University System News:
The Brunswick News
College to participate in Ethics Awareness Week
By Lauren McDonald
College of Coastal Georgia plans to participate this week in the University System of Georgia’s Ethics Awareness Week. USG will highlight from today through Sunday its commitment to the highest ethical and professional standards of conduct and remind the system’s community of its ethical culture. CCGA will host activities throughout the week to promote the shared core values of integrity, excellence, accountability and respect. The college’s theme for the week is “Celebrating our Ethical Culture.”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
AJC On Campus: Biden’s plan for colleges
By Eric Stirgus
President-elect Joe Biden discussed ideas during the campaign that focused on making higher education more affordable for lower income families and investing more money in community colleges and schools created to serve non-white students. His approach to higher education would be a significant change from the Trump administration’s approach to higher education. For example, Trump attempted to terminate legal protections for nearly 700,000 young immigrants, better known as Dreamers, who were brought here by their parents as children. Biden posted a tweet on Election Day that “Dreamers are Americans — and it’s time we make it official.” …Here are 10 proposals that Biden has made concerning higher education: Make public colleges and universities tuition-free for students for families with annual incomes below $125,000. The median household income in Georgia is $55,679, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. Double the maximum Pell grant. About 108,000 University System of Georgia students — approximately 40% of its undergraduate students — received Pell grants last year. Pell grants are awarded to students whose annual household incomes are typically less than $60,000. …Boost funding for agricultural research at land-grant universities. The University of Georgia and Fort Valley State University are among the land-grant universities in Georgia. …Finding ways to make it easier for students to earn associate degrees while still in high school. Georgia lawmakers approved changes earlier this year that reduced how many college courses high school students can take, citing rapidly rising operating costs.
Growing America
UGA Poultry Science Creates High School Curriculum and Transfer Pathway With UNG
By: UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences
Students interested in careers in the poultry industry will now have access to more poultry science-based resources and a new path to pursue an undergraduate degree through a transfer agreement between the University of Georgia and the University of North Georgia. The opportunities for good-paying jobs in poultry and related industries are plentiful, with graduates receiving between one and five job offers, according to Todd Applegate, head of the UGA Department of Poultry Science in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.
WGAU
UGA Law School named “best value”
94% of UGA law graduates pass bar within one year of graduation
By Heidi Murphy
The University of Georgia School of Law has been named the country’s best value law school for the third consecutive year – the first law school in history to achieve this honor. The rankings, compiled by National Jurist, examine outcome-driven metrics such as bar passage and employment rates in addition to average indebtedness, tuition and cost of living.
The Times-Georgian
UWG alumnus creates non-profit to foster success among students
By Taylor King
It all started with a catchy Instagram handle and a young man from inner-city Atlanta who went West to see his dreams through. Now, through his non-profit organization, The Young Executives Foundation, Keith Crawford ’17 is using the knowledge instilled in him at the University of West Georgia to make a difference in the lives of others. Although he wasn’t sure UWG was right for him when he was deciding which avenue of higher education to take, Crawford certainly has no regrets. In fact, his love for community service and networking all started at the university.
Coosa Valley News
GOVERNOR’S CHALLENGE AWARDS HONORS ROME AND CALHOUN LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCIES
Posted by Staff Reports
The Governor’s Office of Highway Safety today honored 26 different Georgia law enforcement agencies for their year-round work to save lives and reduce traffic crashes on our roads during the 21st annual Governor’s Challenge Awards held at the Macon Centreplex.
Category 9: Campus and University Police
Georgia Southern Police Department 1st Place
University of West Georgia Police Department 2nd Place
SPECIAL CATEGORY AWARDS
Georgia Southern University Police Department Bike/Pedestrian Safety
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
OPINION: Should we use 2020 moral compass to reset view of historic figures?
Get Schooled with Maureen Downey
In the years after the Civil War, orator and newspaper editor Henry V. Grady traveled the country to buoy a devastated South and promote Atlanta as its economic engine through speeches and editorials, writing, “The new South is enamored of her new work. Her soul is stirred with the breath of a new life.” He enticed Northern investors to the state and helped establish Georgia Tech. Those accomplishments — achieved before the peripatetic Grady died of pneumonia at 39 in 1889 — explain why Atlanta Public Schools named a high school for him 73 years ago. Now, that honor is about to be rescinded after fresh attention to Grady’s racial views, as revealed in his speeches, including one at the Texas State Fair a few months before he died where he said, “The supremacy of the white race of the South must be maintained forever, and the domination of the Negro race resisted at all points and at all hazards — because the white race is the superior race.” … In the meantime, older graduates are expressing disappointment the school, long acclaimed for its academics, debate team and student publications, will lose the Grady name, which is shared by a South Georgia county, the state’s largest public hospital and the nationally recognized communications program at the University of Georgia. (The Grady name is also under fire at UGA, where some alums and students want to rename the J-school for its first Black graduate, Charlayne Hunter-Gault.)
