University System News:
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
AJC On Campus: Colleges & their pasts; Carter at Emory; battle over HBCU funding
By Eric Stirgus
Many Atlanta area colleges and leaders were focused on the past this week. At Clayton State University it was a look at what was left behind by former students and others. Georgia Tech’s new president grappled with questions about his wife’s business dealings at his prior employer. Morris Brown College got a gift to help restore a historic structure on its campus. Here’s a look at these and other issues in this week’s AJC On Campus. …Clayton State’s time capsule revealed A 25-year long mystery was released Thursday at Clayton State University. What was in the silver time capsule left there by students and others in 1994? University leaders opened the capsule as part of the celebration of the school’s 50th anniversary. … Georgia Tech’s president defends wife’s consulting work Ángel Cabrera, the new president of Georgia Tech, said there was nothing improper about his wife’s work at George Mason University during his time as president of that school. The Chronicle of Higher Education reported this week that Beth Cabrera, a motivational speaker, was paid $122,000 during his six-plus year tenure for contract work she did there. …Budget rises for Georgia State convocation center Georgia’s Board of Regents last week voted to increase the construction budget for Georgia State University’s convocation center from $79.2 million to $85.2 million. …HBCU funding bill fight in Congress A bill to renew about $255 million for the nation’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and other minority-serving institutions encountered a road block late Thursday when U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., who chairs the education committee, blocked the legislation, known as the FUTURE Act. Alexander, instead, proposed an extension of current legislation for the schools, along with approving other legislation, according to news accounts. …Georgia Gwinnett College in a city near you? GGC President Jann L. Joseph (third from right) hosted a breakfast for Gwinnett County mayors on Sept.17, 2019, to discuss connections between the college and the communities it serves. Georgia Gwinnett College’s new president, Jann Joseph, opened her office on Tuesday to the mayors and council members from seven cities in the county. Two of the mayors, Peachtree Corners’ Mike Mason and Snellville’s Barbara Bender, asked Joseph to consider setting up classes in their cities.
Albany Herald
ABAC Bainbridge sends hurricane relief items to Bahamas
Hurricane Dorian hit the Bahamas recently as a Category 5 storm. With Dorian came massive storm surges and sustained winds up to 185 mph, which caused major damages to these islands and their native communities. Due to the devastating effects of this hurricane, the students, faculty and staff at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College Bainbridge wanted to lend a hand in the relief efforts. “On Thursday afternoon, we were thrilled to receive a call from Dr. Michael Kirkland, executive director of academic and student affairs at ABAC Bainbridge, letting us know that the students, faculty and staff had been collecting food, clothes, cleaning supplies and other items to send to the Bahamas,” Bainbridge Public Safety Officer LaDaric Jones and Public Information Officer Julie Harris said. “We were overwhelmed by the large quantity of items that had been donated in such a short time and greatly appreciate everyone’s willingness to help.”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Bike donated to Georgia Tech student with special needs after thief stole old ride
By Zachary Hansen
Ever since Marquavious Barnes was 8 years old, he had his three-wheeled, specialized bike to help him get around. The 22-year-old still used the bike to get to class as a Georgia Tech Excel student, since he has mobility issues stemming from a traumatic brain injury he suffered when he was hit by a car at 6 years old, Channel 2 Action News reported. That changed Sunday evening. Someone stole his bike, which was locked up near the North Avenue MARTA station, and police haven’t been able to track down in the thief, Channel 2 reported. “I was mad,” he told the news station. “I couldn’t even say much.” However, that frustration turned to joy thanks to an anonymous donor and Barnes’ community. Georgia Tech police said a brand new bike was delivered to the police department as a gift for Barnes. Police told the news station officers will give the bike to its new owner Friday.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
UPDATE: Georgia Tech student drowns while swimming in the Chattahoochee River
By Chelsea Prince
A second-year Georgia Tech student drowned while swimming with friends in the Chattahoochee River over the weekend, officials said. James Strock, 19, was last seen Saturday afternoon in the area of the West Palisades Trail at Paces Mill Park, according to school officials. Teams searched through dusk before turning to recovery efforts Sunday morning, dean of students John M. Stein said in a letter to the Georgia Tech community .A Georgia Tech spokeswoman confirmed Strock’s death Sunday evening after his body was pulled from the river just before 1 p.m. Audrey Strock Lovetro said her brother was swimming with friends when he got caught in the current and started to struggle. His friends swam to James immediately, she said, and worked hard to rescue him but could not find him once he went under water.
