University System News:
11Alive
UGA announces MFA film program with Pinewood Forest
Applications for the MFA Film program will be accepted until Feb. 15, 2020. The first cohort of students will begin study in fall 2020.
Author: Ryan Dennis
Georgia’s burgeoning film and television industry stands ready to benefit from an expanded workforce, thanks to an innovative new partnership between the University of Georgia, the Georgia Film Academy and Pinewood Forest, the new community in Fayetteville, Georgia, located adjacent to Pinewood Atlanta Studios. The University of Georgia’s Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication and Franklin College of Arts and Sciences have aligned with Pinewood Forest and the Georgia Film Academy to create a Master of Fine Arts in Film, Television and Digital Media program. The program is the first of its kind in Georgia, with students taking classes in an academic setting during the first year and producing projects in a major studio setting during the second year.
The Union-Recorder
Georgia College to hold commencement ceremony Dec. 14
Special to The U-R
About 375 Georgia College students are eligible to receive undergraduate, graduate and doctoral degrees Saturday, Dec. 14, at the Centennial Center. …This year, Georgia College is proudly conferring an honorary doctor of human letters degree to GEICO Executive Chairman and retired Chief Executive Officer Tony Nicely for professional distinction and accomplishment. Nicely, a Georgia College graduate, started working for GEICO in 1961 while attending college. The granting of honorary degrees is a longstanding tradition of universities. In addition to an earned doctorate, the honorary degree is the highest recognition a university can bestow. The commencement speaker is Dr. Hasitha Mahabaduge, assistant professor of physics. Mahabaduge is the 2019 recipient of the Georgia College Excellence in Teaching Award.
Savannah Business Journal
Georgia Southern student announced as finalist for $100K Dr Pepper Tuition Giveaway
Staff Report
Georgia Southern University student Jaidyn McKeever-Harrison plans to attend the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) college football championship game this weekend, but not simply as a college football fan. McKeever-Harrison will be on the field during halftime attempting to toss as many footballs as she can into an oversized Dr Pepper can within 30 seconds in hopes of winning $100,000 in tuition money as part of the Dr Pepper Tuition Giveaway. “I’m pretty excited, I feel pretty prepared and I’m honestly just ready to go and enjoy the weekend,” she said. Winning the tuition money would help with expenses for graduate school as she pursues her goal of becoming a pediatric occupational therapist.
Savannah Tribune
Savannah State Wins Nine Awards at Model African Union Conference
Nine members of Savannah State University’s (SSU) Model African Union student organization participated in the 23rd Annual Southeastern Model of the African Union (SEMAU) Conference Nov. 6-9, on the campus of Kennesaw State University. The event was a simulation organized by the University System of Georgia Africa Council. SSU served as delegates representing the countries of Algeria and Tunisia. During the conference, the students worked with fellow delegates to find what conference directors called “African solutions to African problems” through council and committee deliberations, diplomacy and the production of draft resolutions on specific topics.
Tifton Gazette
Hands-on learning benefits agriculture students
By Maria Sellers CAES News
Hands-on learning opportunities are a focal point for students in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences (CAES) on the University of Georgia Tifton campus and a key part of its academic mission. Glen Harris, a CAES professor who teaches a soils and hydrology class each semester, offers students a variety of hands-on learning experiences each semester through field trips. “If you can show it to them rather than tell them about it, they pay closer attention and it’s more real,” said Harris.
Fox 5
Pediatricians’ group says obese teens should have easier access to weight loss surgery
By Beth Galvin
At 19, Ruby Hernandez has become a runner, something the Georgia Gwinnett College sophomore could never have imagined just a year ago. “I had a lot of depression growing up,” Hernandez says. “A lot of it was linked to the disease that I had, and my obesity.” At 10, Hernandez was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease that causes painful skin abscesses, which are worsened by weight gain and have required surgery. By 18, she was having heart palpitations. …Going under the knife to lose weight may seem extreme. But, with 4.5 million teens and kids in the U.S. now considered severely obese, the American Academy of Pediatrics, or AAP, says bariatric surgery can be a safe, effective way to help very overweight teens unlikely to be able to lose weight on their own, even with the best of medical care. …The AAP and Dr. Walsh also agree surgery should be offered to more young people, and not just as a last resort, when nothing else has worked.
