University System News:
School Construction News
Health Professions Building Opens at Georgia Southern
Zach Chouteau Georgia Southern, Savannah, SLAM Collaborative
The newly unveiled Health Professions Academic Building at Waters College of Health Professions will serve Georgia Southern University’s mission to drive economic and regional workforce development needs. The comprehensive plan combines collaborative efforts and technological advancements in health services, among other fields of study, to educate and train students. The recently completed 63,250-square foot, $21.7 million building, located on the Armstrong Campus, was programmed, planned and designed by The S/L/A/M Collaborative (SLAM), along with associated renovations to the existing 46,000-square foot Ashmore Hall. The official ribbon cutting was held on Thurs., Jan. 3, 2019 with such dignitaries as Gov. Nathan Deal and Don Waters, chairman of Board of Regents in attendance. Waters College is named for Don, an Armstrong State University alumnus and his wife, Cindy Waters, who donated $2 million for the building.
Athens CEO
Two UGA CAES Faculty Receive National Science Foundation CAREER Grants
Clint Thompson
Two University of Georgia researchers have been awarded Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF). Brian Kvitko and Gaelen Burke, both faculty members in the UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, were awarded the five-year grants this year. Both Burke’s and Kvitko’s teams will use the CAREER grants, which have a greater emphasis on education compared to other grants, to develop research-based learning materials to distribute to local middle schools.
Moultrie Observer
Colquitt Regional Medical Center invests in 4 ABAC students
Staff Reports
Colquitt Regional Medical Center invested $10,000 in the annual An Evening for ABAC scholarship fundraiser at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College in 2018. That investment paid a huge dividend for ABAC students Jarod Henderson, Kaycee Goodman, Eva Portillo, and Taylor Kight. All four students earned ABAC Foundation scholarships due to the Colquitt Regional investment. Henderson is a sophomore nursing major from Ashburn, and Goodman is a junior nursing major from Chula. Portillo, a sophomore from Moultrie, and Kight, a junior from Moultrie, are also nursing majors.
Columbus CEO
CSU Violin Student Receives National Award
Staff Report From Columbus CEO
Samuel Vargas, a violinist and student at Columbus State University’s Schwob School of Music, was recently among eleven musicians nationwide to be named a winner of the 2019 Yamaha Young Performing Artists Competition. “It is a wonderful competition, not only because it gives you an award, but because it promotes you as an artist.,” said Vargas. “It is this kind of international exchange with musicians that gives us exposure to be known and do what we love – which is make music for others.” As a 2019 YYPA winner, Vargas will receive an all-expense-paid trip to the YYPA Celebration Weekend in Indiana this June. There he will perform in front of thousands and participate in workshops designed to launch a professional music career. Vargas, an international student from Venezuela, says that he would not have had this opportunity if it weren’t for the Woodruff scholarship that he has received at CSU.
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
UPDATE: Georgia Tech students return to dorm after evacuation, gas leak scare
By Shaddi Abusaid
A Georgia Tech dormitory evacuated Friday morning amid concerns about a possible gas leak has reopened, campus police said. Students were allowed back into Fulmer Residence Hall on the west side of campus just after 10:20 a.m after the building was deemed safe. The dorm was evacuated less than 30 minutes earlier, officials said in a tweet. University spokesman Lance Wallace said workers were repairing a gas line and chose to evacuate the building out of an abundance of caution.
WTOC
Dr. Ray Rudolph and Julie Schwartz announce an event to raise awareness for breast cancer research.
Dr. Ray Rudolph and Julie Schwartz of the Susan G. Komen Coastal Georgia affiliate discuss a breast cancer vaccine and announce an event to raise awareness of its research.
Macon Telgraph
‘Cutting-edge’ research at Macon college could help predict, prevent diseases, professor says
BY LAURA CORLEY
The human body through its natural process is constantly breaking down chemical compounds and processing them into even smaller chemical compounds called metabolites. Identifying metabolites is critical to medical science, pharmacy and microbiology. …“The challenge here is: how do you accurately and reliably identify metabolites,” said Yingfeng Wang, professor of information technology at Middle Georgia State University. “It’s still very hard. Very challenging. …. We want to explain what happened.” The National Science Foundation recently awarded nearly a half a million dollars in grant money to the school for a three-year undergraduate research project to investigate how metabolites breakdown inside the tandem mass spectrometer. It is the largest research grant the school has received in its history. “Hopefully, we can develop some tools that are reliable and accurate in this area, which will advance related areas such as microbiology, pharmacy and medical science,” Wang said. “Metabolite identification is a hot area.”
