University System News:
Atlanta Business Chronicle
By Grace Donnelly
The presidents of Georgia’s top research universities gathered virtually on July 28 to discuss health and safety, diversity and inclusion and the future of higher education.
As schools around the country plan for how best to educate students this fall amid the ongoing global Covid-19 pandemic, the presidents of Georgia’s top research universities gathered virtually on July 28 to discuss health and safety, diversity and inclusion and the future of higher education with Atlanta Business Chronicle Publisher David Rubinger. The complete audio of the panel discussion is available above. Below is an edited synopsis of the discussion.
The Macon Telegraph
Middle Georgia colleges prepare for fall semester amid the coronavirus pandemic
By Jenna Eason and Jason Vorhees
As the fall semester gets closer, Middle Georgia colleges and universities are navigating how to hold in-person classes amid the coronavirus pandemic. Middle Georgia, especially Macon, has recently seen an increase in the number of new coronavirus cases per day with a 7-day average of 76.1 new cases, according to the most up-to-date information from the Georgia Department of Public Health. Wesleyan College has moved its classes to larger classrooms in order to ensure social distancing as well as cut the amount of time students are in classrooms. Central Georgia Technical College is following protocols designed for the Technical College System of Georgia, and Middle Georgia State University is providing faculty, staff and students with four washable masks to wear on campus. Georgia College will return to in-person classes in the fall, and has amended its school calendar and final exam schedule.
WGAU
UGA-Augusta medical partnership sees student enrollment increase
The Augusta University/University of Georgia Medical Partnership in Athens is helping to address Georgia’s critical shortage of physicians by expanding its class size. The expansion, which will grow the class size of 40 students in the Medical Partnership to 50 students per class this fall and 60 in 2021 and each subsequent year, will bring the total enrollment in Athens to 240 medical students by 2024. “I would like to express my sincere appreciation to Gov. Brian Kemp, the Georgia General Assembly, and the University System of Georgia Board of Regents for their leadership in advancing this project,” said UGA President Jere W. Morehead. “Their longstanding support of the Medical Partnership expansion will help increase the state’s physician workforce and ensure that Georgia is adequately prepared to address public health crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic.”
WFXG
AU Health to implement emergency staffing plan for COVID-19 pandemic
By Jasmine Anderson
Augusta University Health is enacting a COVID-19 emergency staffing plan to support the rising number of Coronavirus patients. “It’s a little bit out of control in our community right now. We really need to bend the curve by everybody being a little more cautious,” said Augusta University Health Vice President and Chief Medical Officer Dr. Phillip Coule. The health system’s administration alerted all personnel in a memo, saying some staff may be reassigned from ambulatory, outpatient and procedural areas to provide care in the inpatient setting starting Saturday, August 1. “As you know, these COVID patients can get quite sick and they have really long ICU stays, compared to some other conditions. And that’s why it requires a lot of staff with a lot of special qualifications to take care of that,” Dr. Coule explained.
Times-Herald
UWG recognized as ‘College of Distinction’
For the fourth consecutive year, the University of West Georgia has been honored by the Colleges of Distinction, an organization that recognizes institutions committed to individualized and engaging education. UWG’s College of Education, Richards College of Business and Tanner Health System School of Nursing have all been honored for the 2020-2021 academic year. UWG also was recognized for its work in career development, military support, and equity and inclusion.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Student critically injured in fall from loft bed earns GA Tech degree
By Alexis Stevens
It took Clark Jacobs seven years to earn his mechanical engineering degree from Georgia Tech. But he had a pretty good excuse for the delay. “I took the stroke detour,” Jacobs joked recently. Jacobs, 25, is lucky to be alive. And his journey to his college diploma is one he and his family wouldn’t wish on anyone. In January 2015, the then 20-year-old Jacobs fell 7 feet from his loft bed in his fraternity house to the linoleum floor and fractured his skull. He also suffered a stroke and underwent two emergency surgeries before spending months at Atlanta’s Shepherd Center. Jacobs would have to relearn how to do everything, including how to walk, talk and eat. The recovery from his traumatic brain injury was exhausting. …In August 2016, he returned to his fraternity house, but with his bed on the ground.
