University System News:
WTOC
Good News: True Eagle soaring high
A former Georgia Southern student has overcome her disability to help senior citizens overcome difficult situations. Kasey Hayes can get so engaged in helping a senior client deal with Alzheimer’s that she doesn’t even think about her own challenges. “I don’t look at myself as a learning disability. I look at myself as another person,” she said. Kasey is much more than that to Miss Anderson at Statesboro’s Willow Pond Senior Living. She can be a facilitator, a friend, and even, seemingly, a family member. “She calls me her granddaughter sometimes. If she’s in a sad mood, we’ll talk at dinner or play a game or something to get her mood off of being sad,” Kasey said. Kasey received her caregiver training through Georgia Southern’s Eagles Academy – an inclusive post-secondary education program for students with mild intellectual disabilities. This spring, Kasey became the first student to complete the program and graduate alongside Southern’s senior class.
Statesboro Herald
Georgia Southern students film TV pilot in summer course
Class enables students to gain practical career experience
Angye Morrison/staff
A group of Georgia Southern University students has had a unique opportunity this summer to create something that will help them step out of the classroom and into their futures — and it’s all because of a television pilot course. Taught by Film and Production lecturer Tyson Davis, the course is only in its second year, and it’s Davis’ first time teaching it. The course allows students to get hands-on experience in all facets of the production of a television pilot. Students in the course worked with members of Stagecraft and Senior Project classes, who made their contributions during the spring semester. “The way the class collaborates with others, it’s really a specialty class that needs to be offered in the summer so that the other classes can do their parts before the summer class ever begins,” said Davis. “Really, a television pilot class over nine weeks is, if you don’t have help, it’s not going to work.”
Albany Herald
Program puts a GAP between GSW, other colleges
From Staff Reports
Georgia Southwestern State University’s Guaranteed Acceptance Program offers guaranteed admission into GSW’s nursing program for a select number of exceptional high school seniors and a $1,000 on-campus housing scholarship. Currently, there are 51 incoming freshman applicants for fall that have been accepted into this unique program. First launched in 2012, GAP gives high school students priority acceptance over other applicants and support during their pre-nursing studies. Beginning in the fall, new GAP students will receive a $1,000 on-campus housing scholarship that can be renewed for one year. Applications for the upcoming fall semester will remain open through Aug. 9.
Georgia Growing Americs
ABAC Celebrates National Ice Cream Day with Exhibit at Country Store on July 20
A unique collection of late 1800s drug store artifacts from the drug store in Boston, Ga., will be on display at the Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College Georgia Museum of Agriculture and Historic Village on July 20 in celebration of National Ice Cream Day, which is on July 21. Museum Curator Polly Huff discovered a special collection of photographs that has never been displayed featuring drug stores from all over the state of Georgia and dating from 1890 to 1911. Along with the Boston store’s artifacts, this photo collection will also be included in the exhibit and available for public viewing for the first time. The Museum Country Store will house the one-day exhibit, and visitors that day will have a chance to view it in its entirety at no charge. Country Store Manager Tonia Carpenter said visitors arriving at the Country Store between 10 a.m. and noon on July 20 will be treated to a free sample of the Museum’s hand-dipped ice cream. Jason Gentry, an ABAC student from Tifton majoring in history and government, is one of the summer interns at the Museum Gallery.
Gwinnett Daily Post
GGC grad Homero Gonzalez not resting on laurels after 20th career Emmy
By Taylor Denman
In 2013, two years after Homero Gonzalez graduated from Georgia Gwinnett College, he won his second Emmy award — at that time with Telemundo Atlanta. That achievement led him to be GGC’s commencement speaker for the Class of 2013. Almost exactly three years ago Gonzalez went independent and started his own marketing company, ULTIM Marketing in Duluth. With that company he’s brought his Emmy total to 20 in June. The 30-year-old producer was awarded the Southeastern Regional Emmy Award for Excellence in Editing in the Short Film category. …While he’s the co-founder, president and CEO of his company, he’s hands-on with his projects. His background is in marketing — he received an undergraduate degree from GGC in business — but he is involved in writing scripts, designing storyboards and he coordinates production materials and dates with a member of his team.
accessWDUN
By Ken Stanford
More than 100 high schoolers from Hall and several other counties, who speak English as their second language, spent most of June attending the University of North Georgia’s Steps to College program. The object of the program is to give them a chance to practice the language, gain course credit and stay on track for graduation. Steps to College started in 1999 on the university’s Gainesville Campus and is funded by the Goizueta Foundation and a state grant.
Science Mag
This former playwright aims to turn solar and wind power into gasoline
By Robert F. Service
On a warm March day here, you could almost mistake Rob McGinnis for a huckster newly arrived in a frontier town as he delivers a rapid-fire pitch to an audience of thousands of would-be investors. McGinnis, a chemical engineer and entrepreneur, isn’t hawking snake oil, however: His elixir is gasoline. Nearly everyone in the developed world is hopelessly addicted to it. Collectively, we use nearly 3 trillion liters every year. if either MatterShift’s or DUT’s membranes prove durable and long-lived, bioethanol producers should represent an eager market, says David Sholl, a chemical engineer at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. McGinnis has already founded a company called MatterShift Biofuels to commercialize the technology. But he envisions a bigger future for his membranes: not just filtering ethanol fermented from corn or sugar, but also purifying fuel made from the air itself.
