University System News:
Forsyth News
Why this Forsyth County grad is spending her summer in Ireland
By Alyssa Freyman
Most college graduates dream of traveling the world. Cumming resident Kendall Chamberlain is able to fulfill this dream through her acceptance into the Fulbright Summer Institute. The Fulbright program is considered to be one of the most prestigious scholarships awarded. The Fulbright Summer Institute covers airfare to and from the UK, tuition and fees at one of the universities in the UK and accommodation. Chamberlain, who graduated from West Forsyth High School and currently attends Kennesaw State University as a journalism and emerging media major, was inspired to apply by the dean of the Honors College and her professor Dr. Rita Bailey. …Chamberlain will be fulfilling this dream by attending Queen’s University in Ireland for four weeks.
Times Free Press
Chattanooga Waterfront Triathlon becomes national championship event
By Mark Pace
The Chattanooga Waterfront Triathlon became a national championship event this year as USA Triathlon brought its title race for Clydesdale and Athena participants to the Scenic City.
The categories are specifically for women 165 pounds or more (Athenas) and men 220 pounds or more (Clydesdales). The purpose is to demonstrate people of a variety of body types can and do participate in triathlons. Chris Douglas, a doctoral student at Georgia Tech, won the overall Olympic distance race for the fourth time in five years. Douglas races with the California-based Every Man Jack team. He finished the race in 1:54:13, within 10 seconds of his time last year. “The town really gets behind this race,” Douglas said. “A lot of places you feel like you’re a nuisance to the people in town, but here, everyone, especially the businesses I’ve encountered, are super welcoming. There’s people out on the trails and a lot of volunteers.”
WSAV
The Bulloch County Historical Society is preserving history through barns
by: Khalil Maycock
The Bulloch County Historical Society is holding on to pieces of the community’s history by saving old barns. And they’re using 3-D technology to do it. Some barns from the 20th century are still standing throughout Bulloch County, but if you take a closer look some are crumbling. Dr. Brent Tharp, president of the Bulloch County Historical Society and other members worry they won’t hold out much longer. ” Barns tell us a lot about the areas they’re built in and the culture that built them…They’re very closely tied to the customs and styles of a particular area,” Tharp said. Tharp noted that some of the barns hold significance to the area because of the way they housed animals and for the tools they stored. To preserve them the historical society partnered with Mariah Peart a graduate student from Georgia Southern University and other students, using a modern 3-D device called “LiDar” to do it.
Emanuel County Live
by Whitley Clifton
by PRESIDENT BOB BOEHMER, East Georgia State College
This quote, attributed to French philosopher and writer Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980), is particularly relevant as promising members of our community make decisions regarding the pursuit of their career choices and the educational opportunities available to them. Their choices will determine the future of our great region. Many capable people avoid attending college because the navigation of admission, financial aid and degree requirements are often too confusing and overwhelming. To alleviate these barriers, East Georgia State College (EGSC) administrators, staff and students recently completed the college’s 7th annual College Readiness Bus Tour. We spoke with our promising high school students about college choices and listened carefully to students, counselors and principals.
Albany Herald
Georgia’s Rural Center to study health care simulation center for south Georgia
Simulation centers evolving to provide clinicians and students with realistic educational experiences
From Staff Reports
The Center for Rural Prosperity and Innovation has announced plans to evaluate the development of a regional medical education simulation and training center. The project’s goals are to build academic and clinical partnerships across south Georgia and to enhance experiential learning opportunities for students and providers while serving as a focal point and catalyst for the development, understanding and advancement of simulation and related technologies throughout the region. “Building capacity for health care simulation and training will aid in the development of the region’s health professions work force while stimulating local economies,” David Bridges, director of the center, said. “Additionally, this project will support the improvement of health care indicators, health care delivery and health outcomes in south Georgia.” …Housed at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College in Tifton, the center serves as a central information and research hub for rural best practices, which may include community planning, industry-specific assistance and cooperative efforts with state and federal entities, nonprofit organizations and other higher education partners.
The Red & Black
7 construction projects to look out for on UGA’s campus
Foster Steinbeck | Staff Writer
With the University of Georgia campus quieter and less populated with students during the summer, construction crews can be seen throughout campus. Several UGA facilities are under active renovation and expansion. Here are seven big-ticket projects to watch out for.
