University System News:
Rolling Out
The top 5 reasons AMSC is the college for the ATL
Here are the top five reasons why Atlanta Metropolitan State College is the college for the ATL:
The No. 1 reason:
Simply because Atlanta Metropolitan State College (AMSC) is No. 1.
No. 1 graduation rate in the University System of Georgia for the associate’s degree.
No. 1 graduation rate for African Americans for associate’s degree.
No. 1 in affordability; AMSC offers the greatest value of all bachelor’s degree-granting institutions in the city of Atlanta. You graduate from AMSC with a bright future, not crushing debt.
Reason No. 2:
AMSC is the only four-year, public-access institution in the city of Atlanta.
The Knowledge Review
Georgia Southwestern State University – Providing High Impact Learning Experiences at Best Value
by ADMIN
Founded over a century ago, Georgia Southwestern State University (GSW) is working to enrich the lives of people by providing a comprehensive university education in a caring and understanding environment. Today, GSW continues to attract talented students and world-class faculty. Georgia Southwestern is ranked as one of the best value colleges in the country. The university has approximately 3,000 residential, non-residential and online students from all academic areas. GSW is located in the peaceful and picturesque South Georgia town of Americus, Georgia. Situated just 130 miles south of Atlanta, Americus offers a perfect combination of a rural community-centered campus with all of the conveniences and to all the benefits a large metropolitan city has to offer.
Atlanta Business Chronicle
By Jessica Saunders – Managing Editor, Atlanta Business Chronicle
The most environmentally sustainable building in the Southeast is slated for completion in mid-June. The Kendeda Building for Innovative Sustainable Design at Georgia Tech is a finalist in the Mixed-Use/Special-Use category in Atlanta Business Chronicle’s Best in Atlanta Real Estate Awards. The project is a collaboration between Lord Aeck Sargent and The Miller Hull Partnership. The contractor is Skanska. The Kendeda Building is on track to become the first Living Building Challenge 3.1 certified facility of its size and function in the United States. By adhering to the most stringent standards of building construction, it actually could end up producing more energy and water than it will use.
Gainesville Times
Kelsey Richardson
Mary Gowan, University of North Georgia’s new dean of the Mike Cottrell College of Business, worked her way through school as a first-generation college student.
Fox 28
Georgia Southern grad student honored for engineering
by Marah Brock
A Georgia Southern University graduate student has been selected by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) as one of 10 New Faces Of Civil Engineering for 2019. Mariah Peart has been selected for the 2019 Professional edition of the ASCE. Engineering professor Gustavo Maldonado, Ph.D., commented that it’s the first time a Georgia Southern student has received this recognition. “Mariah is one of the best students in the Civil Engineering program,” said Maldonado. Peart has used 3D laser scanning and close-range photogrammetry when she helped Statesboro city engineers redesign intersections.
Middle Georgia CEO
Middle Georgia State New Media Majors Display Talent, Creativity on Cochran Campus
Nikea Conyers of Decatur planned to study theater when she moved to Cochran a few years ago to enroll at Middle Georgia State University. At the time, MGA still offered an associate’s degree in that field. When the University discontinued it, Conyers got ready to transfer to another school. Then she learned about MGA’s bachelor’s degree program in New Media and Communications. “At first I thought it was a major that just focused on writing, but I found out about courses in visual storytelling, film production and other things,” Conyers said. “Once I started taking those classes I knew what kind of career I wanted to get into.” Now a 22-year-old senior, Conyers is thriving in the New Media degree program, which is growing in popularity on the Cochran Campus. The degree originated at the former college that became the Macon Campus of Middle Georgia State, but the University’s Media, Culture, & the Arts department recently has been expanding the program to Cochran. Today, about 40 students based on the Cochran Campus are majoring in New Media and Communications.
Inside Higher Ed
Online courses are changing — sometimes less open, sometimes less massive — but they’re still relevant.