Inside Higher Ed
White Supremacy in the Classroom
Georgia Southern freshman promotes white supremacist ideology in a class presentation. The university says the presentation falls within his free speech rights. Now students of color say they feel unsafe because of his protected speech.
By Greta Anderson
When Georgia Southern University administrators sent out a campuswide email last week outlining the university’s commitment to racial inclusion and equity, it may have been cause for approval and praise. After all, the Inclusive Excellence statement was being codified as “the central pillar” of the university’s new strategic plan. Instead, the timing was seen by students as suspect and a cynical move by the university to quell complaints and criticisms, which started the day before, about the administration’s defense of a class presentation that promoted a popular white supremacist theory. The presentation by a student named Charles Robertson came on the heels of a book-burning protest by some white students on campus who took umbrage with an author’s reading and discussion of her novel about a Hispanic student’s experience at an elite American college. The book was required reading for some first-year students. The burnings took place in October after the Latina author spoke on campus about white privilege. The students involved were also defended by university administrators as expressing their free speech rights. Some students now believe the defense of the book burning opened the door for Robertson to promote a xenophobic, white supremacist ideology during a class presentation, said Daniela Rodriguez, 25, a Mexican immigrant who graduated from the university in May.
Athens Banner-Herald
Space at UGA Libraries named for Ted Turner
By Camie Williams
The exhibition hall in the University of Georgia’s Richard B. Russell Building Special Collections Libraries will be named in honor of CNN founder and environmentalist Ted Turner, subject to UGA Cabinet approval. The naming is thanks in part to a $550,000 donation made by WarnerMedia, formerly Time Warner, an entertainment and media conglomerate that merged with Turner Broadcasting in 1996. Announcement of the donation was made at a recent ceremony in Atlanta at WarnerMedia’s Techwood campus, which was dedicated to Ted Turner. The gift amount includes $50,000 to establish the Ted Turner Scholarship Fund, which will be matched by the UGA Foundation to endow need-based scholarships to incoming students in the university’s Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication. “As the home of the third largest media archive in the country and the first school of ecology in the United States, the University of Georgia is an ideal location to preserve the Turner legacy, and we thank WarnerMedia for this gift to help create the Ted Turner Exhibition Hall and Gallery,” said P. Toby Graham, university librarian and associate provost.
Statesboro Herald
Harris GS graduation speaker this weekend
From staff reports
Award-winning television journalist Laura Harris, a 2008 Georgia Southern University honor graduate, will speak to graduating students and guests during fall 2019 commencement ceremonies Friday in Savannah and Saturday in Statesboro.
OTMJ
Hoover Superintendent Named P.E. Association’s Administrator of the Year
Hoover City Schools Superintendent Kathy Murphy was named the Alabama State Association for Physical Education, Recreation and Dance’s Administrator of the Year for 2019 at the association’s annual fall conference. …After Judson, she moved on to University of West Georgia and worked throughout the metropolitan Atlanta area supervising and mentoring student teachers.
Livingston Ledger
A yawning gap! Mums lose more sleep than dads
Written by Livingston Contributor
A yawning gap! Mums lose more sleep than dads: Chance of regularly not getting enough shuteye goes up by 50% for every child a woman has As any new parent will attest, looking after a baby can leave you feeling exhausted. But mothers suffer far more than fathers from interrupted sleep after having children, research suggests. For every child a woman has, the chances of regularly not getting enough sleep goes up by 50 per cent, scientists have found. But men’s sleep patterns are unaffected by fatherhood, no matter how many children they have, the researchers claimed. They said this showed that women were disproportionately affected by parenthood. Study leader Dr Kelly Sullivan, from Georgia Southern University in the US, said: ‘I think these findings may bolster those women who say they feel exhausted. ‘Our study found not only are they not sleeping long enough, they also report feeling tired throughout the day.’
Psychiatric Times
Maternal Infection During Pregnancy: Increased Risk of Psychosis in Offspring
By Brian Miller, MD, PhD, MPH
Dr Miller is Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry and Health Behavior, Augusta University, Augusta, Georgia.