The Red & Black
Q&A: Athens critical care doctor talks how UGA students can help fight COVID-19
Spencer Donovan | Staff Writer
The University of Georgia plans to bring students back to campus for the fall semester as COVID-19 cases rise across Athens-Clarke County and Georgia. Although younger people with no underlying medical conditions have less risk for severe complications from COVID-19, they can still become severely ill and even die. Their decisions could have consequences for the entire population of UGA and Athens, said Dr. Drew McKown. Relatively healthy students could pass the virus to people in the UGA community considered at an increased risk for severe illness from COVID-19 as defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This includes older people and people with certain medical conditions. …The Red & Black spoke with McKown, a pulmonary critical care physician at Piedmont Athens Regional Medical Center and St. Mary’s Hospital and co-ICU director at Piedmont Athens Regional, about how UGA students can help prevent the spread of COVID-19 to people at higher risk of severe illness from the disease.
WGAU
Campus notes include summer finals at UGA, summer enrollment record at UNG
New school year begins in Jefferson
By Tim Bryant
The University of Georgia’s summer semester final exams continue today, with students taking their tests the same way they took those summer classes, exclusively on-line. Plans for in-classroom instruction continue at UGA, with fall semester set to begin on August 24. The University of North Georgia says, despite the coronavirus closure of its campuses, it has set a record for summer semester enrollment, up 10 percent from last year at UNG.
The Tifton Gazette
ABAC opens Fine Arts Building, Carlton Center this fall semester
From gigantic rooms for the concert band and concert choir to cozy individual practice areas, the new fine arts building at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College is guaranteed to be a certified smash hit when ABAC students return for the fall semester on Aug. 12. Just as impressive is the newly renovated Carlton Center in the heart of the campus, which has undergone a two-year rehabilitation process that changed the overall look of the building as an integral part of the $21.4 million combined project. ABAC plans to return to in-person instruction for the fall term after teaching classes online for the final weeks of the spring semester and the entire summer term. “We have needed a Fine Arts building on this campus for a long time,” ABAC President David Bridges said. “Our music program is second to none, and those students deserve a first-rate facility.”
WRDW
Which will protect you better — a mask or a face shield?
By Tradesha Woodard
As cases of COVID 19 continue to increase, many people are finding different ways to keep their faces covered. Many are asking which is more effective: face shields or masks. “I don’t recommend face shields for anyone,” said Dr. Rodger MacArthur is a professor of medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases and the Office of Academic Affairs at the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University. He says the best way to keep yourself protected from the coronavirus is to wear a mask. …He says a face shield may be more comfortable to wear, but it doesn’t fit over the cheeks, over the nose and mouth, and elsewhere like a mask.
The Augusta Chronicle
Masks prevent face touching, potential transmission of COVID-19, study finds
By Tom Corwin
Wearing a mask also has an important side benefit in preventing face touching, study finds. Augusta doctors say it is another reason to wear them. Wearing a mask has an important side benefit: it keeps you from touching your face and potentially infecting yourself with the virus that causes COVID-19, a new study found. That is just another reason to do it, Augusta doctors said. In a study published Wednesday in the journal JAMA Network Open, researchers studied videos of people in public places in different countries prior to and during the current pandemic in February and March and looked for how many wore a mask and how many touched their faces. While few people wore them before the pandemic, mask-wearing became quite common in Asian countries, particularly those who mandated them in public, such as China and, for government employees, South Korea.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
1 Tech athlete tested positive for COVID-19 in past two weeks
By Ken Sugiura
Georgia Tech has had one athlete training on campus test positive for COVID-19 in the past two weeks, the institute confirmed to the AJC on Thursday. It is a notable drop in positive cases for the athletic department. There were six positive tests – three athletes, three athletic-department staff – from the time that voluntary on-campus workouts began at Tech on June 15-July 2. Four more athletes tested positive from July 2-10. Since then, there was the one positive test through Thursday, out of about 46 tests, according to institute spokesman Blair Meeks.
