University System News:
Columbus Ledger-Enquirer
Former CSU administrator named interim president of another Georgia university
By Mark Rice
A former Columbus State University administrator has been appointed interim president of another University System of Georgia. Stuart Rayfield, who was CSU’s Servant Leadership Program director before she became interim president of Bainbridge State College in June 2016, will be the interim president of the University of West Georgia, USG chancellor Steve Wrigley announced Wednesday. Rayfield will succeed interim West Georgia president Micheal Crafton, whose resignation is effective Dec. 16, the end of the fall semester.
Albany Herald
Stuart Rayfield to serve as interim West Georgia president
From staff reports
University System of Georgia Chancellor Steve Wrigley announced that he has accepted University of West Georgia interim President Micheal Crafton’s resignation effective Dec. 16, the end of the fall semester. Following his resignation as interim president and provost, Crafton will return to faculty in the spring 2020 semester to teach in the College of Education’s Ed.D. of Higher Education Administration program. Stuart Rayfield, vice chancellor for leadership and institutional development at USG’s system office, will lead UWG as interim president until a new president is announced. A national presidential search is currently under way.
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
UGA professor resigns amid Homeland Security investigation
By Zachary Hansen
A University of Georgia professor has resigned and is under investigation by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, authorities confirmed Thursday. Jamie Monogan, who was a political science professor, resigned this week from the School of Public and International Affairs amid the investigation, UGA spokesman Greg Trevor told AJC.com. “He is not permitted on campus and has been relieved of his duties,” Trevor said, adding that the university would not comment further. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) spokesman Lindsay Williams said the investigation is being conducted by Homeland Security. However, he declined to provide further details on the investigation.
North Fulton Herald
Enrollment at UNG edges toward 20,000
With a record 19,748 students this fall, the University of North Georgia’s enrollment is approaching 20,000 students. This year’s enrollment represents a 0.1 percent increase over fall 2018. Of the total enrollment, 6,560 are new students at all degree levels. …With 7,913 students, the Gainesville Campus had the highest enrollment of UNG’s five campuses for fall 2019. Enrollment on UNG’s other four campuses and online for fall 2019 are: Blue Ridge, 197; Cumming, 1,291; Dahlonega, 7,296; Oconee, 2,504; and online,547. Additionally, UNG’s Corps of Cadets at its Dahlonega Campus has 752 members this fall.
Griffin Daily News
Gordon State examines data for student success
By Katheryne Fields
Gordon State College faculty and staff spent Friday’s Data Day examining and sharing reports, information and ideas to enhance student success.
Albany Herald
ABAC Bainbridge student wins prestigious Coker Award
From staff reports
Kathryn Patterson from Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College Bainbridge received the prestigious William S. Coker Award for Best Graduate Paper at the 37th annual Gulf South History and Humanities Conference held recently in Pensacola, Fla. Patterson is a junior history major from Bainbridge. Dave Nelson, a professor of history at ABAC Bainbridge, said Patterson’s paper topped the work of several graduate and doctoral program students.
Albany Herald
Georgia Southwestern business students present to Jacksonville Jaguars executives
From staff reports
Six students from Georgia Southwestern State University’s College of Business and Computing traveled to Jacksonville, Fla., this week to present human resource management solutions to the Jacksonville Jaguars. Martin Bech of Svendborg, Denmark; Christian Bostick of Camilla; Andrew Carter of Sylvester; Raquel Kenyon of Aguada, Puerto Rico; McKenzie Simmons of McDonough, and Tucker Smith of Leesburg, Fla., met with the Jaguars’ Vice President of People Development and Administration Jessica Jones and Manager of People Development Victoria Croy at TIAA Bank Field in Jacksonville. As part of their Performance Management class, the students were tasked with improving Jaguar employee retention season-to-season.
