University System News:

Daily Citizen

DSC makes Business Insider list of colleges with the best return on investment

Students receiving a degree from Dalton State College are making a sound investment, according to Business Insider. The national publication recently released a list of top colleges in the nation with the best return on investment. Dalton State ranked 23 in a tie with the University of Houston. The colleges were ranked using data from the U.S. Department of Education comparing total cost to the median 10-year salary of graduates. Dalton State, one of 26 institutions in the University System of Georgia (USG), joins other USG schools on the list. Georgia Tech is ranked 21 while Augusta University ranked 15.

Griffin Daily News

Professor: Economic impact of virus to continue

By Tim Daly Managing Editor

The coronavirus pandemic has already had a major impact on the economy, but many other significant changes will occur in the future, a University of West Georgia professor said. William J. “Joey” Smith, an associate professor of economics at the Carrollton-based university, said the pandemic has affected all areas of commerce and government, and more change is on the way.

WSB

Athens’ COVID death count increases, UGA Foundation allocates funding for coronavirus fight

$500,000 from Foundation

By Tim Bryant

Athens has recorded another death from coronavirus: the latest report from the state Department of Public Health says 31 people in Clarke County have died since the outbreak of the pandemic. The Georgia Department of Public Health says the state added another 75 deaths from coronavirus Thursday, bringing the six-month total to almost 5,900.

From Loran Posey, UGA Today…

After unanimous approval by the University of Georgia Foundation’s executive and finance committees, the Board of Trustees will allocate $500,000 in discretionary funds to assist UGA President Jere W. Morehead with addressing ongoing challenges caused by the pandemic. UGA Foundation Chairman John H. Crawford IV issued a statement in support of UGA’s commitment to return to campus for the fall semester and the institution’s continuing efforts to meet student needs.

WTOC

Georgia Southern student athletes lead peaceful march against social injustice, racism

Georgia Southern University students plan peaceful march

By Jake Wallace and Dal Cannady

Thursday evening, student athletes from Georgia Southern marched to call attention to national issues like social justice and racial equality. Many of the players have already been a part of local marches and demonstrations. They’re following the incidents we’ve seen around the country. But for Georgia Southern football players, all they have to do is look in their own huddle. Several players joined in a march back in June in downtown Statesboro. Even then, they referred back to an incident where Eagles quarterback Shai Werts was wrongfully arrested while driving through a small town in South Carolina. He was charged with drug possession, but completely cleared a short time later.

WJBF

An established therapy is now being used to treat critically ill COVID-19 patients at AUMC

by: Kim Vickers

Front line workers are using every tool in their arsenal to battle COVID-19. Two respiratory therapists at Augusta University Medical center took the initiative to get certified on the ECMO machine, which acts as an iron lung or heart. They say it’s a game changer for Covid patients. Dr. Vijay Patel is an Associate Professor of Surgery at Augusta University. “So the ECMO machine is a machine that can help support the lungs and the heart, particularly in the advanced stages of failure, where there is a good chance that the patients lungs and or heart could recover,” said Patel. An ECMO machine or Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation machine, is used for patients who are critically ill with heart or lung injuries. It helps to take stress off those organs while a patient recovers. This is not a new therapy, but it is only now being used to treat COVID patients.

Morning Ag Clips

Georgia 4-H launches virtual series for the fall

The series is a space-themed collection of statewide activities

As students return to school in a variety of formats, Georgia 4-H will be continuing virtual programs with the “Blast Off with Georgia 4-H” series into the fall. This will be a continuation of “Set Sail with Georgia 4-H,” a collection of online lessons offered around the state during the summer. “Blast Off with Georgia 4-H” will provide youth with entertaining and educational lessons and adventures. The activities cover a variety of topics including agriculture, STEM, leadership and healthy living. These virtual programs are offered in a variety of formats, such as livestream sessions, video series and solo activities. The series is updated weekly with new offerings that are managed by local University of Georgia Cooperative Extension agents.

Growing America

82% of Farmers Have Lost Revenue Because of COVID-19

By: Georgia Farm Bureau

As a result of COVID-19, 82% of Georgia farmers lost revenue, according to an impact survey conducted by the UGA Center for Agribusiness & Economic Development (CAED). Some of the state’s leading agricultural organizations, including Georgia Farm Bureau (GFB), the Georgia Foundation for Agriculture (GFA) and the Georgia Grown program supported the survey by publicizing it and collecting responses. A total of 862 farmers statewide responded to the survey, which was held May 1-21. It is important to note that COVID-19 statistics, policies and circumstances continue to evolve, and a follow-up survey is planned to gauge those changes.

WABE

Federal Government Promises Investigation, Outreach To Struggling Southeastern Produce Industry

Emma Hurt

The Trump administration laid out its plan this week to address the complaints of the Southeastern produce industry, including the pleas of many farmers in Georgia. These fruit and vegetable growers have warned their industries are doomed if the status quo of cheaper Mexican imports goes unchecked. They did not receive relief in the USMCA trade agreement, and the government promised instead to find them an alternative plan. The U.S. Trade Representative is asking the International Trade Commission to investigate the effects of blueberry imports specifically on the domestic industry and said it will conduct “senior-level government-to-government discussions” with Mexico within 90 days about the industry’s concerns. …Russ Cogdell, a blueberry farmer in Cogdell, Georgia, who had testified before the government about the problem last month, said he’s “encouraged.” …A 2019 University of Georgia report projected that Clinch County, where Cogdell lives, would see a more than 40% drop in annual income without a change to the current trade dynamic, which researchers described as “economic damage on the scale of the Great Depression.” The Departments of Agriculture and Commerce pledged to establish and increase “outreach” to the produce industry to find ways to help the growers.

