state tuition. Laura Emiko Soltis is the executive director of Freedom University, an Atlanta-based school that provides free college-level classes, college application and scholarship assistance, and social justice leadership training for undocumented students in Georgia. She is an Ashoka Fellow and a Ford Foundation Public Voices Fellow. You can follow Freedom University on Facebook @freedomuniversitygeorgia, and on Twitter @FU_Georgia Co-author Azadeh Shahshahani is legal and advocacy director at Project South and a past president of the National Lawyers Guild. She tweets @ashahshahani.

By Laura Emiko Soltis and Azadeh Shahshahani

 

Athens Banner-Herald

UGA researchers look to combat opioid addiction

By Lauren Baggett

Grace Bagwell Adams experienced a number of firsts the day she welcomed her daughter Bonnie into the world. Adams was a first-time mother. But due to an emergency cesarean section, she also had her first introduction to opioid medications. She left the hospital with a baby in her arms and a 30-day supply of opioids. She only used three days’ worth. “If I’d used my entire prescription, I would have been on opioids for 40 days including my hospital stay, which is long enough to possibly develop a dependence,” she says. “It was an eye-opening experience.” Adams is well-versed in the issues surrounding opioid misuse and addiction. As an assistant professor of health policy and management at the University of Georgia College of Public Health, she examines how policies are being used to address and, hopefully, curb the opioid epidemic. …According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, opioids are responsible for around 115 deaths each day in the U.S., a rate that’s expected to grow. Most states are enacting policies to address the immediate need — preventing death, she says. Almost every state, for example, has broadened access to Naloxone, the opioid overdose reversal drug. …In UGA’s College of Pharmacy, professor Matthew Perri and associate professor Jayani Jayawardhana are researching a question about a change in Georgia’s Medicaid that could hold answers for opioid policy nationwide. …Perri and Jayawardhana, with UGA faculty collaborators Amanda Abraham and Henry Young, are leading an evaluation of the policy to learn if the changes are working to curb opioid use. Georgia’s Medicaid agency needs to be confident that its policies help, rather than harm, those who need it, Perri says. In addition, the outcome of Georgia’s policy may inform efforts in other states.

 

Athens Banner-Herald

Prospect of space launch looking up for UGA students, faculty

By Aaron Hale

The Small Satellite Research Lab is launching UGA into space. Made up of students and faculty, this team is designing and building spacecraft to monitor the health of Georgia’s coast. If all goes according to plan, two student-built small satellites will be in space by 2020. This story begins with a bold challenge: to send something into space. That’s what a handful of entrepreneurial, tech-savvy University of Georgia students set out to do three years ago, and their work has launched a campus initiative to push the boundaries of space systems development. Self-described “geeks” Caleb Adams and Hollis Neel were two of the handful of friends drawn together by their knack for tackling tech and software conundrums. “I was looking for the most difficult thing I could find and throwing myself at it,” Neel says. “That’s a theme you’ll find with a lot of us: We really enjoy a challenge.” Four of the students had recently created a user-friendly, smartphone-controlled telescope and launched a company to sell their product. When they were done with that, they decided that instead of just looking up into outer space, they wanted to send a gadget into it. They found an opportunity with cube satellites, or CubeSats, a class of miniature spacecraft shaping the next stage of space technology. CubeSats are compact and fairly inexpensive, at least compared to large communications and research satellites. Because they’re small and cheap, and because there have been huge strides in fitting high-powered computers into tiny devices, CubeSats are tissue box-sized vessels for innovation.

 

The Albany Herald

Local artist helps decorate UGA bulldog statues in Tift County

Statues signify the UGA Tifton campus’ ties with the Athens-based university

By Bryce Ethridge

TIFTON — Local artist Jill Whitley is leaving her mark on University of Georgia bulldog statues that have been unleashed across Tift County. Whitley is helping decorate different bulldogs — which represent the university’s beloved mascot, Uga — as part of an initiative by UGA Tifton campus student clubs to raise community awareness of academic programs offered on the campus. Area businesses sponsor bulldog statues and work with Whitley to come up with a unique design for each bulldog. …Funds generated by the sponsorships go toward the UGA-Tifton Agribusiness Club and Collegiate Future Farmers of America chapter. Students use the funds to travel to meetings and for other professional development activities.