The West Georgian
by Imani Feagan
Quamari Brown, a senior at The University of West Georgia (UWG), a Psychology major, and Co-President of The National Society of Collegiate Scholars, is organizing an interactive fundraising event on Oct 30 to bring awareness of mental health to the UWG student body. The exciting event will be split into two parts. It will be in the form of a Halloween maze and a free throw shooting contest that requires an entry fee of three dollars, which will then be donated to a non-profit organization whose main focus is mental health support. It will not only be an entertaining experience, but it will benefit students by helping them realize and understand the importance of dealing with unusual behaviors they may have been experiencing since entering college or in general.
Columbus CEO
CSU Newspaper and Cougar Radio to Launch News Show
Staff Report
Columbus State University’s WCUG Cougar Radio and student newspaper, the Saber, are collaborating on a news show, focusing on a wide array of topics from the perspective of CSU students and the lives of those connected to students and general Columbus community. The first episode will air at 7 a.m. Monday, September 23.
Albany Herald
Sponsor of HBCU bill cancels Albany appearance
By Alan Mauldin
Supporters of Albany State University have been waiting for answers to the question of why an effort to provide more funding for traditionally black colleges somehow morphed into legislation they believe could turn them into second-tier institutions. They’re still waiting. State Sen. Lester Jackson, D-Savannah, in January sponsored Senate Bill 278 that would create a Georgia Agricultural and Mechanical University System to encompass ASU, Fort Valley State University and Savannah State University, the state’s three public historically black universities. Jackson was scheduled to appear at a Thursday-night forum in Albany but canceled prior to the event. Ward I Albany City Commissioner Jon Howard said he got a letter earlier in the week announcing that Jackson would not appear.
WAFB
LSU among 92 colleges honored for diversity and inclusion practices
By Kevin Foster
BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) – Louisiana State University has been honored again with the Higher Education Excellence in Diversity (HEED) award from INSIGHT Into Diversity magazine. “We are very pleased to be recognized by Insight Into Diversity magazine with their Higher Education Excellence in Diversity award,” said LSU President F. King Alexander. …The HEED Award honors colleges and universities around the nation that “demonstrate an outstanding commitment to diversity and inclusion.” LSU is now a seven-time recipient of the award. …LSU will be featured, along with the other 92 recipients, in the November 2019 issue of INSIGHT Into Diversity magazine. View the full list below: …Georgia State University; University of Georgia; University of West Georgia
Savannah Morning News
Georgia Southern sees diversity as growth plan
By Ann Meyer
A personal referral brought Foram Patel to Georgia Southern’s Armstrong campus from India. “My friend, he got admitted. He just loved this college,” said Patel, a master’s degree student in health administration. Patel said the university’s prompt replies to her emails made an impression. “Professors over here are so curious to guide students,” she said. As Georgia Southern University, and particularly its Armstrong campus, confronts declining enrollment, diversity is becoming more important. …The trend means Georgia Southern will have to work harder to attract students, said university President Kyle Marrero, who started as Georgia Southern’s 14th president on April 1. Embracing students of all backgrounds and orientations and ensuring they feel welcome and valued could be a way to grow enrollment, he said.
Griffin Daily News
Gordon State, GSCS sign articulation agreement
FROM STAFF REPORTS
Gordon State College and Griffin-Spalding School System (GSCS) signed a partnership articulation agreement last Friday that will begin a Professional Development School in Griffin.