Other News:

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Wary of new virus surge, Kemp warns Georgians not to ’let their guard down’

By Greg Bluestein

‘Our state’s health and well-being rest on what Georgians choose to do over this Labor Day weekend.’

Wary of another post-holiday spike in coronavirus cases, Gov. Brian Kemp embarked on a statewide flyaround tour Friday urging Georgians to take safety precautions to stem the spread of the disease over the Labor Day weekend. The governor warned that recent gains against in the fight against the disease, including a sharp drop in new coronavirus cases and the hospitalization rate, will be reversed if “people forget that we are battling an invisible enemy and, unfortunately, some let their guard down.” “This progress can be erased very quickly if we grow complacent and ignore the guidance and public safety measures that we have in place,” he said. “Our state’s health and well-being rest on what Georgians choose to do over this Labor Day weekend.”

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Georgia government plans for COVID vaccine rollout by Nov. 1

By Johnny Edwards

Health experts suspect political meddling, fear disaster if vaccine is unproven

A task force set up by Gov. Brian Kemp will push to meet the CDC’s deadline for having COVID-19 vaccine doses ready to distribute in time for the November election. But the directive, issued to governors last week by CDC Director Robert Redfield, has sparked outrage from the scientific community, which doubts a valid vaccine can be ready that quickly and worries that political motives influenced the agency. “What scares me to death is the thought that we would use our distribution system to distribute something that is neither safe nor effective,” said Mark Rosenberg, who spent 20 years working for the CDC and 16 years as president and CEO of the Task Force for Global Health.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Map: Coronavirus deaths and cases in Georgia (updated Sept. 3, 3 p.m.)

An updated count of coronavirus deaths and cases reported across the state

DEATHS: 5,868 | Deaths have been confirmed all counties but one (Taliaferro). County is determined by the patient’s residence, when known, not by where they were treated.

CONFIRMED CASES: 277,288 | Cases have been confirmed in every county.

Inside Higher Ed

Fauci Urges Colleges Not to Send Students Home

By Kery Murakami

As some colleges close residence halls and send students back home to communities, Dr. Anthony Fauci is expressing concern about inadvertently spreading the virus. “It’s the worst thing you could do,” Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said Wednesday on NBC’s Today show. “When you send them home, particularly when you’re dealing with a university where people come from multiple different locations, you could be seeding the different places with infection.” Fauci is the second high-ranking public health official to urge colleges not to send students, who could be infected but asymptomatic, back into communities. As reported by The Daily Beast, Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House’s coronavirus response coordinator, told governors in a call Monday to urge college presidents to keep students on or near campus.

Higher Education News:

The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education

New Report Shows How HBCUs Can Achieve Greater Student Success

New research from the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta identifies ways historically Black colleges and universities might improve student performance measures —such as graduation rates and graduates’ incomes — relative to predominantly White institutions. A key element of the study is that it adds important context by considering the circumstances under which HBCU students arrive on campus, and how those circumstances contribute to the challenges the schools face.

Forbes

Your Future Workforce Is Ready And Waiting

Caroline ParkinsonBrand Contributor

For Gen Z, culture conquers all. Here’s how to create a workplace that attracts top young talent.

Things were going pretty well for Gen Z. I know because I’m one of them.  The economy was humming along, unemployment was low, and we were on track to be the most educated generation to date. Then COVID hit. Coupled with political and societal unrest, this experience is arguably the most devastating shock of our young lives. That’s the bad news. The good news is that we are particularly suited to adapt to a global pandemic and a rapidly changing social landscape. We’re digitally native, incredibly diverse, socially conscious, and well-prepared to start our careers remotely.  We also now represent at least 24% of the global workforce. And as the pandemic recedes and the economy recovers, we’ll be ready to bring our unique worldviews to the workplace.

The Chronicle of Higher Education

How Has the Pandemic Affected Graduate Students? This Study Has Answers

By Megan Zahneis and Audrey Williams June

The pandemic has posed a unique set of challenges for graduate students, who find themselves navigating a new educational environment as both students and instructors. Now, a new study quantifies just what those challenges are. Funded by the National Science Foundation, the study asked more than 4,000 graduate students at 11 institutions — including one historically Black college and two Hispanic-serving institutions — across the country about their experiences with the pandemic. That large sample size makes it one of the most comprehensive surveys of graduate-student experiences of Covid-19 to date. The team of eight researchers at four institutions (none of which was in the survey) provided a preliminary report of their findings to The Chronicle. (They said they planned to expand the report and submit it for peer review.)

The Chronicle of Higher Education

How Covid-19 Exposed the Cracks in a Public-Private Housing Deal

By Scott Carlson

Julia Depuy loved staying in Paca House during her freshman year at Towson University. So when it came time for her to decide on a place to live as a sophomore, her family signed a lease in February to put her back in that building — in the very same room, in fact. Then the pandemic hit, and she was sent home with a refund for the rest of the spring semester. In July, even though the Maryland campus still planned to reopen for the fall, she knew that all of her classes would be online, so she and her family sought to cancel the lease. The university doesn’t own Paca House, so the Depuys approached Capstone On Campus Management, a private company that runs Paca and other college housing, which denied their request. As they called around, they learned that a quasi-public economic-development corporation, not Capstone or the university, actually controlled the Paca leases, with extensive obligations to bondholders. “You disagree with something, you just start moving up the food chain to different decision-makers,” said Scott Depuy, Julia’s father. “And we learned at that point that this same thing was going on at all the public universities in Maryland.” …So far, the Maryland Economic Development Corporation, or Medco, which secured the bonds for the project and owns the building, has not conceded. The corporation — which is a private state instrumentality, founded by the state legislature — won’t forgive a lease unless the tenant can find another occupant, a difficult prospect in the current environment. Robert C. Brennan, Medco’s executive director, said it is committed to meeting its obligations to bondholders.