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Kemp says budget will address declining revenue, campaign promises
By Mitch Clarke
Gov. Brian Kemp said Wednesday he’ll present a state budget to the General Assembly that addresses dwindling state revenues while also aiming to keep some of his most-prominent campaign promises. Although he predicted the budget debate would be tougher since there is less money available, Kemp said he believed he and lawmakers would be on the same page. …He also praised programs at the medical colleges at Augusta University and Mercer University that are working to bring more physicians to areas of rural Georgia that are underserved by medical professionals. Kemp said the Augusta University program is streamlining medical education, allowing degrees to be obtained in three years instead of four. Those doctors would then serve three years in residency. If they then serve in rural Georgia for six years, they would essentially have zero tuition costs, Kemp said.
Albany Herald
Gov. Kemp saving 2020 priorities for State of the State speech
By Dave Williams Capitol Beat News Service
Gov. Brian Kemp decided no news is good news Wednesday, breaking from the tradition of governors announcing a new initiative or two at the annual Eggs and Issues breakfast. Instead, the Republican governor will wait until Thursday’s State of the State address to a joint session of the General Assembly to talk about his priorities for the 2020 legislative session. …Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan did make news following Kemp’s speech by announcing the formation of a task force that will look for ways to fulfill Duncan’s pledge to make Georgia the technology innovation capital of the East Coast. The Georgia Innovates Task Force will be co-chaired by former U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., and G.P. “Bud” Peterson, the retired former president of Georgia Tech. It will include a host of business and academic leaders from around the state, among them Paul Bowers, president, chairman and CEO of Georgia Power Co.; Raphael Bostick, president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta; and Barbara Rivera Holmes, president and CEO of the Albany Area Chamber of Commerce and a member of the University System of Georgia Board of Regents.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Ralston won’t set end for legislation session until ‘clearer’ budget picture emerges
By Greg Bluestein
House Speaker David Ralston will not set an end-date for Georgia’s legislative session until lawmakers get a “clearer picture” of sharp budget cuts that are expected to dominate debate under the Gold Dome. The speaker delivered the pointed message Wednesday at the annual Eggs and Issues breakfast, a gathering sponsored by the Georgia Chamber that attracts a crowd of thousands that includes lawmakers, local officials and business executives. He told the audience that the debate over cuts to the budget is “too important to be influenced by a legislative calendar” as lawmakers prepare to hash out Gov. Brian Kemp’s decision to order state agencies to cut spending 4% this fiscal year and 6% next year. …The lieutenant governor also announced a new “Georgia Innovates Task Force” to be co-chaired by retired U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson and Bud Peterson, the former president of Georgia Tech. He said it’s designed to come up with policy proposals to make Georgia “the technology capital of the East Coast.”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Committee approves bill seeking to cut Georgia dual enrollment costs
By Eric Stirgus
A Georgia Senate committee voted Thursday afternoon in favor of a plan aimed at reducing costs for the state’s popular, but increasingly expensive, program that pays for high school students to take college courses. The Higher Education committee voted 7-2 to send House Bill 444 to the entire Senate for approval.
MDJ Online
Georgia considers limits on college course payments
By JEFF AMY Associated Press
Trying to hold down the growing cost of a program that pays for Georgia high school students to take college courses, lawmakers are considering limits on what students can enroll and what courses they can take. Gov. Brian Kemp and a number of lawmakers have been raising concerns about Georgia’s dual enrollment program, and administration allies on Wednesday unveiled an overhauled bill that would limit most students to 30 hours of college credit, what a student would have to take to reach college sophomore status.
Savannah Morning News
Dual enrollment in Georgia targeted for tightening in bill
By Beau Evans/Capitol Beat News Service
Changes to Georgia’s dual enrollment program could be in the offing that would nix free college-level classes for freshman high schoolers.
Costs for the program allowing high-school students to take post-secondary classes have swelled from around $23 million in 2015 to around $140 million projected for the 2021 fiscal year. A revised bill presented to a state Senate committee Wednesday would cap enrollment enough to keep the program within its roughly $100 million budget for this year, Georgia Student Finance Commission President Caylee Noggle said.
Sponsored by state Rep. Bert Reeves, R-Marietta, the bill aims to keep growing enrollment in the program from overwhelming its budget. It has the backing of Gov. Brian Kemp. On Wednesday, Reeves said the program’s taxpayer-funded offerings have evolved beyond their original intent, noting some students can now enroll in exercise classes like Zumba.
