University System News:
Athens CEO
UGA Ranked Among Top Universities Fighting COVID-19
By Greg Trevor
The University of Georgia has been ranked among a list of top 10 schools working to solve the coronavirus pandemic by Successful Student. UGA was recognized specifically for research on the development of new vaccines designed to protect against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Other universities in the top 10 include Harvard University, the University of Oxford and Johns Hopkins University. Successful Student published their rankings online. Scientists in laboratories across the university began work on new vaccines and therapeutics from the moment COVID-19 emerged as a global threat.
WSAV
Local universities prepare for start of classes
By Kelly Antonacci
Thousands of college students — including those who attend Georgia Southern and Savannah State universities — start classes next week. After months of planning, both campuses have made significant changes. At GSU, it starts with the move-in process. Vice President for University Communication and Marketing John Lester says students have been moving in stages. Usually, everyone moves in on one day. “Things will look a little different,” he said. “We went through and analyzed every single class to figure out how we can meet social distancing guidelines.” GSU has an online tool called the Cares Center. It helps students, staff and faculty members with anything related to COVID-19.
AccessWDUN
Local universities, colleges make final preparations for fall semester
By Lauren Hunter
As the fall semester begins, local universities and colleges have outlined plans for the return of students during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Brenau University, the University of North Georgia and Lanier Technical College have each announced their intentions to begin classes in August with a combination of virtual and face-to-face instruction. Each institution has also altered its academic calendar to allow for as many instructional days as possible. Brenau will begin classes on Monday, August 24 and the last day of classes will take place Wednesday, November 25. Final exams will be administered in a mixture of virtual and in-person formats. The university will also hold class on Labor Day and not take the usual fall break scheduled for October. The University of North Georgia will begin fall classes on today and end the semester on Tuesday, November 24. All final exams will be administered online.
Georgia Recorder
College football financial losses in Georgia could be staggering
By Ross Williams
Gov. Brian Kemp, while refusing to require face masks in Georgia’s public areas, for months instead dangled the incentive of preserving a 2020 college football season as reason enough for anti-mask sports fans to cover their faces anyway. “If people, especially our young people, don’t start wearing a mask when they’re going out in public – and our numbers keep rising – that’s going to be a tall task,” Kemp said, referring to college football at the start of a statewide tour to promote masks last month. The University of Georgia graduate often sprinkles his remarks with references to Bulldogs football. The scheduled start of the season is fast approaching, and the warnings that the season is at risk are flashing red. Tuesday marked the first triple-digit death toll in the state when 135 COVID-19 deaths were reported, and then state health officials counted 109 more on Wednesday. Georgia surpassed Florida last week as the highest-risk state with 32 cases per 100,000 people, according to NPR.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Several students test positive for COVID after Ga. university reopens
By Tamar Hallerman
Several students from Milledgeville’s Georgia College tested positive for COVID-19 during the first days of classes, according to the university. The school was among the first of Georgia’s 26 public colleges and universities to resume in-person instruction, which began Wednesday. Nine students were reported as testing positive between Wednesday and Friday, the 7,000-student liberal arts college reported on its website. Another nine students were reported as positive from Aug. 7 through the day before classes resumed.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
OPINION: Allow Georgia professors to offer their students virtual option
By Maureen Downey
In a guest column today, Matthew Boedy, an assistant professor of rhetoric and composition at the University of North Georgia, puzzles over why the University System of Georgia is telling professors they can’t offer their students an option to take an on-site course online — even if students want to do so. Boedy is conference president of the Georgia chapter of the American Association of University Professors, a national organization that represents the interests of college and university faculty members… What then is driving the USG to spend so much time making sure face-to-face classes happen, even if students don’t want it? There may be other reasons, but my colleague at another school who has access to such discussions said he suspects it is money. The USG is concerned or has heard concerns from parents who complain their child’s student activity fees – dollars that go to student government, athletic events, and use of gyms and other campus amenities – are being wasted.
SavannahNow
Impending doom ahead for college sports
By Adam Van Brimmer
College sports is about to be rendered unrecognizable by a giant, spike-covered meteor. The COVID-19 pandemic is an extinction-level event for one of America’s favorite diversions. Long teetering, college athletics business model will collapse like a choking team in the closing minutes of a close game. Structurally, college sports have become flimsy, even as revenues have grown astronomically. Schools have built multi-million dollar enterprises on free labor, profiting off teenagers and 20-somethings who toil in shoulder pads and high-top sneakers.
