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USG Highlights Ethical Culture Through Ethics Awareness Week
The purpose of this week is to remind employees of our commitment to an ethical culture and our shared ethical values and expectations.
From Georgia Highlands College:
November 5, 2019
USG Highlights Ethical Culture Through Ethics Awareness Week
The University System of Georgia (USG) is committed to the highest ethical and professional standards of conduct in pursuit of its mission to create knowledge. Accomplishing this mission demands integrity, good judgment and dedication to public service from all members of the USG community. Annually, the USG highlights this commitment through an Ethics Awareness Week which is scheduled this year for November 11–17, 2019. The purpose of this week is to remind employees of our commitment to an ethical culture and our shared ethical values and expectations. Chancellor Steve Wrigley has emphasized the importance of an ethical culture and how it is critical to the success of not only our institutions, but our employees, students, communities and ultimately how Georgia is educated.
Athens Banner-Herald
3-days of activities celebrate first generation UGA students
By Marilyn Primovic
Carson Kuck, a first-generation student from middle Georgia who currently attends the University of Georgia, vividly remembers gathering his family into the car and praying on the drive to a parking lot with Wi-Fi to check his email after getting word that UGA had released its admissions decisions. After seeing animated fireworks in the acceptance email and feeling emotions he said he could not begin to describe, he was proud his hard work in high school had paid off. In that moment, he knew his life had changed. “Now and forever, my family, my brothers, my future spouse and children’s lives are going to be changed,” he said. “My family’s entire life has been doing what it takes to get me what I need.” UGA’s First-Generation College Celebration takes place Wednesday through Friday to bring faculty, staff and students together in unity as both “first-gens” and first-gen advocates across campus. The event aligns with National First-Generation Celebration day on Friday, which commemorates the signing of the Higher Education Act of 1965. This act ushered in programs, including federal TRiO programs, aimed at increasing post-secondary access, retention and completion for low-income, potential first-generation college students. While it is the second year of this organized celebration at UGA, it is the inaugural year of bringing a number of departments and student groups together for a campus-wide series of events.
WVTM
One thousand backpacks placed around CSU clocktower for suicide awareness
By Alex Jones
Columbus State University is shedding light on suicide awareness by hosting a special event. More than 1,000 empty backpacks were on display at the university’s clocktower as part of the Active Minds Send Silence Packing exhibit. The backpacks represent the number of college students lost to suicide each year. Those who organized the event say it is important to reach out to your loved ones. …The Send Silence Packing exhibit has traveled the country to end the silence that surrounds mental health and suicide.
13WMAZ
Georgia mom pushes for defibrillators on campuses after death of her son
After the death of a loved one, a Georgia family is on a mission to bring more defibrillators to campuses.
Author: Kayla Solomon
In 2013, 21-year-old Cory Wilson was sitting in his business class at Georgia Southern University when he went into cardiac arrest. “CPR was not immediate, there was not an AED available, and his prognosis was poor,” said his mother, Lisa. From there, Lisa, her husband and their daughter all went to the hospital in Statesboro. She joined in on the CPR efforts until the doctor said Cory was gone. “And I remember hands on my shoulders and I remember being moved away from Cory, and I don’t really remember a lot more,” she recalled. Six years later, the Wilson family has traveled across the state, speaking to church groups, law enforcement, and other college campuses. Their mission is stressing the importance of having defibrillators nearby and knowing CPR.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Georgia Tech professor sentenced after defrauding government program of nearly $40K
By Asia Simone Burns
A former Georgia Tech professor was sentenced to eight months of home confinement for defrauding the National Science Foundation out of nearly $40,000. Maysam Ghovanloo, 46, was also ordered to pay $40,000 in restitution and was barred from doing business with the federal government for three years, U.S. Attorney BJay Pak said Tuesday in a statement. Ghovanloo had been employed by Georgia Tech for 12 years, according to his LinkedIn.com profile. Pak said he was a tenured professor of electrical and computer engineering.
See also:
Atlanta Business Chronicle
Former Georgia Tech professor sentenced for defrauding National Science Foundation
Columbus CEO
Columbus State University to Host WinterFest Community Event
Staff Report
Columbus State University is transforming campus into a winter wonderland for the annual WinterFest community event. Free and open to the public, WinterFest is scheduled for November 19 from 6-9 p.m. on Columbus State’s main campus.
Flagpole
UGA Events Honor Legendary Editor Ralph McGill and Other Georgia Writers
By Ed Tant
Athens is mostly known as a music mecca, but this month, practitioners of prose and poetry will be honored at the University of Georgia during two events that celebrate writers in this state and nation. Two university organizations, the Ralph McGill Lecture and Symposium and the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame, have public events coming up during November that showcase wordsmiths both past and present. …The McGill events commemorate the courage of Georgia newspaperman Ralph McGill, whose civil rights-era columns in The Atlanta Constitution earned him accolades as “the conscience of the South.” …McGill’s voice and spirit will be remembered during the upcoming events on the University of Georgia campus this month. His words of warning from 60 years ago need to be remembered across this nation and around the world today: “When the wolves of hate are loosed on one people, then no one is safe.”