AllOnGeorgia
By Jessica Szilagyi
Georgia Southern University is touting a successful canned food drive that restocked the shelves of on-campus food banks and dismissed a number of parking citations for those who donated. Earlier this month, students were asked to donate canned and boxed goods in exchange for ‘amnesty’ on the oldest fine on their accounts – specifically parking fines. The university reports that the University Parking and Transportation Services collected more than 6,000 pounds of canned and boxed goods during the two day collection period and dismissed $20,000 in parking citations.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Are changes to college admissions tests helpful to students?
By Maureen Downey
New ACT policy on retaking individual sections carries requirement kids test online
Sometimes, we forget the ACT and SAT are consumer products, competing for market share among college-bound high school students. To that end, makers of both college admissions tests announced changes this year aimed at making them more relevant. The SAT rolled out and then walked back a new score it planned to assign students based on the adversity and inequality they faced in their schools and neighborhoods. Announced in May, the hardship score met with widespread criticism, leading the College Board to drop the idea in August. In the meantime, the ACT unveiled a series of redesigns beginning next fall that it hopes will entice more high school students to its four-part test. Each section — English, math, reading and science — earns a scaled score between 1 and 36 that contributes to a composite score, also scaled to 36. …A growing list of colleges have embraced test-optional admissions, but most selective schools, including Georgia Tech, the University of Georgia and Emory, still require applicants to submit ACT or SAT scores.
Savannah Magazine
by Sara Watson
The New Guard 2019: Savannah’s next generation of innovators, entrepreneurs, artists and all-around changemakers who make our city better through prowess — and the utmost professionalism.
Jeff Bush, President, Parker’s
How did Savannah’s sense of community foster your own career path? I first met Parker’s founder and CEO Greg Parker while I was a student at Georgia Southern’s Armstrong campus. He was a guest speaker in my economics class, and I immediately became intrigued by his company and the convenience store industry as a whole — it’s a complex business that integrates marketing, design, operations, logistics and more into one storefront that also happens to operate 24/7. I asked a lot of questions, and then he asked me to come work for him. The rest is history. At Parker’s we’re also able to attract top-level talent to our organization thanks to being headquartered in Savannah. It’s a wonderful place to work, shop, eat and live.
Daily Citizen News
DDDA, UGA to look at downtown’s economic impact
By Charles Oliver
Downtown Dalton merchants know the downtown area has a big economic impact on the city, but until now there have been no hard numbers, said Downtown Dalton Development Authority (DDDA) Director George Woodward. Woodward said the DDDA has recently asked the University of Georgia’s Carl Vinson Institute of Government to perform an economic impact study of the downtown business district, which basically stretches from Waugh Street to the north to Morris Street to the south and from the railroad tracks to the east to Thornton Avenue to the west. The DDDA promotes trade and development within the district. The Carl Vinson Institute works with elected officials and local agencies to promote better governance.
11alive.com
Georgia Tech students designing wearable robots to help amputees walk
The technology will help amputees have greater mobility.
The Augusta Chronicle
‘Tatooine,’ remote site for defense cyber experts opens in Augusta
Defense Digital Service, a unique unit within the Department of Defense working on highly technical problems, celebrated opening an office Wednesday in Georgia Cyber Center. Brett Goldstein remembers when it became real for him that he was working for the Department of Defense. The computer scientist and product of Silicon Valley was asked to travel to Afghanistan and suddenly found himself in a Black Hawk helicopter among the troops. “When you do that, and you see our active duty service members out there, protecting the U.S., it makes it exceptionally real,” said Goldstein, now the director of Defense Digital Service. “And real in a way that I didn’t understand before doing that, and real in the way, as someone who is in the middle of their career, said I want to do something that is going to serve my country and add value.”
AFCEA
Scientists Capture Lightning Data for Electric Grid Cybersecurity
The Cyber Edge
By George I. Seffers
A new technique uses lightning strikes to detect hacking activity.