The New York Times
A College’s ‘Free Speech Areas’ Face Supreme Court Review
By Adam Liptak
A few years ago, a college student in Georgia stood on a stool outside a campus food court to talk about his Christian faith. He spoke for 20 minutes about human frailty and the possibility of salvation when school officials told him he had to stop or face discipline. This fall, the Supreme Court will hear arguments on whether the student, Chike Uzuegbunam, can sue the officials for violating his First Amendment rights when they enforced a particularly severe version of the school speech codes that have become commonplace at colleges and universities around the nation. Mr. Uzuegbunam had tried to comply with the rules at his school, Georgia Gwinnett College, a public institution in Lawrenceville, Ga., that sprawls over 260 acres. The college had designated two small patches of concrete as “free speech expression areas.”… The question for the Supreme Court is whether there is anything left to decide when the government changes its policies after being sued. The answer depends on what plaintiffs had sought in their lawsuits. If all they asked for was that a policy be overturned, there may well be nothing left for a court to do. If the plaintiffs asked for money to compensate them for injuries, their cases would typically proceed.
Tifton CEO
New ABAC Puzzle Available for Purchase
Staff Reports
A brand new 432-piece full color puzzle featuring the Chapel of All Faiths at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College is now available for purchase from the ABAC Alumni Association. Josie Smith, Advancement Coordinator, said the 18 by 24 inch limited edition puzzle can be purchased for a price of $30 at www.abac.edu/alumni. Local buyers can pick up their puzzles at the ABAC Alumni House or the puzzle can be shipped at an additional cost of $15. “We were brainstorming ways to keep folks engaged during the pandemic, and we came up with a series of ‘ABAC sELECTion polls,’” Smith said. “Since we are in an election year, we thought it would be fun to involve our alumni and friends in several polls and choosing the picture for the puzzle was the first of those.
Inside Higher Ed
O-Rings, Groupthink and Campus Reopenings
By Janet Murray
On Jan. 28, 1986, the NASA Challenger blew up on launching. Like many Americans, I was devastated to see technology fail us so painfully and spectacularly. I followed the investigations of the disaster very closely, which showed that the original sin that led to the explosion was not the infamous O-rings, which could not withstand the cold launch temperatures. Rather, it was the political decision to build a booster rocket in two pieces, requiring O-rings, so it could be transported from Utah, the home of the politically connected manufacturer who was awarded the contract, to Florida, where the launch took place…What all the operational planning cannot address, however, is the relentless surge in the epidemic in our area, brought on by a catastrophic failure of leadership at the national and state level. Common sense would dictate that we open remotely and bring at most a small subset of students to campus — those who need specific lab courses, perhaps, and those whose home environment does not support learning. With a very small number of students and massive testing, and with most classes delivered remotely, it is just possible that the risks could be lowered to a reasonable level. But the policy of Georgia Tech is not determined by common sense. It is determined by the University System of Georgia (USG), which is controlled by the Board of Regents, which is controlled by the governor of Georgia, well-known across America as the guy who opened tattoo and massage parlors as essential businesses back in May.
Fox News
Georgia college kids prepare for coronavirus semester with wild party
By Staff Reports
Students at the University of North Georgia decided the best way to start the first semester of the coronavirus pandemic was to throw a wild party. The rager was held at a privately owned, off-campus apartment complex near the campus in Dahlonega. “We are aware that a large outdoor party was held at a privately-owned, off-campus apartment complex located near our Dahlonega campus Saturday night,” UNG spokeswoman Sylvia Carson wrote in statement. “We are disappointed that many of our students chose to ignore COVID-19 public health guidance by congregating in a large group without social distancing or face coverings,” continued Carson.
The story also appeared on Fox 5 Atlanta and in The Gainesville Times.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
OPINION: As colleges reopen, will students take risks to heart?
By Maureen Downey
Viral video of University of North Georgia students at packed party this weekend raises concerns
Rick Diguette is a writer and part-time college English instructor, In this piece, he talks about his return to the classroom next week at Georgia State’s Dunwoody campus. Diguette wonders if students understand the risks of COVID-19, a question many Georgians are asking after watching a viral video of University of North Georgia students at a crowded party at an apartment complex in Dahlonega Saturday night. Students were not wearing masks or social distancing at the large outdoor event. The party was not on campus property, but at a nearby complex where many students live. UNG has expressed disappointment in the students’ behaviors. As with all public colleges in Georgia, UNG requires face masks on campus.
