WRBL

First round of CSU graduates accept newly guaranteed MCSD teaching contracts

By:  Mikhaela Singleton

The school year is over for Columbus State University students, but a few of those who graduated Friday will soon walk right back into local schools. This time they’ll be using the education they received to give back to local students as their new teachers. …”I also think that says a lot about the confidence the Muscogee County School District has in CSU graduates,” she goes on to say. MCSD Communications Director Mercedes Parham definitely agrees. She says the decision to partner with CSU came in part from the institution’s prestegious education program, but also solidifing a relationship that had already been filtering teachers into the school system.

WTVM

CSU professor delivers math-inspired comic book to local elementary students

By Julie Waldock

Can math ever be fun? One local author certainly thinks so and thanks to her creativity, many local students will soon have an engaging new way to learn all about it! On Monday, Columbus State University (CSU) Professor Cindy Ticknor, delivered a batch of her new math-inspired comic books to Forrest Road Elementary students. Ticknor, a professor of mathematics education and Dean of the Honors College at CSU released the comic titled “The Mysterious I.D. Vide in Newton’s Nemesis” in November. The children’s comic book focuses on fractions, which Ticknor says is among the most difficult concepts to construct for future teachers in her classes.

Albany Herald

Albany State hosts summer camps

From Staff Reports

From science to sports, summer camps hosted at Albany State University offer academic enrichment and recreation for all age groups. Participants have the opportunity to explore and learn about a variety of subjects related to the arts, science, technology, entrepreneurship, sports and more. Camps include:  National Summer Transportation Institute …Black Youth in Entrepreneurship program …Marching Rams Band Camp

Savannah CEO

Parker’s Donates $25,000 to Support Teachers and Students at Savannah-Chatham County Public Schools

Staff Report From Savannah CEO

Parker’s recently donated $25,000 to Savannah-Chatham County Public Schools as part of the company’s Fueling the Community charitable initiative, which donates a portion of the proceeds from gas sold on the first Wednesday of each month to area schools. The check presentation took place at Godley Station K-8 School in Pooler, Ga. on May 16. …Parker’s also donated a record $5 million to create the Parker College of Business at Georgia Southern University.

Daily Report

UGA and GSU Law Schools Top Bar Pass Rankings

Georgia bar exam pass rate for first-time takers continued to inch up.

By Meredith Hobbs

For this year’s February bar exam results, the University of Georgia and Georgia State University can both claim bragging rights. UGA Law’s six first-time takers achieved a 100% pass rate on the state bar exam, while GSU Law had the highest overall pass rate of Georgia law schools at 75%, which included repeat test takers. The pass rates broken out by law school for the Georgia bar exam were released Monday by the state Office of Bar Admissions. In another spot of good news, the pass rate for the 66 Georgia law school graduates taking the exam for the first-time increased to 65.2%—up from 62.3% last year.

Atlanta Journal-Constitution

LOCAL UPDATE: Georgia Tech offers protections in response to data breach

By Eric Stirgus

Georgia Tech announced Wednesday it is offering credit monitoring and identity theft protection to the students, employees and anyone else whose information may have been accessed during a recent data breach. The school posted information on its homepage of its website detailing how people can request the protections. Georgia Tech disclosed in April that someone illegally entered its system, having access to a database that may have included the names, addresses, date of birth and Social Security numbers of nearly 1.3 million people. Georgia Tech has not determined who was committed the breach. “We regret that this incident occurred and apologized for any inconvenience,” Jim Fortner, Georgia Tech’s interim executive vice president for administration and finance, said in a statement.

Athens Banner-Herald

UGA study finds government contracting decreases employee diversity

By Shelby R. Steuart

A new study by researchers at the University of Georgia revealed that when governments contract work out to private companies, fewer African American, Hispanic and female employees are hired. Over the past 20 years, private contracting has become a popular way to improve efficiency in the public sector. “Increasingly, services that were once performed by public employees are provided under contract by private firms,” said study author J. Edward Kellough, a UGA professor of public administration and policy in the School of Public and International Affairs. “The question is whether this growth in contracting has been detrimental to minority and female employment.” Kellough and research assistant Lawrence Brown’s study reveals that it has.

Athens Banner-Herald

UGA administrators respond to slave remains criticisms

By Lee Shearer

Five University of Georgia administrators recently released a lengthy response to a faculty report criticizing the UGA administration’s conduct in moving the remains of slaves buried in the path of a university construction project. An ad hoc committee of the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences Faculty Senate, an elected faculty legislative group, released its critical report in the Senate’s last meeting of the year in April. Among other things, the ad hoc committee report concluded that the UGA administration owed apologies to the presumed descendants of the those disinterred from beneath a Baldwin Hall construction site and reburied in nearby Oconee Hill Cemetery. The university should also should apologize to faculty members intimidated by administrators after they spoke against the university’s actions. The report also called on UGA to do more to acknowledge and explore the role of slavery in its history.

Atlanta Journal-Constitution

THE LATEST: Kemp tries to calm nervous Georgia film industry with studio visit

By Greg Bluestein

On the day he initially planned a trip to Hollywood to court film executives, Gov. Brian Kemp will instead privately tour Georgia studios and try to calm nervous industry officials wary of a growing backlash over the anti-abortion “heartbeat” law he signed.  The Republican plans a closed-door visit to a studio in metro Atlanta Wednesday to speak with executives and students in the film industry, rather than a roundtable discussion or other public event. The industry is under pressure after Kemp signed strict new abortion restrictions earlier this month. The changes, which outlaw most abortions as early as six weeks, would take effect in January but face a certain court challenge before then.

