University System News:
WGAU Radio
By: Tim Bryant
University of Georgia president Jere Morehead has been elected vice-president of the Southeastern Conference: the election came during the annual meeting of SEC university presidents, who gathered in Destin Florida. Eli Capilouto, president of the University of Kentucky, will serve as president of the SEC. Morehead will remain on the SEC’s Executive Committee, which oversees the financial and fiscal affairs of the SEC, including approving the annual operating budget of the conference.
U.S. News &World Report
Swimmer Crosses Open Water Between 2 Georgia Islands
College student on a dare swims wide stretch of open water between 2 Georgia islands.
By Associated Press, Wire Service Content
A college student says he agreed to a dare by his friends when he dove into the water off the Georgia coast and swam the distance between two of its barrier islands. The Brunswick News reports 23-year-old John Lilliston swam the length of the St. Simons Sound on May 25. That’s more than 1 mile (1.6 kilometer) of open water separating Jekyll and St. Simons Islands. Lilliston said he’s an avid swimmer and had heard of others performing the same feat in the 1980s. The Georgia Southern University student says the swim took him just over 40 minutes.
Douglas Now
Passion For Wildlife Earns Sgsc Student Internship With Dnr
Passion for wildlife earns SGSC student internship with DNR Emily Knowles, an upcoming senior at South Georgia State College (SGSC), is using her summer to gain valuable experience to benefit her in a future career. Emily will graduate from SGSC in May of 2020 with a Bachelor of Science in Biological Sciences degree and plans to continue her education to earn a master’s degree in wildlife biology. …As part of the internship, she will specifically be working on the Satilla River Flathead Catfish Removal Project. Through research, it has been found the flathead catfish is an invasive species that has caused damage to native fish species. The goal of this project is for the removal of the flathead catfish from the Satilla River in areas of Georgia.
WGAU Radio
Uga Colludes With Russia On Scholarship Program
By: Kathryn Kao
The Russian Domestic Undergraduate Flagship Program at the University of Georgia recently received a $100,000 intensive domestic language studies scholarship from the Institute of International Education and the National Security Education Program to help fund the study abroad experience of Russian Flagship students. The program—which admitted its freshman cohort of 20 students in fall 2018—awards each student $5,000 to study abroad during the summer and $15,000 to study abroad for an entire academic year in any Flagship-approved, Russian-speaking country. Recently, two UGA students qualified to complete their capstone year in Almaty, Kazakhstan, where they will stay with a Russian-speaking family, receive intensive instruction in Russian and complete a six-month internship related to their major.
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
How a Georgia Tech engineer helped break James Holzhauer’s ‘Jeopardy’ streak
By Rodney Ho
But third-place finisher Jay Sexton, a senior engineer at Georgia Tech, was no slouch, ending with a respectable $17,000, not too far behind Holzhauer’s $24,799. Boettcher finished with $46,801. In fact, that’s considered an excellent result for a third-place finisher. …So Holzhauer’s $1,399 covered himself in case both he and Boettcher got the answer wrong (and she placed the most logical bet $20,201) while Sexton got it right and maxed out his bet of $11,000. If that were the case, Boettcher would have won with $22,001 to Sexton’s $22,000. Holzhauer, in other words, was maximizing his opportunities to win even if the bet looked odd on the surface. In the end, all three contestants got the Final Jeopardy question correct, ensuring Holzhauer’s loss. (Holzhauer received $2,000 for coming in second. Sexton pocketed $1,000.) …Sexton – who noted he once as a kid memorized the entire Trivial Pursuit game for fun – answered 17 questions correctly, or 28 percent of all questions correctly. The $11,000 he garnered during the first two rounds helped keep his rivals from jumping too far ahead of him and gave Holzhauer fewer opportunities to catch up to Boettcher during Double Jeopardy.
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
SEC: Ex-UGA student ran Ponzi scheme that defrauded students
By Scott Trubey
For most University of Georgia students, SEC means Southeastern Conference sports. But one former Bulldog just encountered a different kind of SEC. The Securities and Exchange Commission last week filed a civil complaint in federal court in Athens accusing Syed Arham Arbab of running a Ponzi scheme out of an unnamed fraternity house. The SEC alleges Arbab, 22, defrauded at least eight people — including fellow UGA students, graduates and their family members — of at least $269,000.Arbab allegedly used the funds for Las Vegas gambling trips, adult entertainment and other personal expenses, the complaint said. The hedge fund Arbab purportedly ran, Artis Proficio Capital, wasn’t real, and investment returns he reported to clients through an online portal were allegedly fictitious. …On Friday, the SEC filed a complaint seeking an emergency injunction from a judge to freeze assets held by Arbab and two companies he controlled.
Atlanta Business Chronicle
Retired Georgia Tech prof sues Uber, claims he invented Uber’s core technology
By David Allison – Editor, Atlanta Business Chronicle
A retired Georgia Tech professor is suing ride-sharing giant Uber, claiming he invented the technology that “is absolutely core to the way in which Uber operates its business.” In a complaint filed May 31 in federal court in Atlanta, Stephen Dickerson charges that Uber Technologies Inc. (NYSE: UBER) is infringing on a patent he won in 2004 for a “communications and computing based urban transit system.” “The core of Uber’s business and technical platforms for its rideshare, bikeshare, and scooter sharing services practice the transportation system of Professor Dickerson’s invention; without that system, Uber literally cannot operate. Throughout its existence, Uber has egregiously infringed [Dickerson’s] patent without paying any compensation for such use,” Dickerson’s lawsuit alleges. Dickerson is asking the court to award him unspecified damages and at least “a reasonable royalty.”