Monitoring global lightning strikes could help detect cyber attacks on the U.S. electrical grid, according to Georgia Institute of Technology researchers who have a patent pending to do just that. Lightning strikes roughly 3.5 million times per day on average. Each and every strike creates an electrical path miles tall that emits a very low frequency radio signal. Those signals bounce off the upper atmosphere and can be detected virtually anywhere in the world, explains Morris Cohen, an associate professor in the Georgia Tech School of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
EurekAlert
Dissecting connections between chronic stress, inflammation and depression
Chronic stress can inflame our brain, destroy the connections between our neurons and result in depression, scientists say. Now they are working to better understand how the destructive cycle happens and how best to intervene. Even powerful, prescription anti-inflammatory drugs that should help break the connectivity between chronic stress and inflammation don’t help many patients with depression, says Dr. Anilkumar Pillai, neuroscientist in the Department of Psychiatry and Health Behavior at the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University.
AL
UAB researchers launch $1.5 million hookworm study in Alabama’s Black Belt
By Dennis Pillion
Infectious disease researchers at UAB have secured nearly $1.5 million in funding from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control to look for parasitic hookworm infections in Alabama’s Black Belt region. With the funding, the researchers aim to collect stool samples from 900 children in Wilcox, Lowndes and Perry counties, and screen them for intestinal parasites like hookworm. …The more traditional tests will be conducted at a Georgia Tech laboratory and the newer PCR tests at the CDC in Atlanta. Poole said the project will also give researchers the opportunity to compare the results of the two different testing methods.
Inside Higher Ed
Oren Etzioni analyzes the brain drain of artificial intelligence experts out of academia and suggests some solutions to the problem.
By Oren Etzioni
Universities have long been a source of talented leaders for industry, but an accelerating exodus of professors with expertise in artificial intelligence has caused concerns. A recent Bloomberg op-ed asked, “If industry keeps hiring the cutting-edge scholars, who will train the next generation of innovators in artificial intelligence?” and The New York Times has noted similar issues. This article analyzes the problem and suggests solutions. The brain drain of AI experts out of academia can be explained in simple economic terms. The demand for experts has outpaced supply, leading to sharply increased prices. As a result, industry compensation packages are very generous for top academics. …The challenge to academia comes when professors leave to join companies either en masse, such as when Uber hired 40 people from a Carnegie Mellon robotics lab, or individually, as with prominent AI researchers Daphne Koller, Andrew Moore, Andrew Ng, Fernando Pereira, Sebastian Thrun and others. In the last few years, Facebook has aggressively hired professors, including Yann Lecun from New York University, Jessica Hodgins from Carnegie Mellon University, Jitendra Malik from the University of California, Berkeley, Devi Parikh from Georgia Tech and many others.
BioSpace
Bio-Path Holdings Announces Clearance of Investigational New Drug Application for BP1002
Phase 1 Clinical Trial to Evaluate Ability of BP1002, Targeting Bcl-2 Protein, to Treat Refractory/Relapsed Lymphoma and Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia Patients
Bio-Path Holdings, Inc., (NASDAQ:BPTH), a biotechnology company leveraging its proprietary DNAbilize® antisense RNAi nanoparticle technology to develop a portfolio of targeted nucleic acid cancer drugs, today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has reviewed and cleared the Investigational New Drug (IND) application for BP1002 (liposomal Bcl-2), the Company’s second drug candidate. An initial Phase 1 clinical trial will evaluate the ability of BP1002 to treat refractory/relapsed lymphoma and chronic lymphocytic leukemia patients. BP1002 targets the protein Bcl-2, which is responsible for driving cell survival in up to 60% of all cancers. High expression of Bcl-2 has been correlated with adverse prognosis for patients diagnosed with relapsed, aggressive non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Preclinical studies have shown BP1002 to be a potent inhibitor against the Bcl-2 target, and its benign safety profile should enable BP1002 combination therapy with approved agents. “With this IND submission now accepted by the FDA, the path is now cleared for us to advance our important first-in-human clinical work for BP1002 in cancers with unmet medical need,” said Jorge Cortes, M.D., Director of the Georgia Cancer Center and Chairman of the Bio-Path Scientific Advisory Board.