Forbes
College Towns Are The Next Big Thing For Startups
Maria Clara Cobo Contributor
With nearly 50% of millennials looking to start their own business in the next three years, it is not a surprise that the new generation of entrepreneurs aren’t based – or even particularly interested – in Silicon Valley. With students and recent graduates all over the country experiencing startup fever, college towns may just be the next big thing for entrepreneurship. With college towns such as Atlanta, GA, and Boulder, CO emerging as leading innovation hubs, CompTIA’s 2018 Tech Town Index suggests that students don’t have to move out of state to land a job in the STEM industry or start their own businesses. Paul Judge, a technology entrepreneur and investor who co-founded TechSquare Labs, a leading seed-stage venture fund, says that at the core of Tech Square’s mission is to work with universities to support and fund promising ideas from students and professors. Tech Square Lab’s offices are located next to Georgia Tech’s campus, facilitating the collaboration of students, professors, researchers, and investors. The incubator has also funded over 20 companies by Georgia Tech alumni and four companies by Georgia Tech professors.
InsiderAdvantage
Four communities selected for “Georgia Smart” grant
by Patrick Hickey
Last year Georgia Tech introduced the ‘Georgia Smart’ initiative, which provides funding and technical assistance to local governments as they develop and deploy “smart community technologies” into their operations. The program selects four winners from a pool of applicants, who then receive a $50,000 grant (courtesy of Georgia Power), direct assistance from a Georgia Tech researcher, and access to a network of peer governments and other experts for further support. The year-long projects conclude with a presentation that lay out findings and the next steps to be taken. Projects that fall under the “smart community technologies” banner can be anything from ‘intelligent infrastructures’ such as autonomous or connected vehicle technology, as explored last year by winners Chamblee and Gwinnett County, to information and communication technologies, such as Albany’s housing data analytics initiative.
Tech Crunch
Argo AI is investing $15 million into a self-driving car research center at CMU
Kirsten Korosec
Argo AI will invest $15 million over five years to create a center for autonomous vehicle research at Carnegie Mellon University, one of the latest efforts by the Ford-backed company to accelerate the development of self-driving cars. The center, Carnegie Mellon University Argo AI Center for Autonomous Vehicle Research, will focus on advanced perception and decision-making algorithms for autonomous vehicles, the company said Monday. The investment follows the introduction of Argoverse, a set of curated data and high-definition maps that Argo AI released for free to researchers. Argoverse was created to give academic researchers the ability to study the impact that HD maps have on perception and forecasting, such as identifying and tracking objects on the road, and predicting where those objects will move seconds into the future. The announcement builds off of an earlier collaboration between CMU and Argo. In 2017, the company said it had formed affiliations with CMU and Georgia Institute of Technology to work with three faculty members to “push the limits in computer vision and machine learning.”
WTOC
Black gill condition affecting Georgia shrimping industry
By Sean Evans | June 26, 2019 at 4:59 PM EDT – Updated June 27 at 3:54 AM
Recently, we got a look inside some important research that examines a parasite affecting shrimp of Georgia’s coast – causing a condition known as “black gill.” As the Research Vessel Savannah set out for yet another black gill cruise, the scientists, interns, shrimping industry advocates, and other stakeholders aboard looked for answers. “It’s kind of like forensics for me, and I think that’s exciting. and if we answer the question, that would be really awesome,” said Tina Walters, Researcher, Skidaway Institue of Oceanography. The question is – what are the causes and impacts of black gill in shrimp?
Higher Education News:
EdSurge
Higher Ed Has Become ‘An Entrepreneurial and Philanthropic Wild West’
By Jeffrey R. Young
Plenty of groups these days are trying to reinvent college, and that’s not surprising at a time when higher ed is under fire for ever-rising costs, ballooning student debt and even questions about the value of a degree. On one hand, entrepreneurs and foundations are rushing to offer higher education via new models and price points. Meanwhile, college researchers and innovators are diving into learning science and experimenting with new teaching methods. But those groups don’t always talk to each other, or even know what the others are working on. This week for the podcast, we’re talking with someone who’s trying to build more “connective tissue” between academia and industry when it comes to reinventing college. That guest is Mitchell Stevens, a Stanford University professor who is the director of the Center for Advanced Research Through Online Learning. He describes the higher-ed landscape today as an entrepreneurial and philanthropic Wild West—exciting, but also full of tough challenges such as how to safeguard privacy as data and algorithms become central to learning.
Inside Higher Ed
White Supremacy Activity Spreads on Campuses
White nationalists, mostly non-students, continue to post propaganda on college campuses, despite efforts by colleges to stop them.
By Jeremy Bauer-Wolf
Despite college administrators’ attempts to stamp out white supremacist activities on campuses, these often-anonymous outsiders are distributing their literature with greater frequency, according to a new Anti-Defamation League report. The group’s Center on Extremism tracks and verifies incidents involving white supremacists each academic year. It has found sustained growth in propaganda incidents on campuses in recent years. White supremacists were more active on campuses than ever before during the spring semester, according the new analysis ADL released on Thursday. From January to May, at least 161 examples of white supremacy propaganda were recorded on 122 different campuses in 33 different states and Washington, D.C.