Journal of Blacks in Higher Education
Four Black Scholars Taking On New Roles as Deans at Colleges and Universities
Kimberly Gaiters has been named dean of the Evelyn Reid Syphax School of Education at Virginia Union University. She was dean of academic affairs at Ferrum College in Virginia. Dr. Gaiters holds three degrees from Albany State University in Georgia; a bachelor’s degree in English, a master of education degree in special education and teaching, and an education specialist degree in educational leadership and administration. She also holds a doctorate in curriculum studies from Georgia Southern University.
Gwinnett Daily Post
GGC softball’s Taylor Hansis, Sydney Willhite named first-team Academic All-Americans
Georgia Gwinnett College softball players Taylor Hansis and Sydney Willhite are among the nation’s elite NAIA student-athletes after earning first-team honors on the 2019 Google Cloud Academic All-American team, selected by the College Sports Information Directors of America for strong performances in the classroom and on the diamond this spring.
Gwinnett Daily Post
GGC softball earns NAIA Regional Coaching Staff of the Year honor
Guiding the Georgia Gwinnett College softball team to its deepest postseason run in program history has earned the Grizzlies’ coaching staff the NAIA Regional Coaching Staff of the Year award from the National Fastpitch Coaches Association. Head Coach Kat Ihlenburg joins assistant coaches Tonya Medders and John Ihlenburg in being among six coaching staffs recognized nationally by the organization for their effort during the 2019 season. …Georgia Gwinnett College was ranked among the nation’s top 10 NAIA teams throughout the season and won its third consecutive Association of Independent Institutions championship. Ihlenburg was named the A.I.I. Coach of the Year for this season.
Tifton Gazette
Courage fuels Stallions’ 10th place finish
Becky Taylor
Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College struggled in the middle rounds of last week’s NJCAA Division II national tournament at Plymouth, Ind. The Stallions, who rose to sixth place after two days of competition, turned in a team score of 319 on May 23, their worst of the four rounds at Swan Lake Resort. But ABAC pushed forward the next day, improving by 20 shots and coming out of the tournament with a 10th place. To finish as they did, said ABAC head coach Larry Byrnes, “It took a lot of courage.” Adam Park and Will Bozeman led the way for the Stallions during the tournament. For finishing 12th overall, Park earned second team All-American from the NJCAA. Bozeman, who tied for 21st, was named honorable mention All-American.
Higher Education News:
WABE
Kemp Wants To Eliminate Common Core, Reviving Debate Over Education Standards
Martha Dalton
Recently, Gov. Brian Kemp said he wants to get rid of what’s left of the Common Core State Standards. Those are a set of K-12 standards in English/language arts and math. Georgia adopted the Common Core in 2010, with strong support from former Gov. Sonny Perdue. Perdue chaired the National Governors’ Association, which was one of the organizations instrumental in the development of the Common Core. The idea was to create a common knowledge base so that students in different states learned essentially the same thing. Proponents also wanted to create a set of standards that would prepare students for college or careers after high school. Therefore, the intent was to make the Common Core rigorous and challenging so that students were prepared for whatever path they chose. …Here, WABE education reporter Martha Dalton and “Morning Edition” host Lisa Rayam discuss the governor’s wish to get rid of the Common Core and how he might accomplish it.
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Dual enrollment rising in Ga., but not always best fit for students
By Arlinda Smith Broady
Participation in the state’s Dual Enrollment Program has nearly tripled in the past decade. The popular program allows high school students to save money by getting a leg up on college courses and educators say it encourages students to focus on career goals. But national career experts caution that dual enrollment is a tool that’s not fit for every student. The thought of graduating from high school with fewer steps to a college degree or workforce readiness is tempting. According to state data, Georgia went from a low of 8,127 students in the program in 2011 to nearly 30,000 in 2016, the most recent figures available.“ Although students can participate in dual enrollment as early as ninth grade, most wait until their junior and senior years,” said Tinisha Parker, Gwinnett County Public Schools director of advisement and counseling. “By then they have a better idea of what classes they need and what college or university they plan to attend.” In the past two years, about 10 percent of students in Georgia’s dual enrollment graduated high school with an associate’s degree. That means they only had two to three years of college to go before they’d obtain a bachelor’s degree. However, some students are discovering that the extra effort in high school might not have been as beneficial as they thought it would be because not all colleges accept their course credits.
Gwinnett Daily Post
Jimmy Carter granted tenure at Emory University after 37 years of teaching
By Eli Watkins, CNN
Former President Jimmy Carter has become a tenured faculty member of Emory University after teaching at the Atlanta-based private university for more than three decades, the Georgia school announced on Monday. “With this honor, he becomes the first tenured faculty member at Emory to hold a Nobel Prize and the first tenured faculty member to have been a US president,” Emory University said in a statement. “The principle undergirding tenure — which essentially means a continuous post as a professor — is to preserve academic freedom for those who teach and pursue research in higher education.” The former one-term Democratic president and Georgia governor has had an extended public service career since the end of his presidency, and Monday’s announcement said he has been a distinguished professor at Emory for the past 37 years.
The Chronicle of Higher Education