University System News:
AJC.com
Higher education changes to come in 2020
By Eric Stirgus
In less than three weeks, we’ll be in the year 2020. With that in mind, let’s take a look at some issues in higher education that will be on the horizon next year in Georgia.
Columbus CEO
Sixteen CSU students graduate with MCSD teaching contracts
Staff Reports
Sixteen Columbus State University students are graduating this Friday with jobs already lined up as Muscogee County School District teachers. The group is part of CSU and MCSD’s new partnership that guarantees teaching contracts for all CSU graduates who meet the necessary requirements for certification. “Many places tell you that you will have a job, but CSU literally does it,” said Katia Roberts, who will be teaching English language arts and math at Rothschild Leadership Academy. “Graduating in the fall usually makes it harder, but we are guaranteed something. CSU stands by their word.”
Bluffton Today
By Betty Darby
During the Great Recession, many states reduced funding for education, slowing the hiring of new teachers and capping compensation and benefits in such a way that the pay scale proved far less competitive for the expectations of the job and increasing costs of living. “We started feeling the beginning of the shortage in 2014 and immediately began broadening our alternative pathways tool,” explains Heather Bilton, director of Human Resources-Certified with Savannah-Chatham County Public School System. “What has compounded the shortage is the high percentage of teachers who are late career and could retire at any time within the next five years. The pipeline of new teachers is not there to replace them. Every field is a critical field right now.” With nearly 3,000 teachers and an annual attrition rate of 15 percent, SCCPSS has to hire approximately 400-500 new teachers every year. The traditional pathway to a teaching career is a bachelor’s degree in education, but almost universally, that typically four-year path is as close to an apprenticeship as an undergraduate degree comes. An education major can expect to spend 25 percent or more of his or her undergraduate time working in their chosen field under the watchful eyes of mentors and professors.
AJC.com
Single mom, 43, returns to college, with unexpected help from stranger
By Ty Tagami
Some people graduate from high school, then go to college. Latonya Young was not fated to follow that path. The 43-year-old mother of three dropped out of high school at 16 when her first son, now 26, was born. Although two other boys would come along in the coming decades, she still managed to get a GED, go to cosmetology school and start on a degree at Georgia State University. Being a single mom, a student and an employee all at the same time is difficult, though, even for those who can afford it.
Gwinnett Daily Post
Georgia Gwinnett College graduate challenges classmates not to forget what drives them
By Taylor Denman
Each of the more than 460 students who received their diplomas during Georgia Gwinnett College’s commencement ceremony at Infinite Energy Arena on Thursday has their own story that led them to GGC. At a school like GGC, where no single race or ethnicity makes up more than 32% of the school’s enrollment, those stories seem to be more unique compared to some graduating classes. Take Fall 2019 commencement speaker Benjamin Coker. The nursing major was already a student at Georgia Gwinnett College in 2015, when he learned that his father was diagnosed with stomach cancer. His father’s condition regressed to the point where Coker was carrying him around just for him to be able to complete menial tasks, like his father had carried him when he was a child. The then 20-year-old student told his father that he was going to become a nurse. Coker’s promise to his father, who died in 2016, dedicated him to his studies and his eventual achievement of a degree.
The Brunswick News
Historical society partners with college to create field trip experience
By Lauren McDonald
An engaging history lesson goes far beyond important dates and famous names. Some of the best history education will immerse the learner in the world about which they’re studying. Claire Hughes’ teacher candidates at College of Coastal Georgia spent their fall semester making this kind of learning possible for local students. College of Coastal Georgia partnered this year with Glynn County Schools and the Coastal Georgia Historical Society to provide a new field trip experience for fifth grade students at the World War II Home Front Museum on St. Simons.
Law.com
UGA picks Justice Benham for historic lecture
By Katheryn Tucker
The University of Georgia has announced that Georgia Supreme Court Justice Robert Benham will present the 2020 Holmes-Hunter Lecture at 2 p.m. on Feb. 3 in the chapel on the old North Campus.
AJC.com
Autopsy still incomplete for Clayton student who died in record heat
By Leon Stafford
Four months after her passing, the family of a 16-year-old who died after running drills in record heat at a Clayton County school still doesn’t know the official cause of her death. This past weekend, Clayton State University gave Imani a posthumous associates degree of arts in integrative studies. The teen enrolled at the school in fall 2018 as a dual student earning college credit while completing her high school requirements.