WJBF
Commission leaves open going after ambulance zone
Augusta leaders talk ambulance service. Commissioners debating whether to take action on stopping the proposal to replace Gold Cross as the Ambulance Zone provider for the city. Commissioners hearing from a Augusta University student who called for an ambulance last week but one wasn’t sent Commissioners say that was a communication problem and there is no reason right now for the city to take over the zone. “Had a conversation about that and apparently it was a misunderstanding between dispatch and Gold Cross and AU so apparently somebody somewhere did not understand something but it’s a place for learning and hopefully it won’t happen again,” said Commissioner Brandon Garrett.
The Augusta Chronicle
CDC links childhood trauma to health issues
By Tom Corwin
Many Americans had multiple bad experiences during childhood, and those are contributing to poor health as adults and even increasing some of the leading causes of death, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. In its monthly Vital Signs report, the CDC said six out of 10 people reported they had at least one of what the agency calls “adverse childhood experiences,” such as child abuse, witnessing violence or growing up in a home where there were mental health or substance abuse issues. Nearly one out of six, or 15.6%, had four or more of those experiences, and women and African Americans were more at risk for having multiple experiences, the CDC found. Those experiences could change the way the body and brain develop in those children and translate into adult health problems such as heart disease, cancer, respiratory disease, diabetes, and suicide, or five of the 10 leading causes of death in the U.S., the CDC contends. …Many of those experiences could be prevented and that is “a top priority for CDC,” Schuchat said. Encouraging and strengthening nurturing families and providing mentors and after-school programs are some key ways communities can help, she said. At AU Health, pediatricians screen children and parents for signs of these experiences and ask questions that deal with less medical and more social and environmental factors, Hartman said.
EurekAlert
Zebrafish study reveals developmental mechanisms of eye movement
Fralin Biomedical Research Institute leads multi-university team in neuroscience study
Researchers studying zebrafish have found that genes linked to autism spectrum disorder and other developmental brain abnormalities may be playing a role in people who cannot control their eye movements. The findings, to publish this week in The Journal of Neuroscience — the official journal of the nearly 40,000-member Society for Neuroscience — underscore the importance of the Down Syndrome Cell Adhesion Molecule-Like 1 gene in the development of eye movements. The study utilizes zebrafish as a model to investigate neural circuits underlying human eye movement disorders. In recent years, zebrafish has emerged as an important tool for biomedical research, providing insight into the pathogenic mechanisms of complex behavioral disorders. …In addition to scientists from Virginia Tech and Weill Cornell College of Medicine, faculty from Harvard University, Massachusetts General Hospital, Augusta University, and New York University Langone School of Medicine participated in the research. The work was supported by the National Institutes of Health, the Simons Global Brain Initiative, Virginia Tech, the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute, and Augusta University.
Albany Herald
Grants will help UGA scientists study damaging beetles
By Maria Sellers CAES News
Research entomologists in the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences are using three grants to study ambrosia beetles in an effort to prevent future attacks and preserve more fruit and nut trees. The first grant, $10,000 funded through Southern Integrated Pest Management Center, supported the work of a team of entomologists, plant pathologists and UGA Cooperative Extension specialists at CAES who are working with growers to help identify different ways to combat the issues presented by ambrosia beetles. Shimat Joseph, an entomologist on the UGA Griffin campus, says the goal was to allow researchers to identify their specific research and Extension priorities. The grant allowed the group to understand and collate both basic biology/ecology and practical management information on ambrosia beetles, and assess the knowledge gaps guided by the feedback from growers and stakeholders.
Daily Citizen News
Growings On: UGA research facilitates future farming
Efficient management is the hallmark of modern agriculture. Scientists project that the world’s population will reach 9.7 billion by the middle of the century, and to feed all of those people, crop production will need to double in the next 30 years. With this challenge looming, precision agriculture — the use of technology to increase the profitability, efficiency and sustainability of crop production — has become an indispensable part of farm management as growers try to maximize every acre. The University of Georgia was among the first academic institutions to delve into precision agriculture when it emerged in the mid-1990s. A quarter-century later, UGA is stepping up efforts to expand its faculty, curriculum, research and outreach to again become a leader in the field.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Water war shifts to southwest Georgia as Florida takes aim at farmers
By Tamar Hallerman
Three-decade legal battle has pivotal court hearing Thursday
… The water wars enter a critical phase Thursday, when a Supreme Court-appointed judge in New Mexico weighs Florida’s request to freeze Georgia’s water usage at current levels through 2050 and cut it further during droughts. Alabama is watching from the sidelines but supports Florida, which wants more fresh water flowing downstream to aid its oyster industry in Apalachicola Bay after that industry collapsed during a 2012 drought. …John McKissick, a professor emeritus at the University of Georgia’s College of Agricultural & Environmental Sciences, credited water as Georgia’s “single most important competitive advantage” in farming during a recent state legislative joint budget hearing. In the past, farmers had largely policed themselves, but recent droughts and pressure from litigation from Florida and Alabama changed that. The state has maintained its moratorium on new irrigation wells in more than two dozen southwest Georgia counties. (Farmers can drill into deeper aquifers but some consider it prohibitively expensive.) It’s also poured resources into studying, tracking and mapping out agricultural water usage in recent years. …The University of Georgia’s C.M. Stripling Irrigation Research Park in Camilla has helped develop and fine-tune apps that advise farmers on when and how much to water their crops based on weather forecasts and data from soil moisture sensors. The center also developed hardware attachments to irrigation systems that allow growers to control individual sprinklers electronically, which help further cut down on water use.
