University System News:
The Augusta Chronicle
AU Nursing dean reflects on long legacy of improvements, service
By Tom Corwin
Dr. Lucy Martion, who has served as dean of the Augusta University College of Nursing since 2004, can look back on a record of improving programs and community service. As she gets ready to retire in December, Dr. Lucy Marion, the longest serving dean in the 76-year history of Augusta University’s College of Nursing, can look back on a legacy of changing the landscape within the college and in the community as well. Marion, who took over as dean in 2004 and was honored Friday evening at a retirement celebration, plans to serve on a national task force to revise standards for nurse practitioner education and will continue to advise some students, though she will not have an office on campus. …One of her first big projects, and a condition for taking the job, was to start a doctor of nursing practice program. Within nine months, it had become a reality.
accessWDUN
University of North Georgia ranked #4 on list of ‘most secure’ campuses in U.S.
The University of North Georgia ranked No. 4 nationally on the “100 Most Secure College Campuses in the U.S.” list released by ASecureLife.com. UNG ranked the highest of all Georgia schools, with Kennesaw State University checking in at No. 14, Savannah College of Art and Design at No. 25, Georgia State University at No. 39 and Georgia Southern University at No. 90.
Savannah Morning News
Georgia Southern strives for ‘inclusive excellence’
By Ann Meyer
As President Kyle Marrero strives to bring a singular vision to a consolidated Georgia Southern University, he faces complaints about inequalities and low morale, particularly on the Armstrong campus. In listening sessions and surveys, Armstrong campus faculty and staff rated their satisfaction lower than their counterparts in Statesboro or Hinesville, with one stating, “I feel that the morale is spiraling out of control.” Their perceptions of the university also were more critical than most students.′ “This is the first year I have not wanted to go to work. Every day is a punch in the stomach. I understand no one wanted this merger, but I do not feel included at my own workplace any more,” an Armstrong faculty member said, according to a report called, “Three Campuses, One Heartbeat: Towards Inclusive Excellence at Georgia Southern University,” which summarized research findings on climate and perceptions of morale.
‘Inclusive excellence’
Marrero referenced the report at the Convocation and State of the University address Aug. 14 on the Armstrong campus. “We need an inclusive excellence statement, a diversity statement for this campus of what we believe and the environment that we are creating,” Marrero said.
Wexford People
Community backing vital to the success of literary festival
Maria Pepper
‘Drawn to the Sea’ was the theme of the 4th annual Write by the Sea festival in Kilmore Quay and hundreds of people were lured there from far and near at the weekend by an exciting programme of literary events. The festival was launched by Wexford’s own Cat Hogan who said so many great writers have been captivated by the sea, in the eternal search for that place where we understand that we are but a speck. …The chairperson had a special welcome for the 33 featured writers and workshop hosts at the festival, including two people from the Faculty of Georgia Southern University in Savannah, Bill Dawers and Amanda Konkle, who gave talks on the work of the acclaimed Wexford-American writer Flannery O’ Connor.
Savannah Morning News
Support grows for Savannah technology corridor
By Katie Nussbaum
Being the Hostess City of the South, Savannah is often thought of for its thriving hospitality industry, but in the past year one group has ramped up efforts to bring the focus to logistics and technology through the Savannah Logistics Technology Corridor. “This is actually a concerted effort to build a full ecosystem here: startups, mid-tiers, mature companies, all the way through,” SLTC Task Force Chairman Keith Fletcher said of the corridor, which includes areas such as the Port of Savannah, Savannah Technical College, Georgia Southern University Armstrong Campus and the Savannah Advanced Manufacturing Center. “So 10 years from now we are thought of as the place for tech in the Southeast. The vision is, we would be the place they would come.”
The Brunswick News
Johnston to be inaugurated as CCGA’s sixth president
By Lauren Mcdonald
College of Coastal Georgia will host an inauguration ceremony Friday for its sixth president, Michelle Johnston. And throughout this week, events will be held in concert with the celebration, including a Reaching for the Stars silent auction and scholarship gala at 6 p.m. Thursday on the rooftop terrace of the campus center. Tickets cost $125, and all money raised will go toward student scholarships at the college. The event is open to the community.