By Ray Schroeder
In the summer of 2011 we produced eduMOOC — a constructivist massive open online course about online learning with the help of a small group of talented and expert professionals at the University of Illinois Springfield as well as colleagues around the country who were then, and continue to be, among the leaders in our field of online learning. By the time it concluded in August, eduMOOC had reached 2,700 learners in 70 countries — making it among the largest such classes produced up to that time. As highlighted in a previous posting, Georgia Tech is among the leaders in the delivery of affordable at-scale degrees, including the master of science in computer science program — the largest online MS in CS in the world. The University of Illinois offers four master’s degrees through Coursera. The University of Pennsylvania is offering an at-scale baccalaureate to begin this fall.
Middle Georgia CEO
Writers Group Founded by Middle Georgia State Faculty Member Publishes Anthology
In 2009, shortly after taking a faculty position in the English department of what is now Middle Georgia State University, Dr. Shane Trayers founded the Macon Writers Group to create a community for writers living in the region. “Before I moved here, I had a pretty supportive community of writers,” said Trayers, now an associate professor at MGA. “So, the group was founded out of a desire to find other writers to share the ups and downs of trying to get words on paper. Writing can be lonely, and it’s so great to be able meet up with other people and get feedback to help with revisions.” Still going strong a decade later, the Macon Writers Group meets on the last Saturday of every month except December at the Ampersand Guild in downtown Macon. The group recently reached two milestones: publication of an anthology that includes the work of some members, and Trayers receiving the Community Engagement Award from MGA’s College of Arts and Sciences, an honor directly connected to her work with the Macon Writers Group.
Markets Financial Content
Gifts from SunTrust Foundations to Launch Idea Accelerator
SunTrust Foundation, SunTrust Trusteed Foundations enhance student entrepreneurial opportunities at UGA
ATHENS, Ga., March 6, 2019 /3BL Media/ — A $500,000 gift from the SunTrust Foundation and the SunTrust Trusteed Foundations will support the University of Georgia’s Entrepreneurship Program. The gift will help launch a student incubator/accelerator space and provide support for the student-led UGA Kickstart Fund.
Southeast AgNet
Georgia Natural Resources Conservation Workshop Scholarships
USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) in Georgia wants high school students to know that over $17,000 in college scholarships will be on the line for those attending this year’s Natural Resources Conservation Workshop (NRCW), June 9-13 at the Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College (ABAC) in Tifton. In a release, NRCW Interim Director, Kip Hall, said “The workshop provides an excellent opportunity to engage high school students in the importance of natural resources and agriculture in Georgia.” The workshop gives students a taste of college life while delivering valuable insight into careers through their counselors and instructors. Those include professionals with NRCS, the Department of Natural Resources, the Georgia Forestry Commission, ABAC and more.
The Red & Black
UGA Extension’s Grow It Know It program helps children plant, grow and eat food
Lindsay Thomas | Contributor
Learning how to tend to a garden or cook with fresh produce might seem unusual in a middle school classroom, but the University of Georgia Extension’s Grow It Know It program provides this unique experience in Clarke and Barrow counties. GIKI is a partnership between Clarke County and Barrow County schools, UGA Extension, UGA Office of Service Learning and UGArden. The program hopes to highlight issues such as poverty, food insecurity and environmental sustainability through hands-on activities in the classroom. GIKI also connects students to their community with programs such as “Meals in the Middle,” which hosts student-powered benefit dinners that raise money for local causes.
Savannah CEO
UGA Student’s Design Potential New Mixed-Use Center for Richmond Hill
Staff Report From Georgia CEO
The City of Richmond Hill and the Richmond Hill Downtown Development Authority have partnered with students from the University of Georgia’s College of Environment and Design (CED) to create plans for a potential mixed-use center. At the intersection of State Route 144 and U.S. Highway 17 sits approximately 100 acres of land that serves as a main focus area for the city’s Downtown Development Authority. This partnership with students was an opportunity to create positive ideas for potential development. “This kind of project gets our students out into the world and then back into the studio with applicable information and tools to get creative in solving city design challenges,” says Dean Sonia Hirt of UGA’s CED.