Higher Education News:
Diverse Issues in Higher Education
Senators Send Letter in Support of the FUTURE Act
by Sara Weissman
A group of 38 senators sent a letter to U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer calling on them to pass the FUTURE Act. The FUTURE Act would renew $255 million in mandatory federal funding for minority serving institutions, including historically Black colleges and universities, for two years. The bipartisan legislation passed the House of Representatives but remains stalled in the Senate, which caused the funding to expire on Sept. 30.
Inside Higher Ed
Tuition Assistance Popular With Employees
By Madeline St. Amour
Working learners believe that automation will impact their industries and jobs, according to a new report from Bright Horizons, the largest provider of employer-sponsored childcare in the country, which also provides tuition program management, education advising and student loan repayment programs for employers. The report, “Working Learner Index,” surveyed U.S. employees who have participated in employer tuition assistance programs in the past two years, and received more than 30,000 responses. More than half of respondents said the tuition assistance program is one of the best benefits their job offers, ranking it above paid family leave, life insurance, wellness benefits and workplace training. More than three-quarters of respondents said such a program would make them more likely to stay at an organization.
Inside Higher Ed
This year’s Open Education Conference had more attendees than ever before. Why is it ending after 16 years, and what does its demise mean for the cause?
By Lilah Burke
Last weekend, at the Open Education Conference in Phoenix, David Wiley, chief academic officer of Lumen Learning and the conference’s organizer for 16 years, announced that this would be its last gathering, or at least the last with him at the helm. The conference, which grew from 40 attendees in 2003 to 850 this year, was a meeting place for advocates of open education, a sometimes hard-to-define goal that often involved the use of open educational resources — free, openly licensed digital textbooks. “This is not a call for another person or organization to come forward to keep the same conference running the same way into the future. Rather, it’s a call to reset and start over,” Wiley wrote on his blog. “This reimagining must be owned by the community. It must be driven by the community. And it would be inappropriate for me to try to facilitate that process beyond extending a brief invitation.” The announcement prompted reactions across blogs and Twitter feeds, with some commentators saying that the announcement represented a fracturing of the tenuously aligned coalition of open education advocates.
The Chronicle of Higher Education
Can You Get Students Interested in the Humanities Again? These Colleges May Have It Figured Out
By Beth McMurtie
Across the country, humanities majors have plummeted. Since 2011, history has seen a 33-percent drop in majors. English has seen a longer and more drastic decline, while languages, philosophy, and religion have also been hit hard since the 2008 recession. Humanities departments have also struggled to fill introductory and intermediate courses. According to surveys by the American Historical Association, overall enrollments in history courses declined by nearly 8 percent from 2013-14 to 2016-17. …Jim Grossman, executive director of the American Historical Association, said there’s a broad shift going on in history as a result of those external pressures. “It’s departments saying, ‘What are students interested in? OK, let’s teach that.’ It’s also walking across campus and talking to colleagues and saying, ‘What kinds of history courses make better engineers?’” There are some signs that those efforts may be working. According to the most recent AHA survey, history course enrollments have stabilized.
Inside Higher Ed
University of North Carolina system’s top lawyer issues cease-and-desist letter to outside lawyer said to be representing some of its board members.
By Rick Seltzer
Governance tensions within the University of North Carolina system are again on display after the system’s top lawyer demanded that an outside attorney with ties to members of the system’s governing board stop portraying himself as representing the system. That outside lawyer, Peter Romary, has represented himself as conducting investigative work on behalf of the system’s Board of Governors, East Carolina University’s Board of Trustees or ECU, according to cease-and-desist letters sent by the UNC system’s general counsel. Romary maintains that he never told anyone he worked for the entities in question, only that he said he represents people on the boards. The back-and-forth is tied to some of the most controversial recent events and leaders in the UNC system. Romary has at different times acknowledged working for two members of the system Board of Governors: Harry Smith and Tom Fetzer. Fetzer hired Romary to review candidates for the Western Carolina University chancellorship in a search that collapsed in 2018 amid accusations that Fetzer breached confidentiality. Smith has been the subject of fierce criticism for his involvement in East Carolina issues. Romary has not said who, exactly, he was working for when he was conducting the investigation that led to the cease-and-desist letter. He cited nondisclosure agreements in an email to Inside Higher Ed Tuesday.