University System News:
Fox38 Media
SSU will be represented by Buckholts at the National HBCU Week in DC
by Marah Brock
Savannah State University (SSU) will be represented in Washington in September by Aaliyah Buckholts. Aaliyah Buckholts will attend the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) for the 2019-20 school year. Buckholts was chosen to be an HBCU Competitiveness Scholar. HBCU Competitiveness Scholars are chosen for their academic achievements, campus leadership, civic engagement and entrepreneurial spirit.
Savannah CEO
Georgia Southern’s Master of Science in Nursing Named Most Affordable
Staff Report From Savannah CEO
Georgia Southern University’s Master of Science in Nursing (MSN) with a concentration in chronic care management was recently named the No. 1 most affordable online nursing master’s program by the SR Education Group. The MSN program with a concentration in chronic care management in the School of Nursing is designed for individuals who currently hold a Georgia Registered Nurse license and wish to gain further education and skills to evaluate chronic care conditions with a specific focus on those affecting clients of managed care eligibility.
Albany Herald
First ‘Pinky’ Durham Scholarship awarded at ABAC
From Staff Reports
Charles Crosby from Tifton is the first recipient of the Harold Bascom “Pinky” Durham Jr. Endowed Scholarship at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College. Created by the family and friends of Durham, the scholarship provides support for veteran students at ABAC. Durham was an ABAC alumnus who was killed in Vietnam while serving in the United States Army. For his heroism on the battlefield, he was named a posthumous Medal of Honor recipient. …Crosby is an Army National Guard retiree who served in Iraq. He received his associate’s degree in nursing from ABAC in May and is now pursuing a bachelor’s degree in nursing. He said his goal is to become a nurse practitioner and practice in rural south Georgia.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Has Georgia Tech’s rise to elite college status come with price?
Get Schooled with Maureen Downey
A few days ago, I attended and wrote about a presentation on getting into college by Rick Clark, the admissions director at Georgia Tech and a respected leader in the field. I shared some of what he told parents and kids about the challenges of getting into select schools including Tech, and also described a passage in a book he has coming out in September. In that passage, Clark described a difficult meeting with a father of a talented high school senior student and a Tech legacy who was not admitted. (Reading that piece will help you understand today’s piece.) I received several notes from people in that same situation – Tech grads whose kids/grandkids were not admitted. (I have to add: Some of those students ended up at other engineering programs, including Clemson and Louisiana State University and are quite happy there, according to their parents. The kids feel they have greater life balance than students at Tech.)
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Former Fort Valley State employee pleads guilty in prostitution case
By Eric Stirgus
A former Fort Valley State University employee pleaded guilty, prosecutors said Monday, to six counts of prostitution in a case that stunned the campus last fall and caused a stir in the surrounding community. A judge sentenced Alecia J. Johnson, 49 – who was the university’s special events director months before her arrest – to five years on probation, a $1,000 fine and 180 days house arrest, authorities said.
See also:
Marietta Daily Journal
Former university employee to testify in prostitution case
The Sentinel
University to remodel main entrance for fall 2019
Camille Hobbs
Kennesaw State announced that the Kennesaw campus’ main entrance will be given a $1.8 million update at an undetermined date to create a well-defined and inviting entry for students, faculty and staff. According to KSU’s Faculty Services, in order to improve access to the campus grounds and accentuate its visibility, a new entrance at the intersection of Chastain Road and Frey Road will be developed in the coming months. University spokeswoman Tammy Demel said that the designs for the campus entrance upgrade began early this year and were completed sometime in the spring. The institutionally funded project will cost the university nearly $2 million to undergo, following approval from the Georgia Board of Regents on May 14. University System of Georgia Spokeswoman Jen Ryan said that KSU is now clear to move onto the contracting phase to begin construction.
Finance Yahoo
Georgia Bio to Deliver Life Science Teacher Training Program to Rural Georgia
Included in Georgia’s 2020 budget signed into law by Governor Brian Kemp on May 10 are funds to support life sciences education in rural school systems through the Georgia Department of Education and the Georgia Youth Science & Technology Centers. “The life sciences industry is a leading driver of employment nationally, but leaders express concern about the availability of a strong workforce,” said Georgia Bio President & CEO Maria Thacker-Goethe. “We need educators to be aware of the vast, high paying jobs available in the life sciences industry here in Georgia. By expanding our proven teacher trainings statewide, we will equip educators with the academic, technical, and leadership skills to meet the students’ interests and industry’s needs.” These trainings are the first of their kind nationally and set Georgia to be a premier training location for this skilled workforce. Curriculum developed in collaboration with the Georgia Institute of Technology and University of Georgia, specifically the Center for Cell Manufacturing Technologies (CMaT), will prepare students to work in biomanufacturing and the emerging biotech industry. These hands-on applications of STEM learning will solidify what students learn in other classes, as well as provide skills required for tomorrow’s workforce. More on the programs at www.gabio.org.
Athens Banner-Herald
UGA researcher: For Athens poor, life gets worse
Lee Shearer
The recent economic expansion has helped some people in Clarke County escape poverty, and more people are employed now than two years ago. But for those remaining in poverty, life has gotten worse, a University of Georgia researcher told Athens-Clarke County commissioners this week. And more people lack health insurance now than two years ago, said Grace Bagwell Adams, a professor in UGA’s College of Public Health and principal investigator of the community-wide Athens Wellbeing Project. The Athens-Clarke School District, the Athens-Clarke government and other agencies partnered with Adams on the Wellbeing Project three years ago, and the researcher this week gave the first public presentations on the first round of results the researchers obtained by surveying families across Athens. Randomly sampling, they asked questions about health, education, civic vitality and community safety.