Other News:
The Atlanta Journal Constitution
Return of in-person classes offers lessons, warnings as others reopen
By Ty Tagami and Maureen Downey
When Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp said the reopening of schools had gone “real well other than a couple of virtual photos,” he was referring to widely distributed pictures of students crowded together without masks, in some of the state’s earliest-opening schools. Despite Kemp’s sanguine assessment last Monday, some of those schools in Cherokee and Paulding counties had to close just days after opening due to outbreaks of COVID-19, portending possible trouble ahead as many of the state’s 1.8 million students return to classrooms. Georgia has become national news and other states that open later in the fall are watching with interest. Another round of districts begins the school year Monday — including Cobb, DeKalb and Fulton in metro Atlanta, among the state’s largest. Most are starting online, but hope to move back into classrooms at some point, as parents rally for in-person schooling. Based on the early experiences of Paulding and Cherokee counties, experts say changes will have to be made.
The Albany Herald
Governor extends executive order guidelines
By Staff
Gov. Brian P. Kemp issued Executive Order 08.15.20.01 Saturday along with the following statement: “In late July, I asked Georgians to do ‘Four Things for Four Weeks’ to stop COVID-19. Without a mandate, our citizens answered the call, and we are making progress. In Georgia, our statewide case numbers have dropped 22% over the last two weeks, and daily hospitalizations have decreased by 7% in the last seven days. We are on average testing over 31,000 Georgians daily at 180 SPOCs while maintaining a low rate of transmission. The positivity rate is on the decline, and the mortality rate continues to fall…”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Some Georgia cities race to adopt mask mandates after Kemp’s about-face
By Greg Bluestein and Jeremy Redmon
Almost as soon as Gov. Brian Kemp let it be known he would reverse course and allow local governments to impose mask mandates, Sandy Springs Mayor Rusty Paul announced the Atlanta suburb would draft an order to comply with the new guidance. It won’t be the only one. In the aftermath of Kemp’s about-face, other cities and counties that were previously reluctant to defy the governor’s ban on mask requirements are now racing to enact them… Kemp’s decision allowed the roughly 15 Georgia cities and counties with broad mask mandates to keep them on the books – and cleared the way for more to join their ranks. (Separately, about 100 cities also require masks on government property, which are also permitted by Kemp’s order.)
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Staff Reports
LATEST GEORGIA FIGURES (updated Aug. 16, 3 p.m.): Deaths: 4,702 | Confirmed cases: 237,030 | More detail here. The AJC is covering the coronavirus outbreak with a focus on what it means to Atlanta and Georgia. Follow AJC for news updates, health information and helpful resources.
Higher Education News:
Inside Higher Ed
COVID-19: Boom or Bust for For-Profits?
By Lindsay McKenzie
A mixed picture is emerging of how for-profit colleges and the publicly traded companies that manage them have so far been impacted by the pandemic. Past economic downturns significantly boosted enrollment at for-profit colleges, but if a countercyclical enrollment explosion is on the way, it hasn’t materialized across the board yet. Several for-profit colleges reported modest year-over-year enrollment increases in the second quarters of their fiscal years, which generally ran between March and June. The companies that own them boosted profitability, sometimes through careful cost management. That’s important, because previously released data showed no sign of enrollment growth across all institutions in the spring of 2020.
Chronicle of Higher Education
How Racists are Universities, Really?
By Randall Kennedy
It is no surprise that universities have become targets of the activism erupting in the wake of the killing of George Floyd. University police forces have been implicated in racist malfeasance. Universities oversee labor forces which reflect the class and racial divisions partitioning society at large. Universities are the site of cultural battles over iconography (Calhoun College at Yale, the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton, Washington and Lee), and the propriety of taking race into account in admissions. At a time when racial reckonings have visited the NFL and Nascar, The New York Times and Vogue, Minneapolis and Mississippi, it was inevitable that they would visit campuses, too.
Chronicle of Higher Education
Colleges Had 3 Months to Overhaul Sexual-Misconduct Policies. Now They’re Scrambling.
By Sarah Brown
At any other moment, it would be major news: The sweeping new regulations governing campus sexual misconduct take effect on Friday. But as Covid-19 scuttles campus plans and decimates budgets, colleges are grappling with more existential questions — like, will they survive this academic year? Needless to say, administrators’ attention was elsewhere this summer. That means, on many campuses, they’re scrambling to rewrite policies, make new hires, and train existing staff and faculty members on the rules interpreting Title IX, the gender-equity law. In some cases, the regulations require a complete overhaul of the way colleges investigate sexual assault and punish offenders. “My impression is, everybody’s trying to write the paper and get it in on time,” said Alison Kiss Dougherty, associate vice president of human resources and Title IX coordinator at Widener University.