Betakit.com
Creative Destruction Lab opens newest location in Atlanta’s Georgia Tech
By Meagan Simpson
Creative Destruction Lab (CDL) announced on Thursday, the newest location for its accelerator program. Opening in Atlanta, Georgia, CDL is partnering with the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) Scheller College of Business for CDL-Atlanta. The newest North American operation marks the eight location globally for CDL. Ajay Agrawal, founder of CDL and professor at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management, pointed to Georgia Tech’s reputation as one of the top ten ranked engineering departments in the world as one of the reasons to partner with the school. He added that the new program represents “significant opportunity for both parties.”
AJC.com
GSU grads’ app lets you nickel and dime your student loan to death
By Courtney Kueppers
In 2018, 65% of college graduates left school with student debt. Among the class of 2018, the average debt was $29,200, according to NerdWallet. Factor in interest rates, and that amount of debt can be crippling. The widespread student debt crisis has become a routine talking point from statehouses to the campaign trail. But in lieu of any sort of policy-oriented solution, a pair of Georgia State University graduates set out to try to help people who are pinching pennies. Christian Zimmerman and Nate Washington created the app Qoins as a way to allow users to put spare change toward student loan debt.
Higher Education News:
Inside Higher Ed
Ruling narrows Title IX obligations
By Greta Anderson
An appellate court’s decision could minimize colleges and universities’ responsibility to provide remedies for victims of sexual misconduct on campus. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled that Michigan State University and one of its senior administrators cannot be held liable for student victims’ emotional distress after seeing their alleged perpetrators on campus because the interactions did not lead to further sexual harassment or assault, according to an opinion issued Thursday.
Politico
Trump Treasury staffer leaves after getting embroiled in college admissions scandal
By Daniel Lippman
James Littlefair, an advance staffer who worked for Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, has resigned from the department after his mother pleaded guilty to illegally helping him graduate from Georgetown University as part of the nationwide “Varsity Blues” college admissions scandal, according to two people familiar with the matter. Littlefair resigned earlier this month; his mother, Karen Littlefair, of Newport Beach, Calif., was charged on Monday with one charge of wire fraud conspiracy. She agreed to plead guilty in an agreement signed on Nov. 11.
The College Fix
As fossil fuel divestment activism continues, universities offer mixed responses
By Maria Lencki
In recent years, student-activists on campuses across the country have demanded that their universities divest any holdings in fossil fuel concerns. Motivated by an increasingly zealous climate ideology, these activists insist that divestment from such holdings is both morally necessary and critical to the survival of the human species. In many cases, universities have rejected the demands wholesale. In recent years, however, some schools have elected to dump their fossil fuel investments. In general, climate activists have collectively seen a mixed bag of successes and failures in American higher education.
Diverseeducation.com
Democrats in Congress question DeVos on relief for defrauded students
By Sara Weissman
Tensions ran high at a House Education and Labor Committee hearing on Thursday, where Democrats questioned U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos about her implementation of the borrower’s defense rule, the provision that allows loan forgiveness for defrauded students. The hearing is a part of an ongoing saga over what will happen to student borrowers who attended for-profit colleges that misled them about school services or the value of their degrees.
Inside Higher Ed
An industry-aligned education
By Lilah Burke
The City University of New York system is working to add new courses this spring in data analytics and cybersecurity. The system hopes to launch eight new courses and revise one older one under the guidance of companies that are part of Business Roundtable, a nonprofit association of CEOs. Four community colleges and three senior colleges, including Queens College, Baruch College and York College, will be offering the courses.
Law.com
Forget the ‘Trump Bump.’ First-year law school enrollment dipped in 2019
By Karen Sloan
So much for a lasting “Trump Bump” in legal education. The number of new students showing up on law campuses this fall fell slightly, according to newly released data from the American Bar Association. That decline throws cold water on the notion that political turmoil in Washington would fuel wider interest in law school for years to come. The new ABA data show that 38,283 new first-year students enrolled this fall, down about a quarter of a percent from 38,390 in the fall of 2018. That decline is counterintuitive, given that the number of people applying to ABA-accredited law schools last cycle increased 3%, according to figures from the Law School Admission Council.