Health Europa
It’s critical to encourage blood donation among minorities, according to research
According to research, medical mistrust is a significant barrier to blood donation among minorities therefore better community education and communication is critical.
Researchers at Georgia State University and Georgia Southern University, USA, conducted the first systematic literature review of research on barriers and facilitators regarding blood donations among minorities. Nursing associate Professor Regena Spratling in the Byrdine F. Lewis College of Nursing and Health Professions at Georgia State and her colleagues in the Georgia Southern University School of Public Health conducted the research.
Overcoming medical mistrust
The research discovered that medical mistrust is a significant barrier to blood donation among minorities. More significant to healthcare providers is a lack of explanation to minority donors when they are turned down to be a donor.
Higher Education News:
Inside Higher Ed
Shrinking Gender Pay Gap for Presidents
By Scott Jaschik
A new study finds that the gender pay gap for university presidents — currently about 9 percent — in large part disappears at the most elite colleges and universities. The study was published in the journal Organization Science.
The Chronicle for Higher Education
For Their Inventions to Reach the Market, Researchers May Need a Venture-Development Assist
By Alexander C. Kafka
The early phase of an innovation’s development into a commercial product is called “the valley of death” because that’s where most new technologies perish. Companies and even venture-capital groups are wary of betting on untested new gizmos and processes, the kind your university’s researchers are working on right now. Enter venture-development firms. They vet ideas, study markets, match researchers with seasoned executives, and sound out investors. They “de-risk” the innovation in a start-up and fatten it up enough for the venture-capital firms or big companies to swoop in. And they are becoming the new normal in commercialization, or tech transfer.
Inside Higher Ed
Study documents real impacts when state appropriations falter.
By Nick Hazelrigg
A new study finds that states that cut appropriations for higher education see declines in the numbers of bachelor’s and doctoral degrees — with a negative impact on the state’s work force. The study, published as a white paper by the National Bureau of Economic Research titled “Public Universities: The Supply Side of Building a Skilled Workforce,” was written by John Bound, a University of Michigan economics professor; Breno Braga, an Urban Institute research associate; Gaurav Khanna, a University of California, San Diego, economics professor; and Sarah Turner, a University of Virginia professor of economics and education. The study, according to Braga, found that a 10 percent decrease in state appropriations over time at a public research institution leads to a 3.6 percent decrease in bachelor’s degrees awarded. A 10 percent decrease in state appropriations also lead to a 7.2 percent decrease in Ph.D. degrees completed.
Diverse Issues in Higher Education
TICAS Report Sheds Light on Student Loan Defaults
by Tiffany Pennamon
A report from The Institute for College Access and Success (TICAS) finds that, of the nearly seven million borrowers who take out student loans, more than a million Direct Loan borrowers have entered default in just the last 12 months. The report, “Casualties of College Debt: What Data Show and Experts Say About Who Defaults and Why,” notes that it is low-income students, Black students, first-generation students, students earning four-year degrees at for-profit colleges and those with less than $10,000 in loans that are most likely to default at higher rates than their peers. Citing default as “the most devastating possible student loan outcome,” the TICAS report calls for policymakers to increase the government’s investment in targeted, need-based aid programs such as the Pell Grant and restructure income-driven repayment plans, among other efforts.
Inside Higher Ed
Colleges Should Cosign Student Loans
Risk sharing is coming, argues Carlo Salerno, and Congress can improve accountability by obligating colleges to help repay the debt they ask students to take on.
By Carlo Salerno
More than 16 million students are enrolled in the nation’s higher education institutions today. But only about 60 percent will walk away with a degree, and more than half will leave college with an average of over $33,000 in federal student loan debt. We know that many borrowers, graduates or not, will struggle to find career-based employment. We also know millions of them will, at some point, end up delinquent or in default on their loan debt. Such statistics have frustrated scholars and policy makers to the point that institutional risk sharing — financially incentivizing or penalizing colleges for student outcomes — is one of the few things a hyperdivided Congress has seemed to find agreement around, even if the “how” part lacks similar consensus.
Inside Higher Ed
Top Higher Ed Debate in 2019? Big Solutions for Borrowers
Previously relegated to the political fringes, calls for broad student debt cancellation are now being taken seriously — a sign of how new energy is being devoted to challenges for current student borrowers.
By Andrew Kreighbaum
As the for-profit Corinthian Colleges chain began to collapse in 2015, tens of thousands of borrowers were left with student loans they had no prospect of repaying. Debt activists turned to a novel solution — they said they wouldn’t repay the loans and argued the federal government should clear the student debt. That campaign resulted in debt relief for thousands of former for-profit students until the loan forgiveness process became the subject of a regulatory rollbacks under the Trump administration. When it began, debt forgiveness was considered an extraordinary solution to a unique problem related to the for-profit sector. Four years later, though, automatic debt cancellation for every student borrower is being taken seriously as potential policy to address the $1.5 trillion in outstanding federal student loans. Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, said last week she would introduce legislation to cancel up to $50,000 in student loan debt for 42 million borrowers, mirroring details she outlined in a presidential campaign proposal estimated to cost about $640 billion. And Washington-based think tanks are issuing new publications looking into the potential benefits of broad debt cancellation.