Savannah Morning News
Fast-growing USC-Beaufort’s hospitality a draw
By Ann Meyer ameyer@savannahnow.com
A tour of Kimpton Hotels and Resorts’ Brice Hotel as part of a hospitality program at the University of South Carolina-Beaufort was the first step in what is now Logan Welliver’s career. “Dr. Calvert helped make this tour happen. He sold me on this brand,” said Welliver, a conference service manager at the Brice Hotel on East Bay Street in Savannah. While its impact wasn’t immediately felt at Georgia Southern, the combined enrollment of Georgia Southern and Armstrong State dipped 0.8% to 20,527 in fall 2006, after climbing steadily for at least the previous five years. Georgia Southern and Armstrong State continued slow growth until 2013, when the combined enrollment fell to 24,935 from 25,218 the prior year. …The two universities provide many of the same offerings. …Its Hilton Head campus for junior and senior hospitality management students opened for classes in January 2019, and it began a master of science program in computational science in fall 2019. …Georgia Southern is taking a similar approach, and in August President Kyle Marrero said the university would like to develop a hospitality program at Armstrong. It would be competing directly with University of South Carolina-Beaufort.
Americus Times Recorder
GSW hosts POW/MIA Convocation; keynote speaker recalls time as POW
By Beth Alston
Georgia Southwestern State University (GSW) and Andersonville National Historic Site held the 14th annual Prisoner of War/Missing in Action (POW/MIA) Convocation on Wednesday in GSW’s Convocation Hall. Former prisoner of war Col. Robert Certain (ret.) served as the featured speaker. The convocation was held in conjunction with the POW/MIA Recognition Day events, which honor service members who were prisoners of war and those who are still missing in action. This year, Recognition Day was observed on Friday at the park’s National Prisoner of War Museum at Andersonville National Historic Site.
The Chronicle of Higher Education
Meet Waffle House’s Poet Laureate. She’s Touring Georgia High Schools to Promote College Access.
By Lindsay Ellis
Meet Waffle House’s Poet Laureate. She’s Touring Georgia High Schools to Promote College Access.
By Lindsay Ellis
Karen Head often wakes up thinking she’s in someone else’s life. The associate professor and poet at the Georgia Institute of Technology didn’t go to college until she was 27. Neither of Head’s parents graduated from high school, though both later got high-school equivalency diplomas. Higher education, for her, was never a foregone conclusion. That changed when she enrolled at DeKalb College, taking classes at night. Her professors urged her to think big, and she did — earning four degrees in 11 years. …Today, she is an associate professor in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication and leads Georgia Tech’s Communication Center, which specializes in tutoring and writing. …Head was recently named Waffle House’s first poet laureate, and has begun a tour of 12 Georgia schools. At each school, she talks about poetry – knowing that arts education is cut in high schools with tight budgets – and going to college. (The restaurant is covering travel expenses — its CEO is a Georgia Tech alumnus.)
Savannah CEO
Georgia Southern Plans to Refocus University Sustainability Efforts
Staff Report From Savannah CEO
Building on a decade of success, Georgia Southern University plans to enhance its Center for Sustainability by better pairing it with new academic programs and focusing its resources on larger projects. Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Carl Reiber has organized a transition team that will spend the next year developing a new roadmap for the center. The group met for the first time this week to begin positioning the Center for Sustainability to lead one of the values in the university’s new strategic plan: Sustainability: Georgia Southern University is a conscientious steward of resources and supports the well-being of students, faculty, staff, and communities. “Our Center for Sustainability has enhanced our campuses locally and enhanced our reputation nationally,” Reiber said
Fox5
Georgia Tech researchers develop patch to track heart failure
By Beth Galvin, FOX Medical Team
We have wearable devices and smartphone apps that track our workouts, and the number of steps we take each day. Now, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta are developing a wearable device that could help heart failure patients and their doctors track how their heart is functioning.
The Engineer
Brain-machine interface could help paralysed people
Combination of flexible electrodes and artificial intelligence may offer simpler method for brain-machine interface to control wheelchairs, computers and robotic vehicles For people without the use of their limbs, interacting with technology is vital, but difficult. Voice control can solve some problems, but for some people even that is not possible. Researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology now believe they have taken a major step towards the science fiction goal of being able to control machinery and electronics directly just by thinking about it.
