University System News:
Emanuel County Live
EGSC graduates Staff Leadership Program participants
by HARLEY STRICKLAND
East Georgia State College graduated their first participants in the inaugural Staff Leadership Program. The 13 participants completed the year-long program and received their certificates July 25. The college began the Staff Leadership Program to help dedicated employees of EGSC develop their leadership skills. The first cohort of the program was selected based upon their potential to contribute in the future to the college’s attainment of its mission as demonstrated by the applicant’s past contributions to the mission of EGSC, their experience and educational record, their future plans for career advancement in higher education, their commitment to participate fully in the program, the support of their supervisor and the quality of their written application.
WSAV
Georgia Southern officials offer advice on college success
By Martin Staunton
Students from kindergarten through high school are not the only ones heading back to class this month. Tens of thousands of college students are returning to campuses as well. Some will begin the transition from secondary education to the pursuit of a degree. It can be a difficult change because college is different than what they’re used to in high school. Georgia Southern University offers the following advice to help students find success in their pursuit of higher education:
WGAU Radio
UGA INVESTS IN FUTURE OF STUDENT HOUSING
By: Carrie Campbell
Two years ago, the University of Georgia’s Russell Hall had “good bones,” but the mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems were nearing the end of their life cycle. Student rooms and lounges no longer fit the needs of residents nor did they encourage social interaction. Nearly a year has passed since University Housing rededicated the first-year high-rise following a 15-month renovation, and the response to the improved residence hall has been overwhelmingly positive. Following the renovation, Russell Hall became the most popular building for incoming first-year students. In fact, the building was in such high demand that, during the process for first-year students to select housing in fall 2018, students claimed 100% of the building’s 1,000 spaces on the first day of signups—even before people had the opportunity to see the building in person. The bathrooms feature upgraded fixtures and full doors on individual stalls and showers, increasing the level of privacy while also affording students the opportunity to get to know others in their community. “The renovation is lovely,” said Russell resident Rachel Black. “I really like all the study rooms and space for just hanging out with my friends—it makes it feel like the whole building is my living room.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
AJC On Campus: Hashtag astray, Spelman prez’s award, a Ludacris class
By Eric Stirgus
The fall semester is near. It’s the time of year when students wonder why their financial aid hasn’t been processed and faculty make last-minute changes to their course lesson plans. Here’s a few items that happened around the Atlanta area in recent days in this week’s AJC On Campus.
UGA’s law school gift
University of Georgia alumnus Brian P. Cain and his wife, Kim McLemore Cain, recently created a $1 million scholarship for students who’ve excelled amid hardships on their journey to law school. “We hope this scholarship will help the School of Law in its mission to provide an affordable legal education to its students and to continue being recognized as the best value in legal education in the country,” Brian Cain said in a statement. Brian Cain has been with the law firm Holt Ney Zatcoff & Wasserman, LLP, since his graduation from law school. Kim Cain earned her degree in broadcast journalism from UGA. The couple lives in Marietta.
Hashtag gone haywire
George Mason University thought it’d be a good idea for people to tell Angel Cabrera, who’s leaving the school to become Georgia Tech’s president, what they appreciated about his time there on social media by including the hashtag #thankyoucabrera. Several of these social media campaigns have gone astray and this one, which began with a July 24 post, was no exception.
Albany Herald
Business owner to speak at ABAC freshman convocation
From Staff Reports
Valerie Touchstone, an ABAC alumnus who founded her own marketing and public relations agency in Tifton, will be the keynote speaker at the 15th annual Freshman Convocation on Aug. 12 at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College. The 11 a.m. ceremony in Gressette Gymnasium serves as the opening of the academic year as students begin their journey toward a college diploma.
Savannah Business Journal
Savannah Business Journal Staff Report
When Georgia Southern University College of Education (COE) faculty member Beverly King Miller, Ph.D., left Pueblo Nuevo, a community in Panama, to live in the United States at the age of six, her grandmother had only one wish for her — that she become the first woman in their family to attend college. Miller exceeded her grandmother’s expectations, earning a doctoral degree in education from the University of New Mexico. Her dissertation focused on the experiences of Panamanian, Afro-Caribbean women in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). It was, in fact, one of her own experiences there that left an indelible mark on her. …After instituting STEM education opportunities in the United States and South Africa, Miller set out to find a location in her home country where she could host a STEM camp for disadvantaged youth. “I went all over, only to end up right back in my old neighborhood where I grew up,” she said.
GrayDC
School safety bill advocates for prevention of future tragedies
By Alana Austin
Keeping our kids safe in schools – it’s an issue many parents, teachers and leaders think about every day. A Georgia Congressman is pushing a plan in hopes of preventing tragedies – like school shootings, or even suicide. Washington Correspondent Alana Austin reports on a national prevention plan being taken up on Capitol Hill. From Parkland, Florida, to Virginia Tech, there’s a growing movement for officials to intervene before another school shooting. “It’s a national epidemic and we’ve got to do something to have safe schools,” said Chip Reese, Columbus State University Assistant Vice President for Student Affairs. After the Virginia Tech shooting, Reese spearheaded a program to prevent a similar crisis. The system brings together experts in mental health, academic life and law enforcement to help a struggling student or staff member. “I’ve had students tell me later on, after the fact, that they were actually contemplating suicide,” explained Reese. “And if we hadn’t have gotten to them, that they would have gone through with it.” Georgia Republican Congressman Drew Ferguson was inspired by this program, launched in his district. So he and several Democratic lawmakers are pushing for a bill that would set up a standard set of guidelines in school around the country.