Georgia Trend
New BOR Officers: Atlanta businessman Sachin Shailendra is the 2020 chair of the
Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia; James M. Hull, Augusta, is vice
chair. Shailendra, a Georgia Tech graduate, is founder and president of SG Contracting and is
active in civic endeavors. Hull is founder and managing principal of Hull Property Group
and a philanthropist who has endowed the Hull Scholars Program at Augusta University,
Paine College and Vanderbilt University.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
One good deed leads to another: fortuitous encounter leads to several happy endings
By Ty Tagami
Sometimes good deeds boomerang. That’s what happened to Latonya Young and Kevin Esch, a pair of Atlantans whose unusual story of good will struck a chord last month after it was published in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The story circled back to them Wednesday with a big surprise. Young, a single mother who styles hair for a living and drives an Uber on the side, had put off her college dreams. …She felt so indebted and thankful to Esch that she wanted to see him praised. So she contacted the AJC to tell her story; it was published on Dec. 10. …It turns out, that was only the beginning: over the ensuing month, their story traveled around the world, appearing in hundreds of publications and broadcasts, according to GSU. It came full circle Wednesday when Ellen DeGeneres featured the pair, ending her episode with an exclamation point: Esch was awarded a free trip to anywhere on the planet, and Young was given a personal invitation from her idol Drew Brees to watch the Saints play in New Orleans. Oh, and DeGeneres deadpanned the next bit: show sponsor Cheerios was going to give Young $25,000.Esch, clapping and beaming, seemed as happy about that as she was. Young will be putting the money to use: she’s already enrolled in the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies where she plans to earn a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice.
The Augusta Chronicle
Augusta Census effort lacking workers
By Susan Cord
The 2020 Census needs 599 more applicants for jobs to ensure an accurate population count in Richmond County, members of Augusta’s Complete Count committee learned at a first meeting Wednesday. With a goal of 1,869 applicants, the Census has received only 1,270 applications and hired 21 of around 500 needed for jobs as listers and field supervisors, according to a committee handout. The positions pay from $18.50 to $20.50 an hour. …The committee named Augusta University Athletic Director Clint Bryant and South State Bank Executive Vice President Robert Osborne as co-chairs, replacing Mayor Hardie Davis’ Chief of Staff Marcus Campbell, who has overseen the local effort so far. Davis’ office created the committee after Gov. Brian Kemp named him to the state’s complete count committee. Others serving on the committee of around 30, several of whom were selected by Augusta commissioners, included WFXG Meteorologist Jay Jefferies, Augusta University Community Affairs Director Cedric Johnson, attorney Matthew Duncan and retired Augusta firefighter Charlie Coleman.
AFCEA International is hosting the two-day conference to get more people into the career field.
Growing Georgia
Is There an ABAC Doctor, Pharmacist, Dentist, Lawyer, or Veterinarian in the House?
The path to becoming a doctor, dentist, lawyer, veterinarian or pharmacist just took a sharp turn and leads right through the center of Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College. That’s particularly true now that ABAC offers 12 different bachelor’s degrees that prepare graduates for immediate entry into professional schools in medicine, law, pharmacy, veterinary medicine, dentistry and others. “Our faculty are committed to helping our students while they’re enrolled at ABAC and beyond,” Dr. Matthew Anderson, Dean of the ABAC School of Arts and Sciences, said. “We work very hard at preparing our graduates for life after ABAC.”
WGAU
UNG students to help with tax filing
By: Tim Bryant
Accounting students at the University of North Georgia will help with tax filing as part of the IRS’s Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program. They’ll begin on February 4 and work through March on the UNG campus in Dahlonega.
GPB News
How Artificial Intelligence Reflects Human Biases — And How It Can Improve
By Emilia Brock & Virginia Prescott
Whether you’re searching something on Google, assessing a mortgage rate, or applying for a job, much of our lives today is informed by artificial intelligence. Or, the less scary term: intelligent algorithms. While AI helps systems operate quickly, it’s not perfect. Like humans, these technologies are only as good as the information they get. Dr. Ayanna Howard is chair of the School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Tech. She joined On Second Thought to talk about how technology often reflects our own biases, the dangers of employing and blindly believing imperfect AI systems, and how these algorithmic biases can be improved.
Inverse
This CRISPR tool costs $10,000. Researchers made a version that costs 23 cents
The ElectroPen could revolutionize a high school classroom near you.
In microbiology, an electroporator is a tool that allows scientists to apply electricity to a cell to temporarily breach its cell wall so you can introduce chemicals, drugs or DNA to the cell. These tools are extremely useful in the lab, but they’re also very expensive. They cost anywhere from roughly $3,000 to $10,000. Researchers at Georgia Tech just revealed they’ve found a way to create an electroporator that costs next to nothing to make. Their research was just published in the journal PLOS Biology.
WGAU
Grant projects highlight research at UGA
By: Krista Richmond
What can computer science tell researchers about the transmission of tuberculosis? The comprehensive data collected about TB transmission and infection can be aggregated and analyzed to help predict how the lung disease will spread. That’s just one of the projects researchers are taking on thanks to funding from a second round of Presidential Interdisciplinary Seed Grants. “I am pleased to provide this additional opportunity for UGA faculty to learn from one another and inspire new ways to approach complex problems,” said President Jere W. Morehead. “The Presidential Interdisciplinary Seed Grants program is proving to be an effective means to strengthen our university’s research enterprise and greatly expand our faculty’s impact.”