Augusta Chronicle
MCG part of nationwide stroke research looking to preserve brain
By Tom Corwin
The Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University is one of seven centers nationwide working together to find an intervention that can help preserve the brain of stroke patients before and after therapy. Something similar to inflating and deflating a blood pressure cuff multiple times might help protect a stroke patient’s brain before and after treatment, say researchers at the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University. MCG and this therapy are among seven around the country chosen by the National Institutes of Health for its first-ever multi-center randomized pre-clinical trial to identify the most promising methods for protecting and preserving the brain before and after a stroke. While there are approved therapies to dissolve or mechanically remove a clot during stroke, clinical trials to identify a way to help protect the brain haven’t really worked despite decades of efforts, and about half of patients still have some disability three months after the stroke, said MCG Dean David Hess, a longtime stroke researcher who is part of the new effort.
Albany Herald
Grant funds UGA study of potentially deadly fungi
By Sharon Dowdy
University of Georgia mycologist Marin Brewer has been awarded close to $500,000 from the United States Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) to search for ways to detect antifungal resistance in a naturally occurring fungus and identify the factors that contribute to its resistance in agricultural environments. Throughout the three-year study, Brewer and her collaborator Michelle Momany, a professor in the UGA Franklin College of Arts and Sciences Department of Plant Biology, will focus on Aspergillus fumigatus, a fungus that is abundant in soil, compost and other organic debris. This fungus can cause serious lung infections in immunocompromised people.
Savannah Morning News
An invasive lizard threatens Georgia wildlife
By Mary landers
Three feet long and partial to quail and gopher tortoise eggs, black and white lizards called tegus are not from around here. They hail from Argentina, Paraguy and Brazil. But these invasives have been reported in the wild in south Georgia, where wildlife researchers and trying to eradicate them before they establish themselves. So far a tegu task force has trapped eight of the lizards in the same area near Reidsville in Tattnall County. The Department of Natural Resources has also documented reports of a tegu road kill in nearby Collins and credible accounts of up to six tegus killed over the last two or three years in Tattnall and adjacent Toombs. Unrelated was another tegu killed in Valdosta in July. South Georgia is a perfect climate and habitat for tegus, which are sold as pets.
…Down a dirt road outside of Reidsville, wildlife officials from the Georgia DNR, McBrayer from Georgia Southern and a technician from the U.S. Geological Survey showed off how they trap tegus. A tip from landowners got them started here. Jim Gillis, with DNR game management, was barely out of his truck on the first visit when he spotted a tegu that led him to its nearby burrow just inside the scrubby forest that lines the road. That was the end of Gillis’ luck that day, though.
First Coast News
U.S. Coast Guard confirms oil discharge from overturned Golden Ray cargo ship in St. Simons Sound
The Coast Guard’s Unified Command reported “sporadic discharges” of oil from the Golden Ray cargo ship, which remains in the St. Simons Sound where it capsized.
Author: First Coast News
The U.S. Coast Guard confirmed Saturday reports of oil leaking from the Golden Ray cargo ship, which remains in the St. Simons Sound where it overturned back in early September. The Coast Guard’s Unified Command reported “sporadic discharges” from the ship. “Shoreline impacts have been identified near Quarantine Island, Lanier Island, and the confluence of the Back, Mackay, and Frederica Rivers, with varying degrees of oil and sheen in the marshes,” the Coast Guard said. “Mitigation techniques are being evaluated.” …On Friday, First Coast News reporter Troy Kless spoke to Altamaha Riverkeeper’s executive director Fletcher Sams who had already expressed concerns about oil leaking from the ship and potentially impacting the environment. “We’re concerned we’re finding things that are newly reported, and we don’t think they’re being as responsive as we would like them to be,” Sams said. That day, Sams took a stalk of grass from the marshes along Back River, which still had some oiling on it. The Altamaha Riverkeeper told First Coast News it is working with the University of Georgia to conduct tests of samples that will be gathered from different areas around St. Simons in the coming week.
Higher Education News:
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Are college rankings really valuable?
By Eric Stirgus
For the last two weeks, education reporters like myself have been flooded with emails by colleges and universities promoting how their schools fared on this year’s edition of the much anticipated U.S. News & World Report college rankings. The publication ranks everything from the best schools for new students to the top business schools and the most innovative schools. Some Atlanta-area schools fared quite well, even topping some categories in the rankings. In addition to U.S. News, there have been rankings since August by Washington Monthly, The Wall Street Journal, Money Magazine, The Princeton Review and many others. Sorry for any we missed. So, how useful are these rankings for students? Not very, some experts say.