Savannah Morning News
Winter sparks worries of new COVID-19 wave in state
By Beau Evans Capitol Beat News Service
Nearly eight months into the COVID-19 pandemic, Georgia officials and public-health experts are eying the upcoming winter season with caution amid a recent uptick in positive coronavirus cases and the dual impacts of the flu. … Georgia’s recent increases mirror a spiking trend of new COVID-19 cases across the U.S. that soared to more than 113,000 nationwide on Thursday – though Georgia’s case rates have not risen so steeply as in many other states, said Jose Cordero, an epidemiology professor at the University of Georgia (UGA). …Georgia might even experience back-to-back waves of increasing COVID-19 infections if people abandon masks, social distancing and other safety precautions during the holiday season, said Isaac Fung, an associate professor of epidemiology at Georgia Southern University’s Jiann-Ping Hsu College of Public Health. With cold temperatures not yet present in Georgia, Fung traced the current creep in positive cases largely to people who have disregarded safety measures as the pandemic rolls on without a vaccine likely available until next year.
Other News:
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
BREAKING: Pfizer says early data signals COVID-19 vaccine is effective
By The Associated Press
Pfizer says an early peek at its vaccine data suggests the shots may be 90% effective at preventing COVID-19, indicating the company is on track later this month to file an emergency-use application with U.S. regulators. Monday’s announcement doesn’t mean a vaccine is imminent: This interim analysis, from an independent data monitoring board, looked at 94 infections recorded so far in a study that has enrolled nearly 44,000 people in the U.S. and five other countries.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Map: Coronavirus deaths and cases in Georgia (updated Nov. 8)
An updated count of coronavirus deaths and cases reported across the state
DEATHS: 8,194 | Deaths have been confirmed in all counties but one (Taliaferro). County is determined by the patient’s residence, when known, not by where they were treated.
CONFIRMED CASES: 373,078 | Cases have been confirmed in every county.
Higher Education News:
The Chronicle of Higher Education
Joe Biden Won. Here’s What Higher Ed Can Expect.
Tuition-free college, student-debt relief, and the reversal of several Trump policies are high on the agenda.
By Michael Vasquez
Joseph R. Biden Jr. crossed the 270 electoral-vote threshold on Saturday and, barring a successful legal challenge, he will be sworn in January 20 as the 46th president of the United States. In sharp contrast to President Trump, whose administration spent much of the past four years actively attacking higher education, Biden — whose wife, Jill, is a longtime community-college educator — has signaled his support for the sector. His extensive Plan for Education Beyond High School promises to “strengthen college as a reliable pathway to the middle class.” Before expanding Americans’ access to higher ed, however, Biden must first rescue a system beset by pandemic-induced crises that threaten to consume it. Deep financial problems stemming from enrollment drops and increased instructional expenses have forced thousands of layoffs and left an unknown number of colleges teetering on the brink of failure. Biden has called for a sevenfold increase in coronavirus testing — a plan that would provide vital health information to colleges eager to return students and professors to classrooms.
Diverse Issues in Higher Education
National Convening Focuses on Historically-Underserved Students
by Walter Hudson
More than 50 delegates from across the nation gathered virtually this week to strategize and brainstorm ways that colleges and universities can better serve historically-underserved students. Privileging the voices of students, this year’s National Institutes for Historically-Underserved Students focused on a variety of topics that impact college-going students, including systemic racism, the economy and, of course, COVID-19.
Inside Higher Ed
Experts differ in their explanations as higher education prepares for new attacks on affirmative action.
By Scott Jaschik
On Election Day, 64.7 percent of Californians backed Joe Biden (according to not-yet-final state figures). He won 8.9 million votes, 4.3 million more votes than President Trump. California is an extremely diverse state: 39 percent of state residents are Latinx, 37 percent are white, 15 percent are Asian American and 6 percent are African American, according to the 2018 American Community Survey. Those same voters had the chance to approve Proposition 16, which would have restored the right — taken away by a vote, in a less diverse California, in 1996 — of public universities to use affirmative action. The vote was 56.5 percent against Prop 16. All of which raises the question: Why in a diverse, politically liberal state did people vote against affirmative action? Supporters of the status quo — or no affirmative action — were quick to say that the vote proves that the current system is working well.