Douglas Now
SGSC’S WILL FERGUSON, RILEY MELONCON NAMED ACADEMIC ALL-AMERICANS
Two members of South Georgia State College’s 2018-2019 men’s basketball team have been recognized by the National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) for their academic achievements. Will Ferguson, a 6’8″ freshman from Yulee, Fla., and Riley Meloncon, a 6’2″ sophomore from Pikeville, Tenn., were both third team selections to the NJCAA’s All-Academic Team. Players selected to the third team must have a grade point average between 3.60-3.79 to qualify. “I am so excited for Will and Riley, because both guys represent what it is to be a student-athlete at SGSC,” said head coach Cory Baldwin.
Albany Herald
Flood of ’94 changed the face of Albany State University
By Surendra N. Pandey Special to The Albany Herald
In 1994, I was a professor at Albany State College, where my office was located on the first floor of Jeffries Hall, aka the Science Building. When Tropical Storm Alberto dumped more than 25 inches of rain over Americus, everyone knew that Albany was going to be flooded. We were advised to move everything that we could to the second floor of the building. Lots of small laboratory equipment was moved upstairs. We filled up our car trunks with our books and files and anything that was important and carried them home. The original forecast was for the flood waters to arrive Thursday, but the timeline got moved up several times. Finally, we were told on Tuesday to vacate the campus, and those residing on the west side of the river were told they must get out before noon because the bridges might be closed by then. As the water rose, the passage between east and west Albany was closed. …Many in the community called for merging Albany State with nearby Darton College — basically closing what is now the ASU East Campus. However, President Billy C. Black acted like a true leader and told us that he would not let that happen. He floated the term “unsinkable” Albany State and assured us we would build a “bigger, better and stronger” Albany State. It would not be an exaggeration to say that Dr. Black not only saved Albany State — he is the architect of the new ASU.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Opinion: Improving teacher education won’t matter if teaching conditions worsen
Get Schooled with Maureen Downey
Will teachers hoping to make difference stay in schools and communities without hope?
University of Georgia education professor Peter Smagorinsky, a frequent contributor to the AJC Get Schooled blog, looks at teacher education and teaching conditions. He was prompted to respond to two recent pieces he read, one of them here on this blog.
By Peter Smagorinsky Two education blog posts recently caught my attention. First, The Washington Post education blog reported how a Blistering report details abject dysfunction and dangerous schools in Providence, R.I., followed shortly by a report on how These details of the mess in Providence, R.I., public schools are sickening. Get Schooled then ran an essay by Walt Gardner on how the Miseducation of teachers [is] costly to [the] profession and students, in which he expresses the view that immersion in schools, rather than classes on university campuses that have a theoretical basis, provides the only worthwhile way to prepare teachers for the classroom. These stories were not written to be in dialogue with one another, but I think it’s worth engaging with them together.
space.com
LightSail 2 Sends Back 1st Signals from Its Solar-Surfing Test Flight
By Doris Elin Salazar 4 days ago Spaceflight
The little craft launched atop SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket late last month.
The space advocacy organization The Planetary Society recently confirmed that its LightSail 2 spacecraft has sent its first signals home from space. The roughly 11-lb. (5 kilograms) cubesat is designed to prove that solar sailing is a feasible way of keeping satellites moving. Fuel is a costly and heavy commodity, and if LightSail 2 can prove that the solar-powered technique works well, perhaps future missions into the deep reaches of the solar system and beyond can be propelled by the charged particles released by the sun.The project launched into space last week (June 25) from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy megarocket. On Tuesday (July 2), the bread-loaf-size LightSail 2 experiment left Prox-1, its carrier vehicle. More data from LightSail 2 will be retrieved tonight (July 3) when it flies over Georgia Tech, where students built Prox-1.
Albany Herald
UGA plant breeder produces blueberries for home gardeners
By Sharon Dowdy CAES News
For years, University of Georgia plant breeder Scott NeSmith has created blueberry varieties for the commercial market. Now he’s introduced a series of blueberry plants bred for home gardeners. Blueberries have to travel long distances to get from farmers to consumers. These berries must be extremely firm when they’re picked so they can withstand mechanical harvesting, hold up through long-distance shipping and have a long shelf life, NeSmith said. “You can’t have berries that leak and ooze while they are being shipped to market,” he said. “But in a home setting, it doesn’t matter because you are going to eat them right away.”