Breitbart
Georgia Tech Students Call for University President’s Firing over Kavanaugh Support
By Tom Ciccotta
A group of students at the Georgia Institute of Technology is protesting the recent appointment of Angel Cabrera as university president over his support for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. According to a report by The College Fix, a group of leftist activist students is protesting Angel Cabrera’s hiring as the new president of Georgia Tech. In his previous role as the president of George Mason University, Cabrera facilitated the hiring of Justice Brett Kavanaugh to a visiting professor position. Now, a student group that calls themselves “GT for Survivors” is protesting Cabrera’s appointment at Georgia Tech. “Students at GT and GMU don’t think Kavanaugh’s elevation to SCOTUS means that the allegations made against him should have been overlooked when Angel Cabrera hired him to teach at GMU, either,” the group wrote in a tweet last week.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Amid criticism, UGA looks closer at its slave history
By Eric Stirgus
The University of Georgia, founded nearly eight decades before the start of the Civil War, proudly proclaims itself as “the birthplace of public higher education in America,” but that title comes with an asterisk. Amid the backdrop of teaching and learning was also a lesser-known history entangled with slavery.During those early years, records show enslaved workers cleaned buildings, started fires to keep students warm and performed other tasks for students and the faculty and administrators who owned them. Now, the university wants to know more about that time period and is reviewing proposals from faculty to research that history from UGA’s founding to 1865, the year the war ended. But critics say the school’s research plan — and the $100,000 to do the work — does not go far enough. …Georgia faculty members, such as associate history professor Chana Kai Lee, would prefer the research extend beyond the end of the Civil War. She’s part of a team researching that history. The team’s research has included searching for oral histories of African Americans who lived around that time.
WSOC TV
Statue of first African American fighter pilot to debut in Georgia
By: Jeremy Redmon, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
WARNER ROBINS, Ga. -Eugene Bullard’s story is so incredible that it reads like fiction. The son of a former slave, he ran away from his Columbus home as a child, fleeing the Jim Crow South in the early 20th century after his beloved father was nearly lynched. He stowed away on a boat for Europe, boxed professionally, drummed in a jazz band in Paris, rubbed elbows with Louis Armstrong and fought for the French Foreign Legion in World War I. To honor him on his birthday in the state he fled more than a century ago, Georgia’s WWI Centennial Commission will unveil a statue of Bullard on Wednesday at the Museum of Aviation near Robins Air Force Base. His admirers say the 6-foot, 3-inch bronze monument will finally give him his due in Georgia after decades of gradual recognition. …Eugene Bullard also suffered from discrimination and violence when he moved to New York after the wars. He was once beaten for refusing to sit at the back of a bus. Police clubbed him and knocked him down at a concert in 1949 by Paul Robeson, an actor and singer who demonstrated against racism. “Even though he encountered racism there a lot, he never let that get him down. He never made a big thing of it, either. He just kept going,” said Craig Lloyd, a former Columbus State University archivist who wrote the biography “Eugene Bullard: Black Expatriate in Jazz-Age Paris.”
Medgadget
A team of scientists from the Georgia Institute of Technology (the US) announced the development of a battery-free pacemaker. The new pacemaker does not require a battery and harvests its energy from the user’s beating heart. Successfully tested on pigs, the new pacemaker uses an “energy harvester”, wrapped around the heart that can generate electricity from the pulsating motion of the muscle. Each beat of the heart produces sufficient electricity to be able to power the device. The tests demonstrated that the harvested energy was higher than that needed for a human pacemaker. However, it could be some years before symbiotic pacemakers are ready to be implanted safely into human patients.
Marietta Daily Journal
One dead, two wounded in shooting at off-campus KSU housing
By Ross Williams
One person is dead and two more have been hospitalized as Cobb Police investigate a shooting at the Stadium Village apartments near Kennesaw State University on Sunday. Sgt. Wayne Delk with Cobb police said officers responded to a call of shots fired and found one man dead. “Two other victims were transported to the hospital, are at the hospital right now,” he said. “I’m unsure of their status. But this seems to have stemmed from some sort of dispute between neighbors in the same apartment building.” …Stadium Village is located across Big Shanty Road from KSU’s Fifth Third Bank Stadium. It is marketed toward students, but is not affiliated with KSU. …One resident, a student who asked that her name not be published, said she is saddened, but not surprised by the shooting. “You walk around and you see a lot of people here who don’t live here,” she said. “The gates, you can easily get in anywhere around here. At Stadium, the gates over at the front have been broken since the beginning of the year. When we sign our leases, they promise us safety, they promise us security, but that’s not what we get.”