Times-Georgian
Faculty air concerns about UWG budget moves
By Stephanie Allen
Faulty concerns regarding budget cuts and other matters at the University of West Georgia were aired Thursday in the last of three Faculty Senate forums. A panel of university officials made up of President Dr. Brenden Kelly, Interim Provost David Jenks, and two deans, Pauline Gagnon and Meg Pearson, answered questions from faculty about UWG’s Fiscal Year 2021 budget.
Savannah CEO
Georgia Southern Grant Awards for Faculty on the Rise
Staff Report
Georgia Southern University saw a significant increase in grant and contract funding awarded to its faculty for research in the 2020 fiscal year. Georgia Southern faculty and staff received 144 awards totaling $10.7 million, which represents nearly a 67% increase over the previous year. The University received $6.4 million in FY2019 and $5.6 million in FY2018. This year marks the first time that faculty-led research at Georgia Southern broke the $10 million threshold. Vice Provost for Research Christopher Curtis, Ph.D., praised the faculty for their achievements.
Yahoo Finance
Clayton State University history professor shortlisted for national book award
Clayton State University history professor Dr. Jelani Favors has been shortlisted for the MAAH Stone Book Award presented by the Museum of African American History. Favors joins eight other authors in being recognized for exceptional non-fiction works that encourage scholarship writing within the field of African American history and culture. Favors penned the book Shelter in a Time of Storm: How Black Colleges Fostered Generations of Leadership and Activism about the impact student activism at historically black colleges and universities made on the fight for Black rights.
Albany Herald
Georgia film industry lands magazine recognition despite coronavirus pandemic
By Dave Williams
Bureau Chief
Capitol Beat News Service
Georgia’s film industry remains among the world’s leaders despite the coronavirus pandemic’s impact on film and TV productions. Business Facilities Magazine has named Georgia No. 1 in its new Film Production Leaders category in its annual 2020 Rankings Report, Gov. Brian Kemp announced Thursday. The magazine’s recognition of the Peach States comes soon after news that Georgia-lensed productions have received nearly 50 Emmy Award nominations.
Technology
$23M NSF grant accelerates glycomaterials research
Glycomaterials are produced by every living organism. They contain chains of sugars, called glycans, that have critical roles in health and disease. Of the four building blocks of life — glycans, proteins, lipids and nucleic acids — glycans are the most complex and most challenging to understand. The toolset for understanding these glycans, so crucial to life itself, lags far behind those available for understanding DNA, RNA and proteins. To accelerate glycomaterials research in the U.S., the National Science Foundation (NSF) has committed $23 million to a new multi-university partnership that will bring together leading scientists and engineers from the University of Georgia, Virginia Tech, Brandeis University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to establish an NSF Materials Innovation Platform called GlycoMIP focused on “Automating the Synthesis of Rationally Designed Glycomaterials.”
Marketplace
Robots are getting personal during the pandemic
COVID-19 is limiting human contact, but bots are stepping in to fill the void by cleaning, making deliveries, even providing companionship.
This week on “Marketplace Tech,” we’re reporting on the innovations that will help us transition to a post-pandemic future. One of those innovations has been waiting in the wings for a long time: robots. Robots can do jobs that are too dangerous for humans or just make life a little easier and offer some companionship during quarantine. I spoke with Ayanna Howard, a roboticist and professor at Georgia Tech. She said the pandemic has been a boost for robotics of all types. The following is an edited transcript of our conversation.
Other News:
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Georgia’s official plan for 2020 COVID-19 testing: get tests
By Willoughby Mariano, Ariel Hart
As cases and deaths soar, Georgia’s testing plan filed this month offers little new
The Trump administration in mid-May dangled billions of dollars in new funding to states to expand COVID-19 testing, then left it to the states to figure out the details. To meet the federal goal of testing at least 2% of their population monthly, Massachusetts said it is using research institutions to get easier and faster COVID-19 tests, according to plans it submitted to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Connecticut said it developed a dashboard with daily updates on available testing capacity by each lab, as it prepares to test as many as 1.4 million people per month. But Georgia’s plan has few answers to the dire problems of supplying and processing enough tests to help get the state’s spiraling epidemic under control.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Georgia to reopen makeshift hospital at World Congress Center next week
By Greg Bluestein
As the soaring number of coronavirus cases strains the state’s hospital network, Gov. Brian Kemp announced Friday health officials would fully reopen a makeshift medical facility at the Georgia World Congress Center next week. The temporary hospital at the sprawling convention center will initially house 60 beds, but can double its capacity if necessary. The state also announced it will expand a $1.2 million arrangement with Grady Memorial Hospital to coordinate care for the state’s COVID-19 patients. Kemp issued plans earlier this month to re-start the facility at the convention center, which was opened in April and shuttered a month later, to cope with rising numbers of coronavirus cases. His office said it would help hospital systems avoid canceling money-making elective surgeries crucial to their bottom lines.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Map: Coronavirus deaths and cases in Georgia (updated July 30, 3 p.m.)