CNN

TV show producers cancel plans to scout for filming locations in Georgia because of abortion law

Madeline Holcombe

By Madeline Holcombe, CNN

Executive producers for a new television show have decided not to scout for filming locations in Georgia because of the signing of the controversial “heartbeat bill.” Creators of “The Power,” an Amazon show by Sister Pictures, had planned to look for places to shoot in Georgia, according to a statement from executive producers Jane Featherstone and Naomi De Pear. But those plans were canceled because of the state’s new abortion law, Featherstone and De Pear said in the statement. Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed the bill into law on May 7. The measure, set to go into effect January 1, would ban abortions after a fetal heartbeat can be detected, which can be as early as six weeks into pregnancy. The decision to cancel plans to scout locations in Georgia is “a direct response to the signing,” the executive producers said.

Atlanta Business Chronicle

TV director says ‘no’ to Georgia because of abortion law

A director scouting potential locations in Georgia for shooting a new TV series has dropped those plans, citing the state’s strict new abortion law, the website Time.com reported Tuesday. Scouts were looking at the Savannah area on behalf of director Reed Morano, and she had been due to fly to Georgia to look for suitable locations to shoot a new show for Amazon Studios called “The Power.” “We had no problem stopping the entire process instantly,” Morano, who won an Emmy for directing three episodes of Hulu’s “The Handmaid’s Tale,” told TIME. “There is no way we would ever bring our money to that state by shooting there.” Morano is one of the first directors to publicly pull a project out of Georgia after the Republican-controlled General Assembly passed the so-called “heartbeat” bill, legislation that prohibits abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected. Also, the upcoming Kristen Wiig comedy “Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar” has pulled out of Georgia, a representative for Wiig confirmed to Time.

CNBC

California bill would give tax incentives to film, TV productions that leave states banning abortion

Jeff Daniels

A California Democratic lawmaker on Monday formally introduced a bill to offer tax breaks to film and television productions that relocate from states with “strict abortion bans.” The proposal comes after GOP Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey last week signed one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the country that bans the procedure even in cases of rape and incest. Other states also have moved to pass strict abortion bans, including Georgia. “There are actors and actresses that are refusing to be part of a production in one of those states,” said Democratic Assemblywoman Luz Rivas, who is sponsoring the proposed legislation. “I think it really puts pressure on the industry to reconsider whether they want to do business in those states.” According to Rivas, the current film and television tax credits offered in California are “fully subscribed.” She said the proposed expansion of film incentives is an opportunity to keep more jobs in California’s signature film industry. …“A lot of the entertainment industry has relocated to Georgia because that state was very competitive in their own state film tax credit,” said Rivas. “We’re trying to further incentivize the entertainment industry that currently is filming in states with these strict abortion bans to come and do business in California and share our values.”

Statesboro Herald

GS grad student researches Kiwanis history

Study focuses on Aldrich house at fairgrounds

JULIE LAVENDER/staff

Statesboro Herald

Georgia Southern graduate student Alison Darby recently completed an extensive research project on the historical Aldrich home that is on exhibit each year at the Kiwanis Ogeechee Fair. The Aldrich house has been part of the fairgrounds since 1975 and is only open to the public during the fair each October. Recognized as an important part of local history, the Aldrich house stands in its place on the fairgrounds for many to view, but not much was known about its complete history. This year, the Kiwanis Club partnered with the Georgia Southern University History Department in providing an internship for graduate students.

Atlanta Business Chronicle

Georgia State researchers find school bus retrofits boost student health, achievement

By Jessica Saunders  – Managing Editor, Atlanta Business Chronicle

A team of Georgia State University researchers has found that reducing the level of diesel emissions by school buses can improve academic performance at primary and secondary schools. Wes Austin, Garth Heutel and Daniel Kreisman studied the health and academic achievement of students in districts where 2,656 retrofits of bus diesel engines between 2007 and 2015 had reduced diesel emissions. About 150,000 students were affected by the bus retrofits. During the sample period, 15 percent of Georgia’s 180 school districts retrofitted a share of their bus fleets. The resarchers’ measure of emissions exposure at the district level was based on the proportion of the bus fleet retrofitted in a given district, and further refined with the proportion of students who are bus riders and the average amount of time students spend on the bus.

Well and Good

10,000 STEPS IS OVER. *THIS* METRIC IS WAY MORE IMPORTANT

Kells McPhillips

Before I found out that 10,000 steps a day is total scam, I would do just about anything to meet the quota. (Speed walking in circles! Spending an extra five minutes on the treadmill! Running in place!) Now that the advice has been struck from the (un)official wellness rulebook, I’ve been scouting for the next big thing to gamify my workout. According to one trainer, VO2 max is the new metric to turn to for measuring your fitness goals. “VO2 max is the person’s maximal oxygen uptake that is utilized generally during intense activities,” says Brandon Hirose, a master trainer at Crunch Gym in New York City. It’s the maximum amount of oxygen you have access to during intense forms of exercise, and it can help illustrate a person’s overall, physical potential. “It can indicate a person’s essential aerobic capacity, or the maximal working heart rate of that individual.” In short, the University of Georgia’s exercise physiology department names this metric “the best indicator of cardiovascular fitness and aerobic endurance.” Enough said.