GPB News
Lucy Cobb Institute Highlights History Of Women’s Education In Athens
By Elena Rivera & Virginia Prescott
Women’s educational opportunities in the 19th Century were few and far between. Finishing schools focused on women’s socialization and skills like art, music and French, rather than a rigorous academic curriculum. The Lucy Cobb Institute in Athens aimed to change that. It opened in 1859 and taught women finishing school skills alongside math and science classes. The institute cemented Athens as a place for women’s education in the South. Fran Teague is a professor of theatre, film studies and English at the University of Georgia. She, along with UGA student Kristen Gragg, joined “On Second Thought” to discuss their research on the Lucy Cobb Institute and the history of women’s education in Athens.
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Police: Man who robbed Georgia Tech students outside Krispy Kreme is felon
By Asia S. Burns
Atlanta police said the man suspected of robbing four Georgia Tech students at gunpoint in late January is a felon who has been to prison three times. Willie Davis, 38, served time for armed robbery, burglary and auto theft. He is back in jail after police said he told the students to give him all their money and then forced them to drive to an ATM to get more cash.Authorities said Davis approached the students as they were leaving a Krispy Kreme on Ponce de Leon Avenue just before 10 p.m. on Jan 21.
Macon Telegraph
UGA coach was taunted, called ‘preggers’ and fired for being pregnant, lawsuit claims
BY Joe Kovac Jr.
An ex-coach for the University of Georgia women’s equestrian team is suing the state Board of Regents claiming she was fired for being pregnant. Alexandra O’Toole was hired to be one of the team’s assistant coaches in July 2016. She was fired in May 2018 when she was seven months pregnant after being called “preggers” by her boss and having “endured taunts about her pregnant condition and questions concerning her priorities,” her lawsuit contends. In the lawsuit, filed Feb. 18 in U.S. District Court in Athens, O’Toole seeks a jury trial and unspecified damages related to lost wages and harm “to her professional standing and reputation.”
Higher Education News:
Inside Higher Ed
Senator Pushes ‘Debt-Free’ as Solution for College Costs
Hawaii Democrat Brian Schatz reintroduces legislation for debt-free public college with hopes of shaping an update to the Higher Education Act — and the 2020 Democratic primary race.
By Andrew Kreighbaum
Senator Brian Schatz and top progressive Democrats are looking to frame “debt-free” college as the solution to the growing cost of higher education. Schatz on Wednesday announced he would reintroduce legislation first filed last year that aims to cover all costs associated with attending a public college without forcing students to take out loans. His bill, dubbed the Debt-Free College Act, and identical House legislation have support from 40 Democrats, including 2020 presidential contenders Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren and Kirsten Gillibrand. Putting a focus on debt-free college could have implications for the 2020 presidential primary as well as a reauthorization of the Higher Education Act. The approach offers a contrast with proposals from Senator Bernie Sanders, a Vermont Independent and 2020 hopeful himself, whose call for tuition-free public college helped to define the last Democratic presidential primary campaign. Supporters of the Schatz bill say it is more comprehensive because it addresses college costs beyond tuition.
Inside Higher Ed
White House may be planning executive actions on program-level outcomes data and student loan risk sharing, as well as on free speech, perhaps around the release of its proposed budget next week.
By Paul Fain
The White House is gearing up to introduce a promised executive order on free speech, perhaps timed to coincide with its proposed budget release next week. And the administration may tackle other higher education issues with its planned executive actions. Several well-placed observers said the White House has for months been working to jointly release executive orders on risk sharing (requiring a financial stake for colleges based on students’ ability to repay loans) as well as on its plan for releasing program-level student outcomes data on a publicly available web tool like the College Scorecard. It’s unclear if the Trump administration will be able to pull this off in a single budget-related public announcement. And sources couldn’t say what exactly might be included in the executive orders or if they would all be released together. But despite the uncertainty, the White House apparently has been trying to bring the executive actions together for a joint announcement around the budget release.