WSAV
OCEARCH tags great white shark off Beaufort County coast
Public invited to tour research vessel
By: Ben Senger
A non-profit studying great white shark migration patterns wrapped up its latest expedition off the coast of the Coastal Empire and Lowcountry. OCEARCH tags and samples great white sharks in hopes of learning more about why they seem to be spending the winter months in the region. A News 3 crew was on board last Friday when OCEARCH caught a 12-foot great white that they named Helena, for nearby St. Helena Island in Beaufort County. The tracker in her fin will transmit a signal to a satellite when it is above the ocean’s surface and the public can follow her travels on Twitter or the OCEARCH website. OCEARCH says the samples will contribute to 17 studies, including those being conducted by Georgia Southern University and the University of South Carolina Beaufort.
Education Dive
Do universities need to go national to stay relevant?
Author Natalie Schwartz
Higher ed is one of the few industries that hasn’t moved to a national scale, contends Unterman. “Soon enough, higher education will go the way of the corner drugstore, once seen as a critical local institution,” he wrote. “They, like other local establishments, have been replaced by national chains that benefit from economies of scale and consistent quality standards across all of their locations.” For one, colleges can differentiate themselves by offering intensive student learning experiences, suggests a recent report from Deloitte’s Center for Higher Education Excellence and Georgia Tech’s Center for 21st Century Universities. The University of Cincinnati, for instance, offers a co-op program that more than 3,500 students participate in each year.
Other institutions could offer more competency-based programs to help better meet the needs of students and their region’s job market, the Deloitte report suggests
WJCL
New Contracts for Georgia Southern Football Coaching Staff approved by Board of Regents
11 coaches and several support staff members getting raises
Frank Sulkowski
New contracts will soon be in the hands of members of the Georgia Southern football coaching staff. Sources telling WJCL 22 News that the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia has completed and approved new contracts for coaches and support staff. A total of 11 coaches, including head coach Chad Lunsford, in line for pay raises. Several members of the Georgia Southern football support staff will also be getting pay increases.
Savannah Morning News
Former UGA players want field named after legendary coach Vince Dooley
By Dennis Knight
Vince Dooley has been an institution at the University of Georgia for 55 years, and the 86-year old former football coach and athletic director is still going strong with his unending support for his beloved Dawgs. Now a group of his former players, led by Savannah’s Kevin “Catfish” Jackson and UGA legend Herschel Walker, is leading a movement to honor their former coach and longtime friend by naming UGA’s football field “Dooley Field at Sanford Stadium.” It would be an appropriate way to recognize Dooley, who made his mark in Athens as a no-nonsense coach and a skilled administrator, said Jackson, who was a sophomore defensive lineman on Dooley’s squad that beat Notre Dame in the Sugar Bowl to claim the 1980 national title.
Higher Education News:
Inside Higher Ed
Democratic Take on the Higher Education Act
Senate education committee’s top Democrat, Patty Murray, says new higher ed law must take comprehensive approach and tackle college affordability.
By Andrew Kreighbaum
Senator Patty Murray said Thursday that an overhaul of the Higher Education Act should tackle college affordability directly by addressing state investment in public colleges and boosting federal spending on need-based aid programs like Pell Grants. Murray, the ranking Democrat on the U.S. Senate’s education committee, argued that even when college students receive federal grant aid, it covers a diminishing proportion of the total cost of college — meaning more low-income and minority students in particular are forced to take out student loans. “Everyone who wants to go to college — whether it’s a two- or four-year degree — should have the choice to do so and shouldn’t be saddled with debt as a result,” she said. Murray was speaking at the Center for American Progress, where she laid out her broad goals for reauthorizing the federal higher ed law.
Forbes
The Future Of Work Demands A Good Education
Adi Gaskell Contributor
Last year I highlighted the huge importance of learning new skills in the wake of losing one’s job. The article was based upon research that explored a few decades worth of job data, with a specific focus on the kind of jobs that emerged after a period of either economic or technological disruption. It found that while it was often low-skilled work that was lost, the jobs that returned after the disruption were nearly always higher-skilled jobs than those that were originally lost. This highlights the tremendous value of retraining for those who lose their work, but if that is insufficient reason, a new analysis conducted by MIT highlights the perilous state of those in low-skilled work. It revealed that not only has the recent economic recovery generally passed low-skilled workers by, the same has been true for much of the last 50 years. Since the financial crisis, jobs have returned en masse, with 300,000 or so created in December alone, with income rising at a similar pace.