Maternal viral infection during pregnancy is a risk factor for schizophrenia.1 But there has been relatively less research on the association between maternal bacterial infection during pregnancy and psychosis risk. Maternal infections may include forms of sexually transmitted disease (STD), some viral respiratory and bacterial infections, toxoplasmosis. One study found that maternal bacterial infection was associated with a two-fold increase in schizophrenia risk.2 Findings from another study suggest an association between pyelonephritis and risk of psychosis.3 Moreover, gestational immune disruption may disproportionately affect males with regards to psychosis risk.4
Albany Herald
UGA researcher uses ‘cotton cake’ as protein supplement in dairy cattle diets
By Maria Sellers CAES News
John Bernard, a professor and dairy scientist at the University of Georgia Tifton campus, has found “cotton cake” to be an effective protein supplement for dairy cattle. Cotton cake is a type of cottonseed meal, the solid material that remains after oil is extracted from cottonseed and is made from products that would otherwise be wasted. The cotton cake Bernard has formulated is composed of a slightly different nutrient makeup than the raw material. Bernard discovered that cotton cake provides dairy cattle with an alternate source of protein than the commonly used soybean meal.
13WMAZ
Proposed bill would allow college athletes in Georgia to accept compensation
House Bill 743 is sponsored by state representative Billy Mitchell.
Author: Chelsea Beimfohr
For many years, schools and universities have provided student athletes with scholarships. Now, a Georgia lawmaker wants to provide them with further compensation. State Rep. Billy Mitchell (D- Stone Mountain) drafted House Bill 743 last month, proposing that college athletes be paid for the use of their name, likeness, or image. If it passes in the upcoming legislative session, student athletes may end up with a little more money in their pockets.
Higher Education News:
Inside Higher Ed
Women Now Majority at Medical Schools
By Marjorie Valbrun
For the first time ever, women are now the majority of U.S. medical school students, according to 2019 data released Tuesday by the Association of American Medical Colleges. This new milestone follows another one reached in 2017, when women comprised the majority of first-year medical students. According to the association, the proportion of women medical students rose from 46.9 percent in 2015 to 49.5 percent in 2018. This year women comprise 50.5 percent of all medical school students.
Inside Higher Ed
Executive Order on Anti-Semitism on Campus
By Paul Fain
President Trump plans to sign an executive order on Wednesday that will target anti-Semitism on college campuses, The New York Times reported. Administration officials told the newspaper the expected order will threaten to withhold federal funds for colleges that are deemed to fail in combating discrimination.
The Chronicle of Higher Education
Confusion Still Reigns Over Student Aid. Here’s Why.
By Goldie Blumenstyk
Confusion still reigns over student aid.
Congress has just approved some changes to simplify how students apply for federal student aid. OK, great. But hold the applause. Even as the process of applying for federal student aid may be getting improved thanks to bipartisan legislation, the way that financial aid gets described to students once it is awarded is still pretty much a hot mess. The confusion reigns over student aid even though the U.S. Department of Education has produced a new model aid-award form called the College Financing Plan. It was designed as a template for colleges to use to make financial aid and college costs clearer. But recent consumer testing shows that the form may not be up to the task: Four out of five students surveyed were confused by at least one bit of language or a number on a beta version of this new College Financing Plan, and the same was true for three out of four parents.
The Chronicle of Higher Education
By Eric Hoover
Lawyers representing students, college-access groups, and the Compton Unified School District on Tuesday filed a lawsuit against the University of California, alleging that its ACT/SAT requirement is “flatly discriminatory.” The lawsuit, filed in Alameda County Superior Court, urges the system to stop using the college-entrance exams in all evaluations of applicants. By requiring the ACT/SAT, the UC system “makes its campuses havens for concentrated privilege,” Mark Rosenbaum, a lawyer for Public Counsel, a pro bono law firm that’s co-representing the plaintiffs, said during a news conference on Tuesday. “It is illegal wealth- and race-discrimination that damages the futures of tens of thousands of students each year.”
Diverse Issues in Higher Education
UNCF Celebrates as FUTURE Act Awaits Trump’s Signature
by Sara Weissman
Sen. Lamar Alexander ceremoniously unfurled a printout of the FAFSA like a scroll, its final page resting on the floor. He was speaking at a United Negro College Fund press conference yesterday morning, applauding the latest version of the FUTURE Act, a bill intended to renew $255 million in annual federal funding for minority serving institutions for two years. The new legislation, a bipartisan compromise, passed in the U.S. Senate last week – and passed in the U.S. House of Representatives yesterday afternoon with a 319 to 96 vote, followed by final unanimous approval in the Senate that evening. The amended bill passed the senate unanimously yesterday evening and now is headed to the White House and awaits the signature of President Trump.