Daily News
‘We are not violent’: Those struggling with mental illness fight stigma, blame
Like clockwork, mental illness has become the focal point for blame following America’s 255th mass shooting this year. “Mental illness and hatred pulled the trigger, not the gun,” President Donald Trump said in a televised statement Monday after two mass shootings took the lives of at least 30 over the weekend. But, people with mental illnesses are 10 times more likely to be victims of violent crimes, and only 3% to 5% of violent crimes can be linked to mental illnesses, according to national statistics. “It hits more,” said McClain Baxley, senior at Georgia Southern University, since being diagnosed with anxiety disorder, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. The diagnosis is fresh on Baxley’s mind, but the pointed rhetoric surrounding this weekend’s mass shootings is fresher.
Savannah Morning News
Springfield hires Morris as city manager
The Springfield city council has hired Matt Morris as its new city manager, replacing Brett Bennett, who quit to start a consulting business. Morris had been assistant city manager of Springfield for about a year. Before coming to Springfield, Morris was a general manger for a heavy equipment company based in Statesboro. He has a background in government work, working for former Effingham County Administrator David Crawley and Effingham County for several years. He also ran an industrial development authority in McDuffie County before to going to work in the private sector. Morris has a bachelor’s degree in political science from Armstrong and a master’s in public administration from Georgia Southern.
Douglas Now
Dr. G. Wayne Clough to discuss book, hold signing at SGSC library Lecturer, author, and Douglas native Dr. G. Wayne Clough will present an author talk and sign copies of his latest book, Things New and Strange: A Southerner’s Journey Through the Smithsonian Collections, on Thursday, August 15, 2019, at 4 pm in the William S. Smith Library on the Douglas campus of South Georgia State College. The program is cosponsored by South Georgia State College, the William S. Smith Library and Douglas – Coffee County Chamber of Commerce. Things New and Strange chronicles a research quest undertaken by G. Wayne Clough, the first secretary of the Smithsonian Institution born in the South. Dr. Clough is a former president of GA Tech.
Metro Atlanta CEO
Forum Addresses Georgia Tech’s Role in Economic Development
Geoff Duncan, lieutenant governor of Georgia, welcomed guests to “Georgia Tech: A Driver of Economic Development.” “Being an entrepreneur is unscripted. It’s just in you,” Duncan said. “As lieutenant governor I want to look for ways to harness and cultivate that potential here in Georgia.” He acknowledged the role of education and thanked Georgia Tech’s leaders for striving to make Georgia the technology capital of the East Coast.
Becker’s Hospital Review
American Lung Association allots $6M in grant funding for innovative research
Andrea Park
Among other innovative grant recipients are the two winners of the ALA’s Catalyst Award: Andrew Synn, MD, at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston is determining whether non-invasive imaging techniques can be used to detect pulmonary vascular disease, while Monica Cartelle-Gestal, PhD, from the University of Georgia Research Foundation in Athens, is studying a gene associated with whooping cough to develop a more effective vaccine against the condition.
WSB
Local high school students help develop a low cost tool used in lifesaving research
Scientific equipment used in life saving research can cost thousands of dollars, often keeping it out of the hands of many scientist and students. But a group of Forsyth County High School students teamed up with a Georgia Tech researcher to make one critical device accessible to all. “Being a high school, we don’t have the resources most colleges do,” explained student scientist Gaurav Byagathvalli. As a student at Lambert High School in Forsyth County, Gaurav was part of a team that entered an international science competition to solve big global problems. Most teams are from universities. Lambert was one of a handful of high school teams competing.
Center for Digital Education
Georgia Colleges Falling Short on Career Technical Education
Women outnumber men in Georgia’s technical college system, 85,642 to 51,566. Yet, a report found postsecondary vocational certificates have limited labor market value for women because of what women study.
By Maureen Downey, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Georgia is ahead of many states in providing students with career and technical education options as early as middle school and in offering them industry-recognized credentials in high school. The next step ought to be seeing how well these efforts have been working. The state has fallen short in research-based evaluations of its career technical education. Yes, there are anecdotal success stories, but Georgia hasn’t undertaken a rigorous analysis that brings together researchers, policymakers and practitioners and delves into whether CTE programs help students get jobs and fill workforce needs or if gaps exist in which students enroll and what they choose to study. …I asked the Technical College System of Georgia for a breakdown of enrollment by gender and found a marked divide in the 2018 academic year: If it wanted to assess CTE, the state has a resource a few blocks from the Capitol, Georgia State University’s CTEx laboratory, which is researching career technical education for Michigan, Massachusetts and Tennessee. The lab has started to work with metro-area school districts on CTE research. They hope to take that research statewide in the future. Daniel Kreisman, a GSU economics professor and founding director of the lab, recently completed a study with public policy professor Kevin Stange of the University of Michigan that examined what drives vocational enrollment or whether the courses help or harm early careers. They drew from a nationally representative sample of early-career Americans.