WRDW
Augusta cross country team receives highest ranking in program history
The Augusta University Men’s Cross Country team reach new heights this week, achieving the programs highest ranking at No. 16 in the nation. The updated list, which came out yesterday, from the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association saw the Jags move up eight spots in the poll after their runner-up performance in the NCAA Division II Southeast Regional meet.
Tifton CEO
Staff Report
More than 100 residents from Tifton and surrounding areas joined the Alzheimer’s Association Walk to End Alzheimer’s in the fight to end Alzheimer’s disease on Saturday, November 16 at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College Campus Track in Tifton. Participants raised more than $69,000 to support the care, support and research programs of the Alzheimer’s Association.
Higher Education News:
Bloomberg
U.S. Colleges Step Up Admissions Spot Checks After Scandal
By Janet Lorin
U.S. colleges are stepping up scrutiny of student applications, as universities deal with the fallout from a scandal that saw parents pay bribes and rig test scores to win places for their children. As the admission season begins, Yale University, Bowdoin College and Pomona College are among those conducting spot checks or verifying some information on applications to find signs of cheating or embellishment, according to school officials. …Admissions officers say that while they want to spot evidence of such wrongdoing in the future, they also want to quash more mundane embellishments.
Inside Higher Ed
U.S. Releases Earnings Data for Thousands of College Programs
The U.S. Department of Education released first-year earnings data for thousands of college programs. Some see a way to judge programs’ value — while others question the data’s value.
By Lilah Burke
The U.S. Department of Education on Wednesday released data on first-year earnings of college graduates, for the first time broken down by program level. The information, collected from federal tax data, is the most comprehensive and likely accurate information on different college programs currently available. Combined with the program-level debt information the department released in May, prospective students, researchers and administrators can now — as some have already done — slice and dice the information to identify what majors are “worth it” (in at least one simplistic way) and which college graduates earn the most. But the data are likely to continue, rather than end, debate over whether vocationally oriented data like earnings and debt are the right way to judge higher education programs.
Inside Higher Ed
Young Americans’ View of Education
By Madeline St. Amour
On-the-job experience is best at preparing people for success, according to young Americans surveyed for the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research Higher Education Study. The center conducted a nationwide poll from August to September, garnering responses from more than 1,300 Americans between the ages of 13 and 29. The survey asked young people about their views of the education system from a variety of angles, including how it prepares them for success, how it handles mental health issues and what role affordability plays. When asked what prepares one well for success, 73 percent of young people agreed that on-the-job experience does. About 60 percent agreed that a bachelor’s degree is good preparation, and 45 percent agreed that a high school diploma is sufficient.
Inside Higher Ed
Survey’s Insights on How International Students Adjust
By Elizabeth Redden
More than three-quarters (77 percent) of international students say domestic students are welcoming, but many struggle with feelings of being discriminated against and have difficulty making American friends, according to a survey of almost 2,000 current international students and recent graduates of U.S. universities from World Education Services, a nonprofit organization that provides credential evaluation services and produces research on the international student experience. Nearly a third (31 percent) of the students surveyed said they have been discriminated against at their institution based on their nationality. Thirty percent said the cultural barriers they face in the U.S. are more challenging than they had anticipated, and 41 percent said they find it hard to form close friendships with domestic students. By contrast, 86 percent of international students said it is easy to form close friendships with students from their home country, and 80 percent of students said the same of other international students from a different country.
Inside Higher Ed
‘Rethinking Diversity Frameworks in Higher Education’
Authors discuss their new book on race relations in higher education.
By Scott Jaschik
At a time when many American universities and colleges are struggling with strained race relations on campus, administrators looking for a new approach to address the problems may consider a new book, Rethinking Diversity Frameworks in Higher Education (Routledge). The authors are Edna B. Chun, chief learning officer for HigherEd Talent, a national diversity and human resources consulting firm, and Joe R. Feagin, a Distinguished Professor at Texas A&M University. They responded via email to questions about their book.