WFXG
Local surgeon is lobbying for state employee health benefits
The state of Georgia is the single largest employer with 71,000 employees. Right now, lawmakers are reviewing and voting on a bill that will add to those employee’s health benefits. Next week, Augusta University Health’s Dr. Renee Hilton will travel to the state capitol to lobby before the Senate Health Committee in favor of the bill. Dr. Hilton is the director of Bariatric Surgery. She is also the State Access to Care representative for The American Society of Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery, or ASMBS, here in Georgia. The bill she is fighting for, House Bill 160, will add bariatric surgery as a health benefit for state employees as a pilot program for four years. The pilot program would allow up to 1,000 patients, 250 per year, to have the surgery.
WJBF
Too many patients, barely enough beds: How hospitals are handling the flu overload
by: Devin Johnson
Doctors say this year’s flu season is only going to get worse. Hospitals in The Garden City are experiencing overcrowding. “All of the hospitals have been in emergency medical diversion at some point,” said Augusta University Medical Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Philip Coule. “Meaning, they are saying we can’t handle any ambulances right now because we’re too full.” Influenza B got here early, and the virus joined the regular flu season. Then you have other viruses circulating. It’s a combination that’s causing a lot of folks to get sick.
WFXG
Medical College of Georgia cancer researchers making breakthroughs in breast cancer
A phD student and cancer biologist right here in Augusta are making breakthroughs in breast cancer research. Over the course of two years, they found a reason why successfully removing a tumor links with less patients seeing the disease spread. The research shows that when surgeons remove the entire tumor and any extra effected cells surrounding the tumor, the body’s immune system is able to completely focus on areas of the body that the tumor was trying to spread to. On the flip side, if a surgeon misses any tissue that needs to go, those cells come back with a vengeance, often times growing larger and more aggressive with the ability to turn the body’s immune system against itself.
WGAU
UGA uses Christmas trees to create new Herrick habitat
By: Kristen Morales
Using the reds and oranges on his digital map as a guide, graduate student Wesley Gerrin guided the small motorboat over the drop spot. Within seconds, the two other lab assistants in the boat were up and heaving wood and concrete over the side. There was a spray of needles and a whiff of pine, and the tree was gone. The crew out on the University of Georgia’s Lake Herrick weren’t engaged in some sort of contraband operation, though—they were actually helping to improve the fish habitat in the man-made lake. By dropping discarded Christmas trees in key portions of the lake, their branches become places of refuge for fish and, over time, help improve the quality of the lake bottom. The tree-drop event is the brainchild of undergraduate Jordan Horvieth, a fisheries student who also works part-time for Athens-Clarke County’s Stormwater Management division and as a lab assistant at the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources.
Fox News
Army Research Lab engineers tough new batteries that won’t explode under fire
By Kris Osborn | Warrior Maven
…Simple desert heat, incoming enemy fire or hot flames emerging from an IED explosion or weapons attack could cause Lithium-ion batteries to malfunction, burst into flames…or even explode. For this reason, the Army Research Office and Georgia Tech are now experimenting with new materials with which to power batteries, which can both hold more Lithium and also vastly increase safety for soldiers at war. This is because new materials, such as polymer substances now being experimented with by the ARL, can not only increase battery density for power longevity but also reduce the possibilities that battery components, such as its electrolytes, will vaporize and explode in flames.
Patch
NASA’s ‘Alien Life’ Discussions Scheduled At Palm Desert UCR
The discussion topics are part of a four-part lecture series at UC Riverside’s Palm Desert campus.
By City News Service, News Partner
The search for alien life will be among the discussion topics of a four-part lecture series at UC Riverside’s Palm Desert campus featuring speakers from NASA and UCR’s Alternative Earths Astrobiology Center, it was announced Monday. The series will kick off Jan. 21 with Edward Schwieterman, a postdoctoral fellow at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He will describe research that is narrowing down where environments suitable for life that is more complex than microorganisms may be able to exist beyond our own solar system.
Metro Atlanta CEO
Georgia Tech Collaborates with Keiretsu Forum to Advance Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Staff Report
Keiretsu Forum South-East has entered into a resource collaboration with the Georgia Institute of Technology. The objective of this collaboration is to further innovation, entrepreneurship and technology transfer in the South-East region. This educational relationship provides entrepreneurial-minded faculty and students of Georgia Tech with exposure to well-prepared and experienced executives in a role-model context.
Control Engineering
University to collaborate on developing software stacks for quantum computers
The Georgia Institute of Technology announced its agreement to join the IBM Q Hub at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) to help advance quantum computing research.