SaportaReport
Aerospace sector stands out among Georgia’s economic success stories
By David Pendered
Of all the “gee whiz, Georgia’s great” economic stories, the aerospace and defense sector stands out – The United States ranks No. 1 in the world and Georgia ranks No. 2 in the nation, and Georgia’s education system has the capacity to help workers into transition the jobs of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, two recent reports show. … PwC cited the presence of Georgia’s universities and their research programs: “Georgia’s universities and colleges spend more than $2 billion annually in R&D. In October 2018, Airbus collaborated with the Georgia Institute of Technology. For its part, Airbus talked up the ability of Tech’s professors and doctoral students in its Oct. 30, 2018 announcement about the opening of the Airbus / Georgia Tech Center for Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE)- enabled Overall Aircraft Design (OAD).
Electronic Design
Future-Proof Your Career with Lifetime Education
With many employees now extending their stay in the workforce, it’s becoming more important to adopt a pattern of “lifelong learning” to keep up. And more universities are getting on board to meet those needs.
Nelson C. Baker
In today’s business environment, it’s easier than ever to become irrelevant. New knowledge is being created at such a pace that we can barely keep up, and it’s perpetually expanding. Today’s workers need to keep a finger on the pulse of developments in their fields and constantly update their capabilities. Ongoing professional development, in these ever-changing times, is not merely an option. It’s a necessity for professional survival. This need for lifelong learning is reflected in the changing student demographics at public universities. At the Georgia Institute of Technology for example, adults taking professional development courses through Georgia Tech Professional Education constitute 50% of the university’s total student population.
New York Post
Hackers could use self-driving cars to cause mayhem, study warns
By Mike Wehner, BGR
As carmakers continue to pack their newest models with all manner of “smart” technology, researchers are concerned that connected vehicles will become an increasingly irresistible target for hackers. A new study by scientists with the Georgia Institute of Technology and Multiscale Systems Inc. suggests that if hackers find serious vulnerabilities in internet-connected cars, they could easily halt traffic in entire cities with the push of a button. The study uses the science of physics to predict how traffic patterns are affected by vehicles that stop in the middle of the road.
The Peterborough Examiner
Tyler White, 19, wins Kawartha Invitational in Peterborough
He’s among the youngest golfers to take the title
by MIke Davies Examiner Sports Director
PE WHITE
If Tyler White isn’t the youngest winner of the Kawartha Invitational Men’s Golf Tournament, he’s among the youngest. The 19-year-old, who doesn’t turn 20 until Dec. 13, won the tournament’s 74th edition by three strokes over two-time champion Steve Fredericks Monday at Kawartha Golf and Country Club. White, who held a share of the lead after Day 1 and was one stroke back after Day 2, shot a two-under 69 on the final day. With a 71 and 73, respectively, he scored an even-par 213. Tournament chair Tyler McDannold said the club doesn’t have records of the age of past winners. White would clearly be in the running with names like Taylor Pendrith, Jon Mills and Reg Millage. “Hopefully I’m the youngest, that would be nice,” said White, who leaves Friday for a second year at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College, a junior college in Tifton, Georgia.
Higher Education News:
Inside Higher Ed
Remedial Education Fixes Won’t Cure Completion Crisis
Even Tennessee’s promising remedial math reform does little to boost college completion, new study finds, calling for more effective models as part of suite of student success efforts.
By Paul Fain
Remedial course work has long been viewed as a primary barrier to college completion, a black hole from which relatively few students emerge to earn a credential after being placed in the typically noncredit courses in mathematics and English. Yet a new study found that reforms to remedial education, even a promising one that reaches back into high school, do little to move the needle on students’ credit completion or the likelihood of earning a college credential.
Inside Higher Ed
Title IX a Sticking Point in Talks Over New Higher Ed Law
Resolving differences over sexual assault procedures, including requirements for live hearings, emerges as one of the biggest challenges for negotiating a reauthorization of the Higher Education Act.
By Andrew Kreighbaum
For the past two years, Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, the chairman of the Senate education committee, has set ambitious goals for producing new landmark higher ed legislation. But lawmakers never came close to reaching an agreement on reauthorization of the Higher Education Act last year. And as the August recess begins this week, there’s little sign of a deal coming together soon. One of the biggest sticking points in negotiations, according to several individuals with knowledge of discussions, is addressing how colleges should handle complaints of sexual misconduct on campus. Specifically, members of the committee are discussing how language addressing live hearings for campus proceedings and cross-examination rights for accused students should figure into a bill. Federal guidance under the Obama administration discouraged cross-examination of complainants, but a proposal from the Trump administration would require colleges to allow it.