Albany Herald
UGA cotton team studying potentially damaging disease
By Clint Thompson
Scientists from the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Scientists are investigating the epidemiology of cotton leaf roll dwarf virus in Georgia using a $75,000 grant jointly funded by the Georgia Cotton Commission and Cotton Incorporated. CLRDV is known to cause cotton blue disease, which can reduce yields up to 80% in cotton fields infected in early growth stages. Symptoms include leaf curling and reddening and drooping leaves. “This research will help us generate knowledge about the virus and its spread, symptomatology, host range, vectors dynamics and the associated yield loss,” Sudeep Bag, an assistant professor on the UGA Tifton campus who specializes in crop virology, said. “This will further assist us in developing management practices to mitigate the disease.”
Higher Education News:
Forbes
50 Years After Apollo Landing, Higher Education Needs A Moonshot
Brandon Busteed
Half a century ago, on July 20 1969, the United States landed a man on the moon. To this day, it’s still considered one of the greatest achievements in U.S. history and for mankind too. Just a few short years ahead of the Apollo moon landing, another historic initiative unfolded with the Higher Education Act of 1965 – designed “to strengthen the educational resources of our colleges and universities and to provide financial assistance for students.” Indeed, the U.S. higher education system ranks right up there with a lunar landing in being among our nation’s greatest achievements. But for as much as it has accomplished, higher education has failed to achieve what could be its own moonshot when it comes to enrolling and graduating students from the neediest communities and socioeconomic backgrounds.
The Hechinger Report
OPINION: Higher education must not leave working families behind
Why short-term training programs make sense for both careers and budgets
by Andy Van Kleunen
The promise of education in America is a promise of opportunity. A promise that education — especially higher education — can offer a pathway to the middle class and an opportunity to build a successful life for yourself, your children and your grandchildren. The unfortunate reality, though, is that our higher education system isn’t delivering on that promise of opportunity for far too many families, particularly those who choose to pursue career-focused learning in fields that require less than a four-year degree. A major barrier is the bias against working students in our current federal financial aid system. The conventional view of a college student is someone who just graduated from high school, who is on the verge of turning 18 and moving to a college campus to pursue a full-time, four-year degree. Today’s students, however, tend to be older — nearly 7.6 million college students in 2018 were 25 years or older. And of the 12.1 million students enrolled in community colleges in 2015-16, about 900,000 were 40 or older.
Inside Higher Ed
Brewing Battle Over Pell Grants
Lawmakers consider expanding Pell Grants to short-term job training, with backing from community colleges and business groups, while critics question the payoff for short-term programs.
By Andrew Kreighbaum
Democratic presidential candidates are spending another election cycle debating the merits of free college. But in Washington, a fight is brewing over whether federal student aid should be available to people who pursue short-term training to land better jobs. Students currently can use Pell Grants, the primary vehicle for federal need-based aid, for college degrees as well as certificate programs that last as little as 15 weeks. Bipartisan legislation backed by community college and business groups would make certificate programs — even non-credit-bearing courses — as short as eight weeks eligible for Pell Grants. Supporters of the bill, dubbed the JOBS Act, say it would make an overdue change to better tailor the design of the federal aid system to the demands of adult students. It would also exclude for-profit institutions, which have been some of the biggest targets of criticism aimed at the short-term credential sector. But the bill also would be a significant reorientation of the Pell program from largely supporting low-income students who are pursuing a college degree to backing job training as well. Some scholars and policy advocates are questioning the wisdom of that change, without more clear findings of the potential payoff for short-term credentials. They also worry what such a shift will mean for the strength of the Pell program in the future as it is stretched to serve more purposes.
Inside Higher Ed
Squeezed From All Sides: Opportunities and Challenges for Regional Public Universities
By Scott Jaschik
Inside Higher Ed is releasing our newest report, “Squeezed From All Sides: Opportunities and Challenges for Regional Public Universities,” today. The drastic changes unfolding in society have majorly impacted and will continue to impact regional public universities. Leaders at these institutions face many challenges. They are attempting to meet lofty degree-attainment goals by focusing on the enrollment of part-time and older students. Teacher shortages, political issues and concerns about racism and sexism are all top of mind. And of course, both the national and regional economies continue to impact universities a decade after the Great Recession.
Deseret News
A case for trade school: Could it fix higher education?
As technical jobs are on the rise, numbers of qualified employees are falling. Career and technical education programs are offering reasonable solutions for students, employers and America.
By Amanda Olson
Work boots. Hooded sweatshirt underneath a Carhartt jacket. Tool belt. Truck. That’s the perception for many of a career after trade school. Nathan Meyer thought so, too. Although he’d taken classes in high school for CPR and EMT training at Davis Technical College, the local “trade school,” he didn’t consider it an option for his higher education route. Instead, he took the prescribed path to achieve his goal of earning a doctorate in botany — enrolling at Weber State University. At the midpoint of his college career in 2016, however, a series of unexpected setbacks in his family required Meyer to pivot. His wife went into early labor, and doctors discovered four tumors in her brain. The situation compounded — problematic medical diagnoses for the baby and continued seizures for his wife, even after she’d finished chemotherapy and radiation