An updated count of coronavirus deaths and cases reported across the state
DEATHS: 3,671 | Deaths have been confirmed in 151 counties. County is determined by the patient’s residence, when known, not by where they were treated.
CONFIRMED CASES: 182,286 | Cases have been confirmed in every county.
Higher Education News:
Inside Higher Ed
COVID-19 spread prompts many colleges to reverse plans to bring students back to their physical campuses.
By Lilah Burke
Late this spring, colleges and universities issued a wave of announcements: they would be opening — er, intending to open — their campuses this fall. Plans were laid for early departures, scheduled showers, small group cohorts and a half-full campus. Plexiglas was bought and tents erected. Now, many universities are reversing their plans, announcing both online courses and closed campuses. In some cases, dominoes have been quick to fall among peer groups. For example, three private, historically Black universities in Atlanta, which has been hard hit by the virus in recent weeks, have said almost all students will be studying from home this fall. Those universities are Spelman College, Clark Atlanta College and Morehouse University. Elsewhere in the state, public universities are still planning to reopen.
Inside Higher Ed
Reopening plans in many new coronavirus hot spots were drafted before cases surged. Faculty members in those states want a do-over, in the form of an all-online fall or at least a delayed opening.
By Colleen Flaherty
With T-minus one month until fall, faculty groups in new coronavirus hot spots are asking their institutions to go all in on remote instruction. Some institutions in one-time virus hot spots are also facing challenges getting their instructors to teach in person. Perhaps nowhere is faculty anxiety greater than in Florida, which set — and broke — new state records for single-day coronavirus deaths this week. Intensive care units at hospitals there are reportedly close to capacity. . California set its own dismal record this week, too, but colleges and universities there have been much quicker to cancel in-person instruction. Florida, by contrast, has allowed state colleges and universities to come up with their own plans for fall. The individual campus plans fall along a spectrum, from mostly remote to mostly in-person courses.
Inside Higher Ed
Colleges Lease Hotel Rooms for Students
They hope to space out students’ living quarters and reduce the spread of COVID-19.
By Emma Whitford
In an effort to reduce on-campus housing density, colleges are leasing apartments and hotel rooms to house students this fall. The arrangements are an added cost for colleges when budgets are already tight, but the rooms come at no additional expense for students and will hopefully reduce coronavirus spread on campus. In Boston, Northeastern University will lease rooms at the Westin Copley Place, the Midtown Hotel and a handful of nearby apartment buildings.
Inside Higher Ed
Is College Board Inappropriately Sharing Student Data?
By Scott Jaschik
The College Board has inappropriately shared information about students with technology companies, Consumer Reports has charged. The companies are Adobe, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Snapchat, Yahoo! and AdMedia. After Consumer Reports contacted the College Board, it made some tweaks to the way it handles student data, but even then some of the information made its way to some companies. Consumer Reports created three imaginary students and then tracked information from the College Board to the companies. Zachary Goldeberg, a spokesman for the College Board, said, “Like other not-for-profit organizations, we use certain third-party platforms to share information with students, such as: scholarship opportunities; free, personalized SAT practice; and registration information for College Board exams. We only share information this way to send messages to students who have created personal, online accounts on our website, CollegeBoard.org. The data we share with third party platforms is encrypted and hashed, and is used by those platforms to deliver our messages to our users. We are not paid by any of those platforms. Students can always manage privacy settings within platforms and apps, including what happens once they get to any platform.