By John Toon
The Georgia Institute of Technology announced its agreement to join the IBM Q Hub at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) to help advance the fundamental research and use of quantum computing in building software infrastructure and developing specialized error mitigation techniques. Georgia Tech will have cloud access, via the Oak Ridge Hub, to the world’s largest fleet of universal quantum computing systems for commercial use case exploration and fundamental research.
WJBF
Middle and high school students participate in cyber Capture The Flag
Middle and highschool students in Richmond and Columbia County are paving the way for cyber in the state. Today those students put their fingers to the keyboard at the Georgia Cyber Center to capture the flag. Eighth grader, Leland Green, says, “in the middle school division, we are ranked first in the state of Georgia and eighth nationally right now.” Madison Sprouse is also in eighth grade. “This is our first like all girls team that is actually in third place in Georgia right now,” says Sprouse. They are amongst 165 students who, for the first time ever, are turning their faces to the screen, fingers to the keyboard, and coding their way through capture the flag. Directory of Cyber Operations for Parsons, Thomas Barnes, says, “the fun part is just seeing their passion because you know they haven’t really learned to temper it yet, you can tell that they love doing what they’re doing.”
WGAU
UGA economic forecasters are on Jekyll Island
By: Tim Bryant
Economists from the University of Georgia’s Terry College of Business are on Jekyll Island today: they are delivering their economic forecast for coastal Georgia in a noon-hour luncheon at the Jekyll Island Convention Center.
The Lafayette Sun
Secret Service Agent Grew Up in LaFayette
By Jody Stewart
Secret Service Agent Orentha Holloway will be the guest speaker for the Mount Pisgah MLK Breakfast. …William and Minnie Holloway raised their family in LaFayette. They had two sons’ which attended LaFayette High School. Orentha fondly known as “OJ” knew at a young age he wanted to follow his father’s footsteps in law enforcement, but Holloway said it was his mom’s encouragement to dream big and believe in himself that set the tone for his life. …He attended Columbus State University where he obtained a Master’s Degree in Public Administration.
The Chronicle of Higher Education
This Public College Wants to Punish 2 Students for Hate Speech. Is That Legal?
By Bennett Leckrone
The University of Connecticut violated two students’ free-speech rights by attempting to expel them from college housing for allegedly using a racial slur, a new lawsuit says, raising the question of whether a university has the authority to punish offensive speech on its campus. The students, Ryan Mucaj and Jarred Karal, both seniors, were arrested in October 2019 after the campus police tracked them down following the online posting of a video that allegedly shows the pair shouting a racial slur in a parking lot. They were charged with ridicule on account of creed, religion, color, denomination, nationality, or race, according to the Hartford Courant. …The suit comes amid growing debates over free speech on college campuses and as public universities have struggled to balance the traditional academic value of tolerance with the First Amendment rights of students, faculty members, and protesters. …Steinbaugh cited Georgia Southern University’s response to book-burning on the campus as an example for other institutions to follow in reacting to problematic campus speech.
Columbus Ledger-Enquirer
Whistleblower lawsuit accuses Columbus State, USG of discrimination and retaliation
By Mark Rice
A former Columbus State University employee has filed a federal lawsuit accusing CSU of racial discrimination and retaliation. Wayne W. Van Ellis, who was CSU’s registrar from September 2015 until March 2018, also sued the University System of Georgia in the case pending in the Columbus division of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Georgia.
Higher Education News:
The Washington Post
By Susan Svrluga
When Erika Hagberg started college at Washington and Lee University, she thought she might want to be a doctor but quickly discarded that idea. She took journalism classes, business classes, music theory, history, calculus, economics, art history. “I had no idea what the hell I wanted to do with my life,” she said. Twenty-some years later, now director of global sales for Google, Hagberg credits her wide-ranging liberal arts education with preparing her for a demanding business career. A study from Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce finds that over the course of a career, a liberal arts education is remarkably practical, providing a median return on investment 40 years after enrollment that approaches $1 million. The results, searchable and sortable by institution, were released Tuesday.
Inside Higher Ed
Many Nonprofit College Programs Would Fail Gainful Test
Data in a new online tool raise questions about how well public and nonprofit colleges and universities are doing in helping students earn enough to repay their debt.
By Kery Murakami
Only about 60 percent of programs at private nonprofit institutions, and 70 percent of those at public colleges and universities, would pass the Obama administration’s gainful-employment test, if it were in place and applied to them, according to an online tool developed by a conservative Texas policy group. Coming amid a stalemate over how to proceed with college accountability after Education Secretary Betsy DeVos repealed the gainful-employment rule in July, the tool made public by the Texas Public Policy Foundation was aimed in part to further the idea that public and nonprofit institutions — and not just for-profit colleges — should face scrutiny for how well graduates do financially.