See also:
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
1 dead, 2 injured after shooting at apartment complex near KSU
WSAV
Savannah State University police officer arrested on battery, child cruelty charges
by: Kelly Antonacci
A Savannah State University (SSU) police officer is facing criminal charges Friday for allegedly punching his girlfriend in the face. The university placed him on paid leave. Savannah Police arrested 56-year-old Officer Gerald Williams on Thursday. He spent one night behind bars and was let out on a $4,050 bond, according to a booking report from the Chatham County Sheriff’s Office. Williams was charged with two counts of cruelty to children in the third degree and battery/family violence. An incident report from Savannah Police Department says criminal charges stem from an incident that happened on Savannah’s eastside in early September.
RawStory
Rotating black holes may serve as gentle portals for hyperspace travel
One of the most cherished science fiction scenarios is using a black hole as a portal to another dimension or time or universe. That fantasy may be closer to reality than previously imagined. Black holes are perhaps the most mysterious objects in the universe. They are the consequence of gravity crushing a dying star without limit, leading to the formation of a true singularity – which happens when an entire star gets compressed down to a single point yielding an object with infinite density. This dense and hot singularity punches a hole in the fabric of spacetime itself, possibly opening up an opportunity for hyperspace travel. That is, a short cut through spacetime allowing for travel over cosmic scale distances in a short period. …My team at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and a colleague at Georgia Gwinnett College have shown that all black holes are not created equal. If the black hole like Sagittarius A*, located at the center of our own galaxy, is large and rotating, then the outlook for a spacecraft changes dramatically. That’s because the singularity that a spacecraft would have to contend with is very gentle and could allow for a very peaceful passage.
Higher Education News:
The Atlantic
College Students Just Want Normal Libraries
Schools have been on a mission to reinvent campus libraries—even though students just want the basics.
ALIA WONG
…Survey data and experts suggest that students generally appreciate libraries most for their simple, traditional offerings: a quiet place to study or collaborate on a group project, the ability to print research papers, and access to books. Notably, many students say they like relying on librarians to help them track down hard-to-find texts or navigate scholarly journal databases. “Google can bring you back 100,000 answers,” as the writer Neil Gaiman once said. “A librarian can bring you back the right one.”
Inside Higher Ed
Brown follows Princeton in letting departments decide whether to require the admissions test. Twenty-four of them opt out.
By Scott Jaschik
Brown University announced Friday that entrance to 24 of its graduate programs will no longer require the Graduate Record Examination. Brown’s move follows a similar move by Princeton University, which last month announced that 14 of its departments have dropped the GRE as a requirement. For some time, individual departments have dropped the GRE at other universities, but Princeton and Brown surveyed their departments, allowing them to vote on the issue, resulting in more programs going that way. The Educational Testing Service, which runs the GRE, opposes the move, but there may be more such decisions ahead.
The Washington Post
US researchers on front line of battle against Chinese theft
By Eric Tucker | AP
As the U.S. warned allies around the world that Chinese tech giant Huawei was a security threat, the FBI was making the same point quietly to a Midwestern university. In an email to the associate vice chancellor for research at the University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign, an agent wanted to know if administrators believed Huawei had stolen any intellectual property from the school. Told no, the agent responded: “I assumed those would be your answers, but I had to ask.” It was no random query. The FBI has been reaching out to colleges and universities across the country as it tries to stem what American authorities portray as the wholesale theft of technology and trade secrets by researchers tapped by China. The breadth and intensity of the campaign emerges in emails The Associated Press obtained through records requests to public universities in 50 states. The emails underscore the extent of U.S. concerns that universities, as recruiters of foreign talent and incubators of cutting-edge research, are particularly vulnerable targets.
The Chronicle of Higher Education
He Was a Consultant for the Search; Now He’s the Chancellor. And the Faculty Is Furious.
By Emma Pettit
A Friday media conference at the University of Mississippi to announce its new chancellor descended into pandemonium, then was canceled, after protesters disrupted the meeting and a few were removed from the room by police officers. That just about sums up the dominant reaction to the news, first reported by local media on Thursday, that Glenn Boyce would be the next chancellor of the university, whose main campus is in Oxford. On Friday, the university confirmed that Boyce, who was hired as a consultant for the chancellor search process, is the new chancellor. Boyce hadn’t submitted a formal application to the board of the Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning, which oversees the state’s public colleges, and his appointment cut the search short. Students, faculty, and Oxford locals marched across campus and brandished signs that said, “Not My Choice, Not My Chancellor” and “Joke of a Process.” Outside the news conference, they chanted, “No Glenn Boyce! We have a voice!”